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A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, passed away, and Fanny was still thinking of Edmund, Miss Crawford, and herself, without interruption from any one. She began to be surprised at being left so long, and to listen with an anxious desire of hearing their steps and their voices again. She listened, and at length she heard; she heard voices and feet approaching; but she had just satisfied herself that it was not those she wanted, when Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth, and Mr. Crawford issued from the same path which she had trod herself, and were before her. "Miss Price all alone" and "My dear Fanny, how comes this?" were the first salutations. She told her story. "Poor dear Fanny," cried her cousin, "how ill you have been used by them! You had better have staid with us." Then seating herself with a gentleman on each side, she resumed the conversation which had engaged them before, and discussed the possibility of improvements with much animation. Nothing was fixed on; but Henry Crawford was full of ideas and projects, and, generally speaking, whatever he proposed was immediately approved, first by her, and then by Mr. Rushworth, whose principal business seemed to be to hear the others, and who scarcely risked an original thought of his own beyond a wish that they had seen his friend Smith's place. After some minutes spent in this way, Miss Bertram, observing the iron gate, expressed a wish of passing through it into the park, that their views and their plans might be more comprehensive. It was the very thing of all others to be wished, it was the best, it was the only way of proceeding with any advantage, in Henry Crawford's opinion; and he directly saw a knoll not half a mile off, which would give them exactly the requisite command of the house. Go therefore they must to that knoll, and through that gate; but the gate was locked. Mr. Rushworth wished he had brought the key; he had been very near thinking whether he should not bring the key; he was determined he would never come without the key again; but still this did not remove the present evil. They could not get through; and as Miss Bertram's inclination for so doing did by no means lessen, it ended in Mr. Rushworth's declaring outright that he would go and fetch the key. He set off accordingly. "It is undoubtedly the best thing we can do now, as we are so far from the house already," said Mr. Crawford, when he was gone. "Yes, there is nothing else to be done. But now, sincerely, do not you find the place altogether worse than you expected?" "No, indeed, far otherwise. I find it better, grander, more complete in its style, though that style may not be the best. And to tell you the truth," speaking rather lower, "I do not think that _I_ shall ever see Sotherton again with so much pleasure as I do now. Another summer will hardly improve it to me." After a moment's embarrassment the lady replied, "You are too much a man of the world not to see with the eyes of the world. If other people think Sotherton improved, I have no doubt that you will." "I am afraid I am not quite so much the man of the world as might be good for me in some points. My feelings are not quite so evanescent, nor my memory of the past under such easy dominion as one finds to be the case with men of the world." This was followed by a short silence. Miss Bertram began again. "You seemed to enjoy your drive here very much this morning. I was glad to see you so well entertained. You and Julia were laughing the whole way." "Were we? Yes, I believe we were; but I have not the least recollection at what. Oh! I believe I was relating to her some ridiculous stories of an old Irish groom of my uncle's. Your sister loves to laugh." "You think her more light-hearted than I am?" "More easily amused," he replied; "consequently, you know," smiling, "better company. I could not have hoped to entertain you with Irish anecdotes during a ten miles' drive." "Naturally, I believe, I am as lively as Julia, but I have more to think of now." "You have, undoubtedly; and there are situations in which very high spirits would denote insensibility. Your prospects, however, are too fair to justify want of spirits. You have a very smiling scene before you." "Do you mean literally or figuratively? Literally, I conclude. Yes, certainly, the sun shines, and the park looks very cheerful. But unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. 'I cannot get out,' as the starling said." As she spoke, and it was with expression, she walked to the gate: he followed her. "Mr. Rushworth is so long fetching this key!" "And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited." "Prohibited! nonsense! I certainly can get out that way, and I will. Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment, you know; we shall not be out of sight." "Or if we are, Miss Price will be so good as to tell him that he will find us near that knoll: the grove of oak on the knoll." Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to prevent it. "You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried; "you will certainly hurt yourself against those spikes; you will tear your gown; you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha. You had better not go." Her cousin was safe on the other side while these words were spoken, and, smiling with all the good-humour of success, she said, "Thank you, my dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye." Fanny was again left to her solitude, and with no increase of pleasant feelings, for she was sorry for almost all that she had seen and heard, astonished at Miss Bertram, and angry with Mr. Crawford. By taking a circuitous, and, as it appeared to her, very unreasonable direction to the knoll, they were soon beyond her eye; and for some minutes longer she remained without sight or sound of any companion. She seemed to have the little wood all to herself. She could almost have thought that Edmund and Miss Crawford had left it, but that it was impossible for Edmund to forget her so entirely. She was again roused from disagreeable musings by sudden footsteps: somebody was coming at a quick pace down the principal walk. She expected Mr. Rushworth, but it was Julia, who, hot and out of breath, and with a look of disappointment, cried out on seeing her, "Heyday! Where are the others? I thought Maria and Mr. Crawford were with you." Fanny explained. "A pretty trick, upon my word! I cannot see them anywhere," looking eagerly into the park. "But they cannot be very far off, and I think I am equal to as much as Maria, even without help." "But, Julia, Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment with the key. Do wait for Mr. Rushworth." "Not I, indeed. I have had enough of the family for one morning. Why, child, I have but this moment escaped from his horrible mother. Such a penance as I have been enduring, while you were sitting here so composed and so happy! It might have been as well, perhaps, if you had been in my place, but you always contrive to keep out of these scrapes." This was a most unjust reflection, but Fanny could allow for it, and let it pass: Julia was vexed, and her temper was hasty; but she felt that it would not last, and therefore, taking no notice, only asked her if she had not seen Mr. Rushworth. "Yes, yes, we saw him. He was posting away as if upon life and death, and could but just spare time to tell us his errand, and where you all were." "It is a pity he should have so much trouble for nothing." "_That_ is Miss Maria's concern. I am not obliged to punish myself for _her_ sins. The mother I could not avoid, as long as my tiresome aunt was dancing about with the housekeeper, but the son I _can_ get away from." And she immediately scrambled across the fence, and walked away, not attending to Fanny's last question of whether she had seen anything of Miss Crawford and Edmund. The sort of dread in which Fanny now sat of seeing Mr. Rushworth prevented her thinking so much of their continued absence, however, as she might have done. She felt that he had been very ill-used, and was quite unhappy in having to communicate what had passed. He joined her within five minutes after Julia's exit; and though she made the best of the story, he was evidently mortified and displeased in no common degree. At first he scarcely said anything; his looks only expressed his extreme surprise and vexation, and he walked to the gate and stood there, without seeming to know what to do. "They desired me to stay-my cousin Maria charged me to say that you would find them at that knoll, or thereabouts." "I do not believe I shall go any farther," said he sullenly; "I see nothing of them. By the time I get to the knoll they may be gone somewhere else. I have had walking enough." And he sat down with a most gloomy countenance by Fanny. "I am very sorry," said she; "it is very unlucky." And she longed to be able to say something more to the purpose. After an interval of silence, "I think they might as well have staid for me," said he. "Miss Bertram thought you would follow her." "I should not have had to follow her if she had staid." This could not be denied, and Fanny was silenced. After another pause, he went on-"Pray, Miss Price, are you such a great admirer of this Mr. Crawford as some people are? For my part, I can see nothing in him." "I do not think him at all handsome." "Handsome! Nobody can call such an undersized man handsome. He is not five foot nine. I should not wonder if he is not more than five foot eight. I think he is an ill-looking fellow. In my opinion, these Crawfords are no addition at all. We did very well without them." A small sigh escaped Fanny here, and she did not know how to contradict him. "If I had made any difficulty about fetching the key, there might have been some excuse, but I went the very moment she said she wanted it." "Nothing could be more obliging than your manner, I am sure, and I dare say you walked as fast as you could; but still it is some distance, you know, from this spot to the house, quite into the house; and when people are waiting, they are bad judges of time, and every half minute seems like five." He got up and walked to the gate again, and "wished he had had the key about him at the time." Fanny thought she discerned in his standing there an indication of relenting, which encouraged her to another attempt, and she said, therefore, "It is a pity you should not join them. They expected to have a better view of the house from that part of the park, and will be thinking how it may be improved; and nothing of that sort, you know, can be settled without you." She found herself more successful in sending away than in retaining a companion. Mr. Rushworth was worked on. "Well," said he, "if you really think I had better go: it would be foolish to bring the key for nothing." And letting himself out, he walked off without farther ceremony. Fanny's thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings brought them before her. They were just returned into the wilderness from the park, to which a sidegate, not fastened, had tempted them very soon after their leaving her, and they had been across a portion of the park into the very avenue which Fanny had been hoping the whole morning to reach at last, and had been sitting down under one of the trees. This was their history. It was evident that they had been spending their time pleasantly, and were not aware of the length of their absence. Fanny's best consolation was in being assured that Edmund had wished for her very much, and that he should certainly have come back for her, had she not been tired already; but this was not quite sufficient to do away with the pain of having been left a whole hour, when he had talked of only a few minutes, nor to banish the sort of curiosity she felt to know what they had been conversing about all that time; and the result of the whole was to her disappointment and depression, as they prepared by general agreement to return to the house. On reaching the bottom of the steps to the terrace, Mrs. Rushworth and Mrs. Norris presented themselves at the top, just ready for the wilderness, at the end of an hour and a half from their leaving the house. Mrs. Norris had been too well employed to move faster. Whatever cross-accidents had occurred to intercept the pleasures of her nieces, she had found a morning of complete enjoyment; for the housekeeper, after a great many courtesies on the subject of pheasants, had taken her to the dairy, told her all about their cows, and given her the receipt for a famous cream cheese; and since Julia's leaving them they had been met by the gardener, with whom she had made a most satisfactory acquaintance, for she had set him right as to his grandson's illness, convinced him that it was an ague, and promised him a charm for it; and he, in return, had shewn her all his choicest nursery of plants, and actually presented her with a very curious specimen of heath. On this _rencontre_ they all returned to the house together, there to lounge away the time as they could with sofas, and chit-chat, and Quarterly Reviews, till the return of the others, and the arrival of dinner. It was late before the Miss Bertrams and the two gentlemen came in, and their ramble did not appear to have been more than partially agreeable, or at all productive of anything useful with regard to the object of the day. By their own accounts they had been all walking after each other, and the junction which had taken place at last seemed, to Fanny's observation, to have been as much too late for re-establishing harmony, as it confessedly had been for determining on any alteration. She felt, as she looked at Julia and Mr. Rushworth, that hers was not the only dissatisfied bosom amongst them: there was gloom on the face of each. Mr. Crawford and Miss Bertram were much more gay, and she thought that he was taking particular pains, during dinner, to do away any little resentment of the other two, and restore general good-humour. Dinner was soon followed by tea and coffee, a ten miles' drive home allowed no waste of hours; and from the time of their sitting down to table, it was a quick succession of busy nothings till the carriage came to the door, and Mrs. Norris, having fidgeted about, and obtained a few pheasants' eggs and a cream cheese from the housekeeper, and made abundance of civil speeches to Mrs. Rushworth, was ready to lead the way. At the same moment Mr. Crawford, approaching Julia, said, "I hope I am not to lose my companion, unless she is afraid of the evening air in so exposed a seat." The request had not been foreseen, but was very graciously received, and Julia's day was likely to end almost as well as it began. Miss Bertram had made up her mind to something different, and was a little disappointed; but her conviction of being really the one preferred comforted her under it, and enabled her to receive Mr. Rushworth's parting attentions as she ought. He was certainly better pleased to hand her into the barouche than to assist her in ascending the box, and his complacency seemed confirmed by the arrangement. "Well, Fanny, this has been a fine day for you, upon my word," said Mrs. Norris, as they drove through the park. "Nothing but pleasure from beginning to end! I am sure you ought to be very much obliged to your aunt Bertram and me for contriving to let you go. A pretty good day's amusement you have had!" Maria was just discontented enough to say directly, "I think _you_ have done pretty well yourself, ma'am. Your lap seems full of good things, and here is a basket of something between us which has been knocking my elbow unmercifully." "My dear, it is only a beautiful little heath, which that nice old gardener would make me take; but if it is in your way, I will have it in my lap directly. There, Fanny, you shall carry that parcel for me; take great care of it: do not let it fall; it is a cream cheese, just like the excellent one we had at dinner. Nothing would satisfy that good old Mrs. Whitaker, but my taking one of the cheeses. I stood out as long as I could, till the tears almost came into her eyes, and I knew it was just the sort that my sister would be delighted with. That Mrs. Whitaker is a treasure! She was quite shocked when I asked her whether wine was allowed at the second table, and she has turned away two housemaids for wearing white gowns. Take care of the cheese, Fanny. Now I can manage the other parcel and the basket very well." "What else have you been spunging?" said Maria, half-pleased that Sotherton should be so complimented. "Spunging, my dear! It is nothing but four of those beautiful pheasants' eggs, which Mrs. Whitaker would quite force upon me: she would not take a denial. She said it must be such an amusement to me, as she understood I lived quite alone, to have a few living creatures of that sort; and so to be sure it will. I shall get the dairymaid to set them under the first spare hen, and if they come to good I can have them moved to my own house and borrow a coop; and it will be a great delight to me in my lonely hours to attend to them. And if I have good luck, your mother shall have some." It was a beautiful evening, mild and still, and the drive was as pleasant as the serenity of Nature could make it; but when Mrs. Norris ceased speaking, it was altogether a silent drive to those within. Their spirits were in general exhausted; and to determine whether the day had afforded most pleasure or pain, might occupy the meditations of almost all.

Twenty minutes passed, and Fanny began to be surprised at being left so long, and to listen anxiously for their steps and voices. At length she heard voices approaching; but it was not those she wanted. Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth, and Mr. Crawford were before her. "My dear Fanny, how comes this?" She told her story. "Poor dear Fanny," cried Maria, "how ill you have been used! You had better have stayed with us." Seating herself with a gentleman on each side, Maria resumed their conversation, discussing the possible improvements with much animation. Nothing was fixed on; but Henry Crawford was full of ideas, and whatever he proposed was immediately approved, first by her, and then by Mr. Rushworth, who scarcely risked an original thought of his own. After some minutes, Miss Bertram, observing the iron gate, expressed a wish of passing through it into the park, that their views and plans might be more comprehensive. It was the best way of proceeding, in Henry Crawford's opinion; and he saw a knoll not half a mile off, which would give them a view of the house. Go therefore they must to that knoll; but the gate was locked. Mr. Rushworth wished he had brought the key; he had been very near to bringing the key; he was determined he would never come without the key again; but this did not remove the present evil. They could not get through; and it ended in Mr. Rushworth's declaring that he would go and fetch the key. He set off accordingly. When he was gone, Maria addressed Mr Crawford. "Sincerely, do not you find the place worse than you expected?" "No, indeed. I find it grander, more complete in its style, though that style may not be the best. And to tell you the truth," speaking rather lower, "I do not think that I shall ever see Sotherton again with so much pleasure as I do now. Another summer will hardly improve it to me." After a moment's embarrassment the lady replied, "You are too much a man of the world not to see with the eyes of the world. If other people think Sotherton improved, I have no doubt that you will." "I am afraid I am not so much the man of the world as might be good for me. My feelings are not quite so light as is the case with men of the world." There was a short silence. Miss Bertram began again. "You seemed to enjoy your drive here very much this morning. I was glad to see you so well entertained. You and Julia were laughing the whole way." "Were we? Yes, I believe we were; but I have not the least recollection at what. Oh! I believe I was relating to her some ridiculous stories of an old Irish groom of my uncle's. Your sister loves to laugh." "You think her more light-hearted than I am?" "More easily amused," he replied, smiling. "I could not have hoped to entertain you with Irish anecdotes during a ten miles' drive." "Naturally, I believe, I am as lively as Julia, but I have more to think of now." "You have, undoubtedly. Your prospects, however, are fair. You have a very smiling scene before you." "Do you mean literally or figuratively? Literally, I conclude. Yes, certainly, the sun shines, and the park looks very cheerful. But unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. 'I cannot get out,' as the starling said." As she spoke, and it was with expression, she walked to the gate: he followed her. "Mr. Rushworth is so long fetching this key!" "And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority, or I think you might easily pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and did not think it prohibited." "Prohibited! nonsense! I certainly can get out that way, and I will. Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment; we shall not be out of sight." "Or if we are, Miss Price will tell him that he will find us on that knoll." Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to prevent it. "You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried; "you will tear your gown; you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha. You had better not go." Her cousin was safe on the other side while these words were spoken, and, smiling with the good-humour of success, she said, "Thank you, dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye." Fanny was again left alone, and with no pleasant feelings, for she was astonished at Miss Bertram, and angry with Mr. Crawford. By taking a circuitous and very unreasonable direction to the knoll, they were soon beyond her eye; and for some minutes she had the little wood all to herself. She was again roused by sudden footsteps: somebody was coming at a quick pace down the walk. She expected Mr. Rushworth, but it was Julia, who, hot and out of breath, and with a look of disappointment, cried out, "Heyday! Where are the others? I thought Maria and Mr. Crawford were with you." Fanny explained. "A pretty trick, upon my word! I cannot see them. But they cannot be far off, and I think I am equal to as much as Maria, even without help." "But, Julia, Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment with the key. Do wait for Mr. Rushworth." "Not I, indeed. I have had enough of the family for one morning. Why, I have but this moment escaped from his horrible mother. Such a penance as I have endured, while you were sitting here composed and happy! You always contrive to keep out of these scrapes." This was a most unjust reflection, but Fanny could allow for it, for Julia was vexed. She therefore only asked her if she had seen Mr. Rushworth. "Yes, he was hurrying away as if upon life and death, and could just spare time to tell us his errand." "It is a pity he should have so much trouble for nothing." "That is Miss Maria's concern. I am not obliged to punish myself for her sins. The mother I could not avoid, but the son I can get away from." And she immediately scrambled across the fence, and walked away. Fanny now sat in dread of seeing Mr. Rushworth; she felt that he had been very ill-used. He joined her five minutes after Julia's exit; and though she made the best of the story, he was evidently greatly mortified. His looks expressed his extreme surprise and vexation, and he walked to the gate and stood there, without seeming to know what to do. "My cousin Maria charged me to say that you would find them at that knoll." "I shall not go," said he sullenly; "I see nothing of them. By the time I get to the knoll they may be somewhere else. I have had walking enough." And he sat down gloomily by Fanny. "I am very sorry," said she. "I think they might have stayed for me," said he. "Miss Bertram thought you would follow her." "I should not have had to follow her if she had stayed." Fanny was silenced. After a pause, he went on-"Pray, Miss Price, are you such a great admirer of this Mr. Crawford as some people are? For my part, I can see nothing in him." "I do not think him at all handsome." "Handsome! Nobody can call such an undersized man handsome. He is not more than five foot eight. In my opinion, these Crawfords are no addition at all. We did very well without them." A small sigh escaped Fanny here. "If I had made any difficulty about fetching the key, there might have been some excuse, but I went the very moment she said she wanted it." "Nothing could be more obliging, I am sure, and I dare say you walked as fast as you could; but still it is some distance, you know; and when people are waiting, every half minute seems like five." He got up and walked to the gate again. Fanny thought he was inclined to relent, and she said, therefore, "It is a pity you should not join them. They expected to have a better view of the house from there, and will be thinking how it may be improved; and nothing can be settled without you." "Well," said he, "if you really think I had better go: it would be foolish to bring the key for nothing." And letting himself out, he walked off. Fanny's thoughts were now engrossed by the two who had left her so long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just turned up into another, when the laugh of Miss Crawford caught her ear; a few more windings brought them before her. They were just returned from the park, and they had been into the very avenue which Fanny had been hoping the whole morning to reach, and had been sitting down under one of the trees. This was their history. It was evident that they had been spending their time pleasantly, and were not aware of the length of their absence. Fanny was assured that Edmund had wished for her very much, and that he should certainly have come back for her, had she not been tired; but this was not sufficient to ease the pain of having been left a whole hour, when he had talked of only a few minutes, nor to banish the curiosity she felt to know what they had been talking about all that time; and she felt depressed as they returned to the house. As they reached the bottom of the terrace, Mrs. Rushworth and Mrs. Norris appeared at the top, just ready for the wilderness. Mrs. Norris had been too well employed to move faster; for the housekeeper had taken her to the dairy, told her all about their cows, and given her the recipe for a famous cream cheese; and they had met the gardener, with whom she had made a most satisfactory acquaintance, for she had set him right as to his grandson's illness, and he had shown her his choicest plants, and presented her with a specimen of heath. They all returned to the house together, to lounge away the time till the return of the others, and the arrival of dinner. It was late before the Miss Bertrams and the two gentlemen came in, and their ramble did not appear to have been productive of anything useful. By their own accounts they had been all walking after each other, and the meeting which had taken place at last seemed to have been too late to re-establish harmony. There was gloom on the faces of Julia and Mr Rushworth. Mr. Crawford and Miss Bertram were much more gay, and Fanny thought that he was taking particular pains to do away any resentment of the other two, and restore good-humour. They sat down to table, and then it was a quick succession of busy nothings till the carriage came to the door. Mrs. Norris, having obtained a few pheasants' eggs and a cream cheese from the housekeeper, was ready to lead the way. Mr. Crawford, approaching Julia, said, "I hope I am not to lose my companion, unless she is afraid of the evening air in so exposed a seat." The request had not been foreseen, but was very graciously received, and Julia's day was likely to end almost as well as it began. Miss Bertram was a little disappointed; but her conviction of being really the one preferred comforted her, and she received Mr. Rushworth's parting attentions as she ought. He was certainly better pleased to hand her into the barouche than to assist her in ascending the box. "Well, Fanny, this has been a fine day for you," said Mrs. Norris, as they drove through the park. "Nothing but pleasure from beginning to end! You ought to be very much obliged to your aunt Bertram and me for contriving to let you go. A pretty good day's amusement you have had!" Maria was just discontented enough to say, "I think you have done pretty well yourself, ma'am. Your lap seems full of good things, and here is a basket of something knocking my elbow unmercifully." "My dear, it is only a beautiful little heath, which that nice old gardener would have me take. Fanny, you carry that parcel for me; take great care of it: it is a cream cheese. Nothing would satisfy that good old Mrs. Whitaker, but my taking one of the cheeses. I stood out as long as I could, till the tears almost came into her eyes. That Mrs. Whitaker is a treasure! I can manage the basket very well." "What else have you been sponging?" said Maria. "Sponging, my dear! It is nothing but four of those beautiful pheasants' eggs, which Mrs. Whitaker would quite force upon me. She said it must be such an amusement to me, as I lived quite alone, to have a few living creatures. It will be a great delight in my lonely hours to attend to them." It was a beautiful evening, and the drive was pleasant; but when Mrs. Norris ceased speaking, those within were altogether silent. Their spirits were exhausted; and to determine whether the day had afforded most pleasure or pain, might occupy the thoughts of almost all.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 10

It was, indeed, a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria. Such a victory over Edmund's discretion had been beyond their hopes, and was most delightful. There was no longer anything to disturb them in their darling project, and they congratulated each other in private on the jealous weakness to which they attributed the change, with all the glee of feelings gratified in every way. Edmund might still look grave, and say he did not like the scheme in general, and must disapprove the play in particular; their point was gained: he was to act, and he was driven to it by the force of selfish inclinations only. Edmund had descended from that moral elevation which he had maintained before, and they were both as much the better as the happier for the descent. They behaved very well, however, to _him_ on the occasion, betraying no exultation beyond the lines about the corners of the mouth, and seemed to think it as great an escape to be quit of the intrusion of Charles Maddox, as if they had been forced into admitting him against their inclination. "To have it quite in their own family circle was what they had particularly wished. A stranger among them would have been the destruction of all their comfort"; and when Edmund, pursuing that idea, gave a hint of his hope as to the limitation of the audience, they were ready, in the complaisance of the moment, to promise anything. It was all good-humour and encouragement. Mrs. Norris offered to contrive his dress, Mr. Yates assured him that Anhalt's last scene with the Baron admitted a good deal of action and emphasis, and Mr. Rushworth undertook to count his speeches. "Perhaps," said Tom, "Fanny may be more disposed to oblige us now. Perhaps you may persuade _her_." "No, she is quite determined. She certainly will not act." "Oh! very well." And not another word was said; but Fanny felt herself again in danger, and her indifference to the danger was beginning to fail her already. There were not fewer smiles at the Parsonage than at the Park on this change in Edmund; Miss Crawford looked very lovely in hers, and entered with such an instantaneous renewal of cheerfulness into the whole affair as could have but one effect on him. "He was certainly right in respecting such feelings; he was glad he had determined on it." And the morning wore away in satisfactions very sweet, if not very sound. One advantage resulted from it to Fanny: at the earnest request of Miss Crawford, Mrs. Grant had, with her usual good-humour, agreed to undertake the part for which Fanny had been wanted; and this was all that occurred to gladden _her_ heart during the day; and even this, when imparted by Edmund, brought a pang with it, for it was Miss Crawford to whom she was obliged-it was Miss Crawford whose kind exertions were to excite her gratitude, and whose merit in making them was spoken of with a glow of admiration. She was safe; but peace and safety were unconnected here. Her mind had been never farther from peace. She could not feel that she had done wrong herself, but she was disquieted in every other way. Her heart and her judgment were equally against Edmund's decision: she could not acquit his unsteadiness, and his happiness under it made her wretched. She was full of jealousy and agitation. Miss Crawford came with looks of gaiety which seemed an insult, with friendly expressions towards herself which she could hardly answer calmly. Everybody around her was gay and busy, prosperous and important; each had their object of interest, their part, their dress, their favourite scene, their friends and confederates: all were finding employment in consultations and comparisons, or diversion in the playful conceits they suggested. She alone was sad and insignificant: she had no share in anything; she might go or stay; she might be in the midst of their noise, or retreat from it to the solitude of the East room, without being seen or missed. She could almost think anything would have been preferable to this. Mrs. Grant was of consequence: _her_ good-nature had honourable mention; her taste and her time were considered; her presence was wanted; she was sought for, and attended, and praised; and Fanny was at first in some danger of envying her the character she had accepted. But reflection brought better feelings, and shewed her that Mrs. Grant was entitled to respect, which could never have belonged to _her_; and that, had she received even the greatest, she could never have been easy in joining a scheme which, considering only her uncle, she must condemn altogether. Fanny's heart was not absolutely the only saddened one amongst them, as she soon began to acknowledge to herself. Julia was a sufferer too, though not quite so blamelessly. Henry Crawford had trifled with her feelings; but she had very long allowed and even sought his attentions, with a jealousy of her sister so reasonable as ought to have been their cure; and now that the conviction of his preference for Maria had been forced on her, she submitted to it without any alarm for Maria's situation, or any endeavour at rational tranquillity for herself. She either sat in gloomy silence, wrapt in such gravity as nothing could subdue, no curiosity touch, no wit amuse; or allowing the attentions of Mr. Yates, was talking with forced gaiety to him alone, and ridiculing the acting of the others. For a day or two after the affront was given, Henry Crawford had endeavoured to do it away by the usual attack of gallantry and compliment, but he had not cared enough about it to persevere against a few repulses; and becoming soon too busy with his play to have time for more than one flirtation, he grew indifferent to the quarrel, or rather thought it a lucky occurrence, as quietly putting an end to what might ere long have raised expectations in more than Mrs. Grant. She was not pleased to see Julia excluded from the play, and sitting by disregarded; but as it was not a matter which really involved her happiness, as Henry must be the best judge of his own, and as he did assure her, with a most persuasive smile, that neither he nor Julia had ever had a serious thought of each other, she could only renew her former caution as to the elder sister, entreat him not to risk his tranquillity by too much admiration there, and then gladly take her share in anything that brought cheerfulness to the young people in general, and that did so particularly promote the pleasure of the two so dear to her. "I rather wonder Julia is not in love with Henry," was her observation to Mary. "I dare say she is," replied Mary coldly. "I imagine both sisters are." "Both! no, no, that must not be. Do not give him a hint of it. Think of Mr. Rushworth!" "You had better tell Miss Bertram to think of Mr. Rushworth. It may do _her_ some good. I often think of Mr. Rushworth's property and independence, and wish them in other hands; but I never think of him. A man might represent the county with such an estate; a man might escape a profession and represent the county." "I dare say he _will_ be in parliament soon. When Sir Thomas comes, I dare say he will be in for some borough, but there has been nobody to put him in the way of doing anything yet." "Sir Thomas is to achieve many mighty things when he comes home," said Mary, after a pause. "Do you remember Hawkins Browne's 'Address to Tobacco,' in imitation of Pope?- Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense To Templars modesty, to Parsons sense. I will parody them- Blest Knight! whose dictatorial looks dispense To Children affluence, to Rushworth sense. Will not that do, Mrs. Grant? Everything seems to depend upon Sir Thomas's return." "You will find his consequence very just and reasonable when you see him in his family, I assure you. I do not think we do so well without him. He has a fine dignified manner, which suits the head of such a house, and keeps everybody in their place. Lady Bertram seems more of a cipher now than when he is at home; and nobody else can keep Mrs. Norris in order. But, Mary, do not fancy that Maria Bertram cares for Henry. I am sure _Julia_ does not, or she would not have flirted as she did last night with Mr. Yates; and though he and Maria are very good friends, I think she likes Sotherton too well to be inconstant." "I would not give much for Mr. Rushworth's chance if Henry stept in before the articles were signed." "If you have such a suspicion, something must be done; and as soon as the play is all over, we will talk to him seriously and make him know his own mind; and if he means nothing, we will send him off, though he is Henry, for a time." Julia _did_ suffer, however, though Mrs. Grant discerned it not, and though it escaped the notice of many of her own family likewise. She had loved, she did love still, and she had all the suffering which a warm temper and a high spirit were likely to endure under the disappointment of a dear, though irrational hope, with a strong sense of ill-usage. Her heart was sore and angry, and she was capable only of angry consolations. The sister with whom she was used to be on easy terms was now become her greatest enemy: they were alienated from each other; and Julia was not superior to the hope of some distressing end to the attentions which were still carrying on there, some punishment to Maria for conduct so shameful towards herself as well as towards Mr. Rushworth. With no material fault of temper, or difference of opinion, to prevent their being very good friends while their interests were the same, the sisters, under such a trial as this, had not affection or principle enough to make them merciful or just, to give them honour or compassion. Maria felt her triumph, and pursued her purpose, careless of Julia; and Julia could never see Maria distinguished by Henry Crawford without trusting that it would create jealousy, and bring a public disturbance at last. Fanny saw and pitied much of this in Julia; but there was no outward fellowship between them. Julia made no communication, and Fanny took no liberties. They were two solitary sufferers, or connected only by Fanny's consciousness. The inattention of the two brothers and the aunt to Julia's discomposure, and their blindness to its true cause, must be imputed to the fullness of their own minds. They were totally preoccupied. Tom was engrossed by the concerns of his theatre, and saw nothing that did not immediately relate to it. Edmund, between his theatrical and his real part, between Miss Crawford's claims and his own conduct, between love and consistency, was equally unobservant; and Mrs. Norris was too busy in contriving and directing the general little matters of the company, superintending their various dresses with economical expedient, for which nobody thanked her, and saving, with delighted integrity, half a crown here and there to the absent Sir Thomas, to have leisure for watching the behaviour, or guarding the happiness of his daughters.

It was, indeed, a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria. Such a victory over Edmund had been beyond their hopes, and was most delightful. Edmund might still look grave, and say he did not like the scheme; but their point was gained: he was to act, and he was driven to it by selfish inclinations only. Edmund had descended from his moral elevation, and they were both the happier for the descent. They behaved very well to him, however, betraying no exultation beyond the lines about the corners of the mouth. When Edmund gave a hint of his hope that the audience would be limited, they were ready to promise anything. It was all good-humour and encouragement. Mrs. Norris offered to contrive his dress, and Mr. Rushworth undertook to count his speeches. "Perhaps," said Tom, "Fanny may be more disposed to oblige us now. Perhaps you may persuade her." "No, she is quite determined. She will not act." "Oh! very well." Not another word was said; but Fanny felt herself again in danger, and her indifference to the danger was beginning to fail her already. Miss Crawford entered into the affair with such renewed cheerfulness as could have but one effect on Edmund. "He was certainly right in respecting her feelings; he was glad he had determined on it." And the morning wore away in satisfactions very sweet, if not very sound. One advantage resulted to Fanny: at Miss Crawford's request, Mrs. Grant agreed to take the part for which Fanny had been wanted. Even this brought a pang, for it was Miss Crawford to whom she was obliged. She was safe; but peace and safety were unconnected here. Her mind had been never farther from peace. She could not feel that she had done wrong, but she was disquieted in every other way. Her heart and her judgment were equally against Edmund's decision: she could not acquit his unsteadiness, and his happiness made her wretched. She was full of jealousy and agitation. Miss Crawford's looks of gaiety seemed an insult, and she could hardly answer her friendly expressions calmly. Everybody around her was busy and important; each had their part, their dress, their favourite scene, their friends: all were finding employment. She alone was sad and insignificant: she had no share in anything; she might go or stay without being seen or missed. She could almost think anything would have been preferable to this. Mrs. Grant was of consequence: she was sought for, and attended, and praised; and Fanny was in some danger of envying her the character she had accepted. But reflection brought better feelings, and showed her that Mrs. Grant was entitled to respect which could never have belonged to her; and that she could never have supported a scheme which, considering her uncle, she must condemn. Fanny's heart was not the only saddened one. Julia was a sufferer too, though not quite so blamelessly. Henry Crawford had trifled with her feelings; but she had allowed his attentions, and now that his preference for Maria had been forced on her, she submitted to it without any alarm for Maria's situation, or any endeavour at tranquillity for herself. She either sat in gloomy silence; or, allowing the attentions of Mr. Yates, was talking with forced gaiety to him alone, and ridiculing the acting of the others. For a day or two, Henry Crawford had endeavoured to do away the affront by the usual attack of gallantry and compliment, but he had not cared enough to persevere; and becoming too busy to have time for more than one flirtation, he grew indifferent to the quarrel, or rather thought it lucky in quietly putting an end to her expectations. He assured Mrs Grant, with a smile, that neither he nor Julia had ever had a serious thought of each other. She cautioned him as to the elder sister, entreating him not to risk too much admiration there. "I rather wonder Julia is not in love with Henry," was her observation to Mary. "I dare say she is," replied Mary coldly. "I imagine both sisters are." "Both! no, that must not be. Think of Mr. Rushworth!" "You had better tell Miss Bertram to think of Mr. Rushworth. It may do her some good." "I dare say he will be in parliament soon, when Sir Thomas comes." "Sir Thomas is to achieve many mighty things when he comes home," said Mary. "Everything seems to depend upon Sir Thomas's return." "You will find his consequence very reasonable when you see him, I assure you. He has a fine dignified manner, which suits the head of such a house. Lady Bertram seems more of a cipher now than when he is at home; and nobody else can keep Mrs. Norris in order. But, Mary, do not fancy that Maria Bertram cares for Henry. I am sure Julia does not, or she would not have flirted as she did last night with Mr. Yates; and though he and Maria are very good friends, I think she likes Sotherton too well to be inconstant." "I would not give much for Mr. Rushworth's chance if Henry stepped in." "If you have such a suspicion, something must be done; and as soon as the play is all over, we will talk to him seriously; and if he means nothing, we will send him off, though he is Henry, for a time." Julia did suffer, however. She had loved, she did love still; and she was suffering under the disappointment of a dear, though irrational hope, and a strong sense of ill-usage. Her heart was sore and angry, and she was capable only of angry consolations. Her sister was now become her greatest enemy: and Julia was not above hoping for some distressing end to the attentions which were still carrying on. The sisters had not affection or principle enough to give them honour or compassion. Maria felt her triumph, and pursued her purpose, careless of Julia; and Julia trusted that there would be punishment for Maria at last. Fanny saw and pitied much of this in Julia; but they did not speak of it to each other. They were two solitary sufferers. The blindness of the two brothers and their aunt to this must be imputed to the fullness of their own minds. Tom was engrossed by the concerns of his theatre. Edmund, with Miss Crawford's claims, was equally unobservant; and Mrs. Norris was too busy in directing little matters, and saving half a crown here and there for the absent Sir Thomas, to have leisure for watching the behaviour, or guarding the happiness of his daughters.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 17

Fanny had by no means forgotten Mr. Crawford when she awoke the next morning; but she remembered the purport of her note, and was not less sanguine as to its effect than she had been the night before. If Mr. Crawford would but go away! That was what she most earnestly desired: go and take his sister with him, as he was to do, and as he returned to Mansfield on purpose to do. And why it was not done already she could not devise, for Miss Crawford certainly wanted no delay. Fanny had hoped, in the course of his yesterday's visit, to hear the day named; but he had only spoken of their journey as what would take place ere long. Having so satisfactorily settled the conviction her note would convey, she could not but be astonished to see Mr. Crawford, as she accidentally did, coming up to the house again, and at an hour as early as the day before. His coming might have nothing to do with her, but she must avoid seeing him if possible; and being then on her way upstairs, she resolved there to remain, during the whole of his visit, unless actually sent for; and as Mrs. Norris was still in the house, there seemed little danger of her being wanted. She sat some time in a good deal of agitation, listening, trembling, and fearing to be sent for every moment; but as no footsteps approached the East room, she grew gradually composed, could sit down, and be able to employ herself, and able to hope that Mr. Crawford had come and would go without her being obliged to know anything of the matter. Nearly half an hour had passed, and she was growing very comfortable, when suddenly the sound of a step in regular approach was heard; a heavy step, an unusual step in that part of the house: it was her uncle's; she knew it as well as his voice; she had trembled at it as often, and began to tremble again, at the idea of his coming up to speak to her, whatever might be the subject. It was indeed Sir Thomas who opened the door and asked if she were there, and if he might come in. The terror of his former occasional visits to that room seemed all renewed, and she felt as if he were going to examine her again in French and English. She was all attention, however, in placing a chair for him, and trying to appear honoured; and, in her agitation, had quite overlooked the deficiencies of her apartment, till he, stopping short as he entered, said, with much surprise, "Why have you no fire to-day?" There was snow on the ground, and she was sitting in a shawl. She hesitated. "I am not cold, sir: I never sit here long at this time of year." "But you have a fire in general?" "No, sir." "How comes this about? Here must be some mistake. I understood that you had the use of this room by way of making you perfectly comfortable. In your bedchamber I know you _cannot_ have a fire. Here is some great misapprehension which must be rectified. It is highly unfit for you to sit, be it only half an hour a day, without a fire. You are not strong. You are chilly. Your aunt cannot be aware of this." Fanny would rather have been silent; but being obliged to speak, she could not forbear, in justice to the aunt she loved best, from saying something in which the words "my aunt Norris" were distinguishable. "I understand," cried her uncle, recollecting himself, and not wanting to hear more: "I understand. Your aunt Norris has always been an advocate, and very judiciously, for young people's being brought up without unnecessary indulgences; but there should be moderation in everything. She is also very hardy herself, which of course will influence her in her opinion of the wants of others. And on another account, too, I can perfectly comprehend. I know what her sentiments have always been. The principle was good in itself, but it may have been, and I believe _has_ _been_, carried too far in your case. I am aware that there has been sometimes, in some points, a misplaced distinction; but I think too well of you, Fanny, to suppose you will ever harbour resentment on that account. You have an understanding which will prevent you from receiving things only in part, and judging partially by the event. You will take in the whole of the past, you will consider times, persons, and probabilities, and you will feel that _they_ were not least your friends who were educating and preparing you for that mediocrity of condition which _seemed_ to be your lot. Though their caution may prove eventually unnecessary, it was kindly meant; and of this you may be assured, that every advantage of affluence will be doubled by the little privations and restrictions that may have been imposed. I am sure you will not disappoint my opinion of you, by failing at any time to treat your aunt Norris with the respect and attention that are due to her. But enough of this. Sit down, my dear. I must speak to you for a few minutes, but I will not detain you long." Fanny obeyed, with eyes cast down and colour rising. After a moment's pause, Sir Thomas, trying to suppress a smile, went on. "You are not aware, perhaps, that I have had a visitor this morning. I had not been long in my own room, after breakfast, when Mr. Crawford was shewn in. His errand you may probably conjecture." Fanny's colour grew deeper and deeper; and her uncle, perceiving that she was embarrassed to a degree that made either speaking or looking up quite impossible, turned away his own eyes, and without any farther pause proceeded in his account of Mr. Crawford's visit. Mr. Crawford's business had been to declare himself the lover of Fanny, make decided proposals for her, and entreat the sanction of the uncle, who seemed to stand in the place of her parents; and he had done it all so well, so openly, so liberally, so properly, that Sir Thomas, feeling, moreover, his own replies, and his own remarks to have been very much to the purpose, was exceedingly happy to give the particulars of their conversation; and little aware of what was passing in his niece's mind, conceived that by such details he must be gratifying her far more than himself. He talked, therefore, for several minutes without Fanny's daring to interrupt him. She had hardly even attained the wish to do it. Her mind was in too much confusion. She had changed her position; and, with her eyes fixed intently on one of the windows, was listening to her uncle in the utmost perturbation and dismay. For a moment he ceased, but she had barely become conscious of it, when, rising from his chair, he said, "And now, Fanny, having performed one part of my commission, and shewn you everything placed on a basis the most assured and satisfactory, I may execute the remainder by prevailing on you to accompany me downstairs, where, though I cannot but presume on having been no unacceptable companion myself, I must submit to your finding one still better worth listening to. Mr. Crawford, as you have perhaps foreseen, is yet in the house. He is in my room, and hoping to see you there." There was a look, a start, an exclamation on hearing this, which astonished Sir Thomas; but what was his increase of astonishment on hearing her exclaim-"Oh! no, sir, I cannot, indeed I cannot go down to him. Mr. Crawford ought to know-he must know that: I told him enough yesterday to convince him; he spoke to me on this subject yesterday, and I told him without disguise that it was very disagreeable to me, and quite out of my power to return his good opinion." "I do not catch your meaning," said Sir Thomas, sitting down again. "Out of your power to return his good opinion? What is all this? I know he spoke to you yesterday, and (as far as I understand) received as much encouragement to proceed as a well-judging young woman could permit herself to give. I was very much pleased with what I collected to have been your behaviour on the occasion; it shewed a discretion highly to be commended. But now, when he has made his overtures so properly, and honourably-what are your scruples _now_?" "You are mistaken, sir," cried Fanny, forced by the anxiety of the moment even to tell her uncle that he was wrong; "you are quite mistaken. How could Mr. Crawford say such a thing? I gave him no encouragement yesterday. On the contrary, I told him, I cannot recollect my exact words, but I am sure I told him that I would not listen to him, that it was very unpleasant to me in every respect, and that I begged him never to talk to me in that manner again. I am sure I said as much as that and more; and I should have said still more, if I had been quite certain of his meaning anything seriously; but I did not like to be, I could not bear to be, imputing more than might be intended. I thought it might all pass for nothing with _him_." She could say no more; her breath was almost gone. "Am I to understand," said Sir Thomas, after a few moments' silence, "that you mean to _refuse_ Mr. Crawford?" "Yes, sir." "Refuse him?" "Yes, sir." "Refuse Mr. Crawford! Upon what plea? For what reason?" "I-I cannot like him, sir, well enough to marry him." "This is very strange!" said Sir Thomas, in a voice of calm displeasure. "There is something in this which my comprehension does not reach. Here is a young man wishing to pay his addresses to you, with everything to recommend him: not merely situation in life, fortune, and character, but with more than common agreeableness, with address and conversation pleasing to everybody. And he is not an acquaintance of to-day; you have now known him some time. His sister, moreover, is your intimate friend, and he has been doing _that_ for your brother, which I should suppose would have been almost sufficient recommendation to you, had there been no other. It is very uncertain when my interest might have got William on. He has done it already." "Yes," said Fanny, in a faint voice, and looking down with fresh shame; and she did feel almost ashamed of herself, after such a picture as her uncle had drawn, for not liking Mr. Crawford. "You must have been aware," continued Sir Thomas presently, "you must have been some time aware of a particularity in Mr. Crawford's manners to you. This cannot have taken you by surprise. You must have observed his attentions; and though you always received them very properly (I have no accusation to make on that head), I never perceived them to be unpleasant to you. I am half inclined to think, Fanny, that you do not quite know your own feelings." "Oh yes, sir! indeed I do. His attentions were always-what I did not like." Sir Thomas looked at her with deeper surprise. "This is beyond me," said he. "This requires explanation. Young as you are, and having seen scarcely any one, it is hardly possible that your affections-" He paused and eyed her fixedly. He saw her lips formed into a _no_, though the sound was inarticulate, but her face was like scarlet. That, however, in so modest a girl, might be very compatible with innocence; and chusing at least to appear satisfied, he quickly added, "No, no, I know _that_ is quite out of the question; quite impossible. Well, there is nothing more to be said." And for a few minutes he did say nothing. He was deep in thought. His niece was deep in thought likewise, trying to harden and prepare herself against farther questioning. She would rather die than own the truth; and she hoped, by a little reflection, to fortify herself beyond betraying it. "Independently of the interest which Mr. Crawford's _choice_ seemed to justify" said Sir Thomas, beginning again, and very composedly, "his wishing to marry at all so early is recommendatory to me. I am an advocate for early marriages, where there are means in proportion, and would have every young man, with a sufficient income, settle as soon after four-and-twenty as he can. This is so much my opinion, that I am sorry to think how little likely my own eldest son, your cousin, Mr. Bertram, is to marry early; but at present, as far as I can judge, matrimony makes no part of his plans or thoughts. I wish he were more likely to fix." Here was a glance at Fanny. "Edmund, I consider, from his dispositions and habits, as much more likely to marry early than his brother. _He_, indeed, I have lately thought, has seen the woman he could love, which, I am convinced, my eldest son has not. Am I right? Do you agree with me, my dear?" "Yes, sir." It was gently, but it was calmly said, and Sir Thomas was easy on the score of the cousins. But the removal of his alarm did his niece no service: as her unaccountableness was confirmed his displeasure increased; and getting up and walking about the room with a frown, which Fanny could picture to herself, though she dared not lift up her eyes, he shortly afterwards, and in a voice of authority, said, "Have you any reason, child, to think ill of Mr. Crawford's temper?" "No, sir." She longed to add, "But of his principles I have"; but her heart sunk under the appalling prospect of discussion, explanation, and probably non-conviction. Her ill opinion of him was founded chiefly on observations, which, for her cousins' sake, she could scarcely dare mention to their father. Maria and Julia, and especially Maria, were so closely implicated in Mr. Crawford's misconduct, that she could not give his character, such as she believed it, without betraying them. She had hoped that, to a man like her uncle, so discerning, so honourable, so good, the simple acknowledgment of settled _dislike_ on her side would have been sufficient. To her infinite grief she found it was not. Sir Thomas came towards the table where she sat in trembling wretchedness, and with a good deal of cold sternness, said, "It is of no use, I perceive, to talk to you. We had better put an end to this most mortifying conference. Mr. Crawford must not be kept longer waiting. I will, therefore, only add, as thinking it my duty to mark my opinion of your conduct, that you have disappointed every expectation I had formed, and proved yourself of a character the very reverse of what I had supposed. For I _had_, Fanny, as I think my behaviour must have shewn, formed a very favourable opinion of you from the period of my return to England. I had thought you peculiarly free from wilfulness of temper, self-conceit, and every tendency to that independence of spirit which prevails so much in modern days, even in young women, and which in young women is offensive and disgusting beyond all common offence. But you have now shewn me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and will decide for yourself, without any consideration or deference for those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their advice. You have shewn yourself very, very different from anything that I had imagined. The advantage or disadvantage of your family, of your parents, your brothers and sisters, never seems to have had a moment's share in your thoughts on this occasion. How _they_ might be benefited, how _they_ must rejoice in such an establishment for you, is nothing to _you_. You think only of yourself, and because you do not feel for Mr. Crawford exactly what a young heated fancy imagines to be necessary for happiness, you resolve to refuse him at once, without wishing even for a little time to consider of it, a little more time for cool consideration, and for really examining your own inclinations; and are, in a wild fit of folly, throwing away from you such an opportunity of being settled in life, eligibly, honourably, nobly settled, as will, probably, never occur to you again. Here is a young man of sense, of character, of temper, of manners, and of fortune, exceedingly attached to you, and seeking your hand in the most handsome and disinterested way; and let me tell you, Fanny, that you may live eighteen years longer in the world without being addressed by a man of half Mr. Crawford's estate, or a tenth part of his merits. Gladly would I have bestowed either of my own daughters on him. Maria is nobly married; but had Mr. Crawford sought Julia's hand, I should have given it to him with superior and more heartfelt satisfaction than I gave Maria's to Mr. Rushworth." After half a moment's pause: "And I should have been very much surprised had either of my daughters, on receiving a proposal of marriage at any time which might carry with it only _half_ the eligibility of _this_, immediately and peremptorily, and without paying my opinion or my regard the compliment of any consultation, put a decided negative on it. I should have been much surprised and much hurt by such a proceeding. I should have thought it a gross violation of duty and respect. _You_ are not to be judged by the same rule. You do not owe me the duty of a child. But, Fanny, if your heart can acquit you of _ingratitude_-" He ceased. Fanny was by this time crying so bitterly that, angry as he was, he would not press that article farther. Her heart was almost broke by such a picture of what she appeared to him; by such accusations, so heavy, so multiplied, so rising in dreadful gradation! Self-willed, obstinate, selfish, and ungrateful. He thought her all this. She had deceived his expectations; she had lost his good opinion. What was to become of her? "I am very sorry," said she inarticulately, through her tears, "I am very sorry indeed." "Sorry! yes, I hope you are sorry; and you will probably have reason to be long sorry for this day's transactions." "If it were possible for me to do otherwise" said she, with another strong effort; "but I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself." Another burst of tears; but in spite of that burst, and in spite of that great black word _miserable_, which served to introduce it, Sir Thomas began to think a little relenting, a little change of inclination, might have something to do with it; and to augur favourably from the personal entreaty of the young man himself. He knew her to be very timid, and exceedingly nervous; and thought it not improbable that her mind might be in such a state as a little time, a little pressing, a little patience, and a little impatience, a judicious mixture of all on the lover's side, might work their usual effect on. If the gentleman would but persevere, if he had but love enough to persevere, Sir Thomas began to have hopes; and these reflections having passed across his mind and cheered it, "Well," said he, in a tone of becoming gravity, but of less anger, "well, child, dry up your tears. There is no use in these tears; they can do no good. You must now come downstairs with me. Mr. Crawford has been kept waiting too long already. You must give him your own answer: we cannot expect him to be satisfied with less; and you only can explain to him the grounds of that misconception of your sentiments, which, unfortunately for himself, he certainly has imbibed. I am totally unequal to it." But Fanny shewed such reluctance, such misery, at the idea of going down to him, that Sir Thomas, after a little consideration, judged it better to indulge her. His hopes from both gentleman and lady suffered a small depression in consequence; but when he looked at his niece, and saw the state of feature and complexion which her crying had brought her into, he thought there might be as much lost as gained by an immediate interview. With a few words, therefore, of no particular meaning, he walked off by himself, leaving his poor niece to sit and cry over what had passed, with very wretched feelings. Her mind was all disorder. The past, present, future, everything was terrible. But her uncle's anger gave her the severest pain of all. Selfish and ungrateful! to have appeared so to him! She was miserable for ever. She had no one to take her part, to counsel, or speak for her. Her only friend was absent. He might have softened his father; but all, perhaps all, would think her selfish and ungrateful. She might have to endure the reproach again and again; she might hear it, or see it, or know it to exist for ever in every connexion about her. She could not but feel some resentment against Mr. Crawford; yet, if he really loved her, and were unhappy too! It was all wretchedness together. In about a quarter of an hour her uncle returned; she was almost ready to faint at the sight of him. He spoke calmly, however, without austerity, without reproach, and she revived a little. There was comfort, too, in his words, as well as his manner, for he began with, "Mr. Crawford is gone: he has just left me. I need not repeat what has passed. I do not want to add to anything you may now be feeling, by an account of what he has felt. Suffice it, that he has behaved in the most gentlemanlike and generous manner, and has confirmed me in a most favourable opinion of his understanding, heart, and temper. Upon my representation of what you were suffering, he immediately, and with the greatest delicacy, ceased to urge to see you for the present." Here Fanny, who had looked up, looked down again. "Of course," continued her uncle, "it cannot be supposed but that he should request to speak with you alone, be it only for five minutes; a request too natural, a claim too just to be denied. But there is no time fixed; perhaps to-morrow, or whenever your spirits are composed enough. For the present you have only to tranquillise yourself. Check these tears; they do but exhaust you. If, as I am willing to suppose, you wish to shew me any observance, you will not give way to these emotions, but endeavour to reason yourself into a stronger frame of mind. I advise you to go out: the air will do you good; go out for an hour on the gravel; you will have the shrubbery to yourself, and will be the better for air and exercise. And, Fanny" (turning back again for a moment), "I shall make no mention below of what has passed; I shall not even tell your aunt Bertram. There is no occasion for spreading the disappointment; say nothing about it yourself." This was an order to be most joyfully obeyed; this was an act of kindness which Fanny felt at her heart. To be spared from her aunt Norris's interminable reproaches! he left her in a glow of gratitude. Anything might be bearable rather than such reproaches. Even to see Mr. Crawford would be less overpowering. She walked out directly, as her uncle recommended, and followed his advice throughout, as far as she could; did check her tears; did earnestly try to compose her spirits and strengthen her mind. She wished to prove to him that she did desire his comfort, and sought to regain his favour; and he had given her another strong motive for exertion, in keeping the whole affair from the knowledge of her aunts. Not to excite suspicion by her look or manner was now an object worth attaining; and she felt equal to almost anything that might save her from her aunt Norris. She was struck, quite struck, when, on returning from her walk and going into the East room again, the first thing which caught her eye was a fire lighted and burning. A fire! it seemed too much; just at that time to be giving her such an indulgence was exciting even painful gratitude. She wondered that Sir Thomas could have leisure to think of such a trifle again; but she soon found, from the voluntary information of the housemaid, who came in to attend it, that so it was to be every day. Sir Thomas had given orders for it. "I must be a brute, indeed, if I can be really ungrateful!" said she, in soliloquy. "Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!" She saw nothing more of her uncle, nor of her aunt Norris, till they met at dinner. Her uncle's behaviour to her was then as nearly as possible what it had been before; she was sure he did not mean there should be any change, and that it was only her own conscience that could fancy any; but her aunt was soon quarrelling with her; and when she found how much and how unpleasantly her having only walked out without her aunt's knowledge could be dwelt on, she felt all the reason she had to bless the kindness which saved her from the same spirit of reproach, exerted on a more momentous subject. "If I had known you were going out, I should have got you just to go as far as my house with some orders for Nanny," said she, "which I have since, to my very great inconvenience, been obliged to go and carry myself. I could very ill spare the time, and you might have saved me the trouble, if you would only have been so good as to let us know you were going out. It would have made no difference to you, I suppose, whether you had walked in the shrubbery or gone to my house." "I recommended the shrubbery to Fanny as the driest place," said Sir Thomas. "Oh!" said Mrs. Norris, with a moment's check, "that was very kind of you, Sir Thomas; but you do not know how dry the path is to my house. Fanny would have had quite as good a walk there, I assure you, with the advantage of being of some use, and obliging her aunt: it is all her fault. If she would but have let us know she was going out but there is a something about Fanny, I have often observed it before-she likes to go her own way to work; she does not like to be dictated to; she takes her own independent walk whenever she can; she certainly has a little spirit of secrecy, and independence, and nonsense, about her, which I would advise her to get the better of." As a general reflection on Fanny, Sir Thomas thought nothing could be more unjust, though he had been so lately expressing the same sentiments himself, and he tried to turn the conversation: tried repeatedly before he could succeed; for Mrs. Norris had not discernment enough to perceive, either now, or at any other time, to what degree he thought well of his niece, or how very far he was from wishing to have his own children's merits set off by the depreciation of hers. She was talking _at_ Fanny, and resenting this private walk half through the dinner. It was over, however, at last; and the evening set in with more composure to Fanny, and more cheerfulness of spirits than she could have hoped for after so stormy a morning; but she trusted, in the first place, that she had done right: that her judgment had not misled her. For the purity of her intentions she could answer; and she was willing to hope, secondly, that her uncle's displeasure was abating, and would abate farther as he considered the matter with more impartiality, and felt, as a good man must feel, how wretched, and how unpardonable, how hopeless, and how wicked it was to marry without affection. When the meeting with which she was threatened for the morrow was past, she could not but flatter herself that the subject would be finally concluded, and Mr. Crawford once gone from Mansfield, that everything would soon be as if no such subject had existed. She would not, could not believe, that Mr. Crawford's affection for her could distress him long; his mind was not of that sort. London would soon bring its cure. In London he would soon learn to wonder at his infatuation, and be thankful for the right reason in her which had saved him from its evil consequences. While Fanny's mind was engaged in these sort of hopes, her uncle was, soon after tea, called out of the room; an occurrence too common to strike her, and she thought nothing of it till the butler reappeared ten minutes afterwards, and advancing decidedly towards herself, said, "Sir Thomas wishes to speak with you, ma'am, in his own room." Then it occurred to her what might be going on; a suspicion rushed over her mind which drove the colour from her cheeks; but instantly rising, she was preparing to obey, when Mrs. Norris called out, "Stay, stay, Fanny! what are you about? where are you going? don't be in such a hurry. Depend upon it, it is not you who are wanted; depend upon it, it is me" (looking at the butler); "but you are so very eager to put yourself forward. What should Sir Thomas want you for? It is me, Baddeley, you mean; I am coming this moment. You mean me, Baddeley, I am sure; Sir Thomas wants me, not Miss Price." But Baddeley was stout. "No, ma'am, it is Miss Price; I am certain of its being Miss Price." And there was a half-smile with the words, which meant, "I do not think you would answer the purpose at all." Mrs. Norris, much discontented, was obliged to compose herself to work again; and Fanny, walking off in agitating consciousness, found herself, as she anticipated, in another minute alone with Mr. Crawford.

Fanny had not forgotten Mr. Crawford when she awoke the next morning; but she was still sanguine as to its effect of her note. If Mr. Crawford would but go away! That was what she most earnestly desired: go and take his sister with him, as he had intended. And why it was not done already she could not think. She was astonished to see Mr. Crawford coming up to the house again, at an hour as early as the day before. His coming might have nothing to do with her, but she must avoid seeing him if possible; and she resolved to remain upstairs during his visit, unless actually sent for. She sat some time in a good deal of agitation, listening, trembling, and fearing to be sent for every moment; but as no footsteps approached the East room, she grew gradually composed, and was able to employ herself, and to hope that Mr. Crawford would go without her being obliged to know anything of the matter. Nearly half an hour had passed, and she was growing very comfortable, when suddenly the sound of a heavy step was heard, an unusual step in that part of the house. It was her uncle's; and she began to tremble at the idea of his coming up to speak to her. It was indeed Sir Thomas who opened the door and asked if he might come in. The terror of his former occasional visits to that room seemed all renewed, and she felt as if he were going to examine her again in French and English. She was all attention, however, in placing a chair for him, and trying to appear honoured. Stopping short as he entered, he said, with much surprise, "Why have you no fire to-day?" There was snow on the ground, and she was sitting in a shawl. She hesitated. "I am not cold, sir: I never sit here long at this time of year." "But you have a fire in general?" "No, sir." "How comes this about? Here must be some mistake. I understood that you had the use of this room by way of making you comfortable. It is highly unfit for you to sit, be it only half an hour a day, without a fire. You are not strong. You are chilly. Your aunt cannot be aware of this." Fanny would rather have been silent; but being obliged to speak, she could not refrain, in justice to the aunt she loved best, from saying something about "my aunt Norris". "I understand," cried her uncle, recollecting himself, and not wanting to hear more: "I understand. Your aunt Norris has always advised young people's being brought up without unnecessary indulgences; but there should be moderation in everything. She is also very hardy herself, and so course expects others to be likewise. And on another account, too, I can perfectly comprehend her sentiments. I am aware that there has been sometimes a misplaced distinction between you and your cousins; but I think too well of you, Fanny, to suppose you will ever harbour resentment on that account. You know that your friends were preparing you for that mediocrity of condition which seemed to be your lot. Though their caution may prove eventually unnecessary, it was kindly meant. But enough of this. Sit down, my dear. I must speak to you, but I will not detain you long." Fanny obeyed, with eyes cast down and colour rising. Sir Thomas, trying to suppress a smile, went on. "I have had a visitor this morning. Not long after breakfast, Mr. Crawford was shown in. His errand you may probably conjecture." Fanny's colour grew deeper; and her uncle, perceiving her great embarrassment, turned away his own eyes, and proceeded in his account of Mr. Crawford's visit. Mr. Crawford's business had been to declare himself the lover of Fanny, make decided proposals for her, and ask the blessing of the uncle, who seemed to stand in the place of her parents; and he had done it all so well, so properly, that Sir Thomas was happy to give the details of their conversation. Unaware of what was passing in his niece's mind, he thought that he must be gratifying her. He talked, therefore, for several minutes without Fanny's daring to interrupt him. With her eyes fixed intently on one of the windows, she listened to her uncle in the utmost perturbation and dismay. Rising from his chair, he said, "And now, Fanny, having performed one part of my commission, I may execute the remainder by asking you to accompany me downstairs, where you may find a companion still better worth listening to. Mr. Crawford is in my room, and hoping to see you there." There was a look, a start on hearing this, which astonished Sir Thomas; but his astonishment increased on hearing her exclaim-"Oh! no, sir, indeed I cannot go down to him. Mr. Crawford must know that: he spoke to me on this subject yesterday, and I told him that it was very disagreeable to me, and quite out of my power to return his good opinion." "I do not catch your meaning," said Sir Thomas, sitting down again. "What is all this? I know he spoke to you yesterday, and (as I understand) received as much encouragement as a well-judging young woman could permit herself to give. I was very much pleased with your behaviour on the occasion; it showed a commendable discretion. But now, when he has made his overtures so properly-what are your scruples now?" "You are mistaken, sir," cried Fanny, forced by her anxiety even to tell her uncle that he was wrong; "you are quite mistaken. How could Mr. Crawford say such a thing? I gave him no encouragement yesterday. On the contrary, I told him, I cannot recollect my exact words, but I am sure I told him that I would not listen to him, that it was very unpleasant to me in every respect, and that I begged him never to talk to me in that manner again. I should have said more, if I had been quite certain of his meaning anything seriously; but I did not like to be imputing more than might be intended. I thought it might all pass for nothing with him." She could say no more. "Am I to understand," said Sir Thomas, after a few moments' silence, "that you mean to refuse Mr. Crawford?" "Yes, sir." "Refuse him?" "Yes, sir." "Refuse Mr. Crawford! Upon what plea? For what reason?" "I-I cannot like him, sir, well enough to marry him." "This is very strange!" said Sir Thomas, in a voice of calm displeasure. "Here is a young man wishing to pay his addresses to you, with everything to recommend him: situation, fortune, and character, with more than common agreeableness, with address and conversation pleasing to everybody. His sister, moreover, is your intimate friend, and he has done that for your brother, which might have been almost sufficient recommendation to you, had there been no other." "Yes," said Fanny, in a faint voice, and looking down with fresh shame. "You must have been aware," continued Sir Thomas, "of a particularity in Mr. Crawford's manners to you. This cannot have taken you by surprise. You must have observed his attentions; and though you always received them very properly, I never perceived them to be unpleasant to you. I am half inclined to think, Fanny, that you do not know your own feelings." "Oh yes, sir! indeed I do. His attentions were always-what I did not like." Sir Thomas looked at her with deeper surprise. "This is beyond me," said he. "This requires explanation. Young as you are, and having seen scarcely any one, it is hardly possible that your affections-" He paused and eyed her fixedly. He saw her lips formed into a no, though the sound was inarticulate, but her face was like scarlet. That, however, in so modest a girl, might be very compatible with innocence; and choosing at least to appear satisfied, he quickly added, "No, no, I know that is quite out of the question. Well, there is nothing more to be said." And for a few minutes he did say nothing. He was deep in thought. His niece was deep in thought likewise, trying to harden and prepare herself against farther questioning. She would rather die than own the truth; and she hoped to fortify herself beyond betraying it. "Quite apart from Mr. Crawford's choice," said Sir Thomas, beginning again, very composedly, "his wishing to marry so early is commendable. I am an advocate for early marriages, and would have every young man, with a sufficient income, settle as soon after four-and-twenty as he can. I am sorry to think how unlikely my own eldest son, Mr. Bertram, is to marry early; but at present, as far as I can judge, matrimony makes no part of his plans. I wish he were more likely to fix." Here was a glance at Fanny. "Edmund, I consider as much more likely to marry early than his brother. He, indeed, I have lately thought, has seen the woman he could love, which, I am convinced, my eldest son has not. Am I right? Do you agree with me, my dear?" "Yes, sir." It was gently, but it was calmly said, and Sir Thomas was easy on the score of the cousins. But with the removal of his alarm, his displeasure increased; and getting up and walking about with a frown, he said in a voice of authority, "Have you any reason, child, to think ill of Mr. Crawford's temper?" "No, sir." She longed to add, "But of his principles I have"; but her heart sunk under the appalling prospect of discussion, explanation, and probably non-conviction. Her ill opinion of him was founded chiefly on observations, which, for her cousins' sake, she could scarcely mention to their father. Maria and Julia, especially Maria, were so closely implicated in Mr. Crawford's misconduct, that she could not speak of it without betraying them. She had hoped that, to a man like her uncle, so discerning, so honourable, so good, the simple acknowledgment of settled dislike on her side would have been sufficient. To her infinite grief she found it was not. Sir Thomas came towards the table where she sat trembling, and with cold sternness, said, "It is of no use, I perceive, to talk to you. We had better put an end to this mortifying conference. Mr. Crawford must not be kept longer waiting. I will, therefore, only add that you have disappointed every expectation I had formed, and proved your character the very reverse of what I had supposed. For I had, Fanny, formed a very favourable opinion of you since my return to England. I had thought you free from wilfulness of temper, self-conceit, and that modern independence of spirit which is so disgusting in young women. But you have now shown me that you can be wilful and perverse; that you can and will decide for yourself, without any deference to those who have surely some right to guide you, without even asking their advice. You have shown yourself very, very different from anything that I had imagined. Your brothers and sisters seem never to have had a moment's share in your thoughts. How they might be benefited is nothing to you. You think only of yourself, and because you do not feel for Mr. Crawford exactly what a young heated fancy imagines to be necessary for happiness, you resolve to refuse him at once, without wishing even for a little time to consider. You are, in a wild fit of folly, throwing away such an opportunity as will probably never occur to you again. Here is a young man of sense, of character, of manners, and of fortune, exceedingly attached to you, and seeking your hand in the most handsome way; and let me tell you, Fanny, that you may live eighteen years longer without being addressed by a man of half Mr. Crawford's estate, or a tenth part of his merits. Gladly would I have bestowed either of my own daughters on him. Maria is nobly married; but had Mr. Crawford sought Julia's hand, I should have given it to him with more heartfelt satisfaction than I gave Maria's to Mr. Rushworth." After half a moment's pause: "And I should have been very much surprised had either of my daughters, on receiving a proposal of marriage half as eligible as this, peremptorily decided against it without any consultation. I should have been much hurt by such a proceeding. I should have thought it a gross violation of duty and respect. You are not to be judged by the same rule. You do not owe me the duty of a child. But, Fanny, if your heart can acquit you of ingratitude-" He ceased. Fanny was by this time crying so bitterly that, angry as he was, he would not press farther. Her heart was almost broke by such accusations, so heavy, so multiplied, so dreadful! Self-willed, obstinate, selfish, and ungrateful. He thought her all this. She had lost his good opinion. What was to become of her? "I am very sorry," said she inarticulately, through her tears, "I am very sorry indeed." "Sorry! yes, I hope you are sorry; and you will probably have reason to be long sorry for this day's transactions." "If it were possible for me to do otherwise" said she, with another strong effort; "but I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself." Another burst of tears; but in spite of that burst, Sir Thomas began to think a little relenting might have something to do with it. He knew her to be very timid, and exceedingly nervous; and thought a little pressing and patience on the lover's side might work their effect on her, if the gentleman would but persevere. These reflections having cheered Sir Thomas, "Well," said he, with gravity, but less anger, "well, child, dry up your tears. They can do no good. You must now come downstairs with me. Mr. Crawford has been kept waiting too long already. You must give him your own answer. I am totally unequal to it." But Fanny showed such reluctance, such misery, at the idea of going down to him, that Sir Thomas judged it better to indulge her. When he looked at his niece, and saw the state which her crying had brought her into, he thought there might be as much lost as gained by an immediate interview. He walked off by himself, therefore, leaving his poor niece to sit and cry over what had passed, with very wretched feelings. Her mind was all disorder. Everything was terrible. But her uncle's anger gave her the severest pain of all. Selfish and ungrateful! to have appeared so to him! She had no one to speak for her. Her only friend was absent. Edmund might have softened his father; but perhaps all would think her selfish and ungrateful. She might have to endure the reproach again and again. She could not help feeling some resentment against Mr. Crawford; yet, if he really loved her, and were unhappy too! It was all wretchedness together. In about a quarter of an hour her uncle returned; she was almost ready to faint at the sight of him. He spoke calmly, however, without reproach, and she revived a little. There was comfort, too, in his words, for he began with, "Mr. Crawford has just left me. I need not repeat what has passed. Suffice it, that he has behaved in the most gentlemanlike manner, and has confirmed me in a most favourable opinion of his heart and temper. Upon hearing what you were suffering, he immediately ceased to urge to see you for the present." Here Fanny looked down again. "Of course," continued her uncle, "he requested to speak with you alone, if only for five minutes; a request too natural to be denied. But there is no time fixed; perhaps to-morrow, or whenever your spirits are composed enough. For the present you have only to tranquillise yourself. If you wish to please me, you will not give way to these emotions, but try to reason yourself into a stronger frame of mind. I advise you to go out for an hour: the air will do you good; you will have the shrubbery to yourself, and will be the better for exercise. And, Fanny, I shall make no mention below of what has passed; I shall not even tell your aunt Bertram. Say nothing about it yourself." This was a kindness which Fanny felt at her heart. To be spared from her aunt Norris's interminable reproaches! he left her in a glow of gratitude. She walked out as her uncle recommended, and followed his advice; did check her tears; did earnestly try to compose her spirits and strengthen her mind. She wished to prove to him that she sought to regain his favour; and he had given her another strong motive for exertion, in keeping the whole affair from the knowledge of her aunts. Not to excite suspicion by her manner was an object worth attaining; and she felt equal to almost anything that might save her from her aunt Norris. She was struck, when, on returning from her walk and going into the East room, the first thing which caught her eye was a fire burning. A fire! to be giving her such an indulgence at that time was too much. She wondered that Sir Thomas could have leisure to think of such a trifle; but she soon found, from the housemaid, that so it was to be every day. Sir Thomas had given orders for it. "I must be a brute, indeed, if I can be really ungrateful!" said she. "Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!" She saw nothing more of her uncle, nor her aunt Norris, till dinner. Her uncle's behaviour to her was then as nearly as possible what it had been before; but her aunt was soon quarrelling with her; and when Fanny found how much and how unpleasantly her having only walked out without her aunt's knowledge could be dwelt on, she blessed the kindness which saved her from the same reproaches on a more momentous subject. "If I had known you were going out, I should have got you to go to my house with some orders," said her aunt, "which I have since, to my very great inconvenience, been obliged to go and carry myself. I could very ill spare the time, and you might have saved me the trouble, if you would only have been so good as to let us know you were going out. It would have made no difference to you, I suppose, whether you had walked in the shrubbery or gone to my house." "I recommended the shrubbery to Fanny as the driest place," said Sir Thomas. "Oh!" said Mrs. Norris, with a moment's check, "that was very kind of you, Sir Thomas; but you do not know how dry the path is to my house. Fanny would have had quite as good a walk there, I assure you, with the advantage of being of some use, and obliging her aunt: it is all her fault. If she would only have let us know she was going out-but there is a something about Fanny, I have often observed it before-she likes to go her own way; she does not like to be dictated to; she takes her own independent walk whenever she can; she certainly has a little spirit of secrecy, and nonsense, about her, which I would advise her to get the better of." Sir Thomas thought nothing could be more unjust to Fanny, though he had been so lately expressing the same sentiments himself, and he tried repeatedly to turn the conversation: but Mrs. Norris had not discernment enough to perceive how well he thought of his niece. She was talking at Fanny, and resenting this private walk through half the dinner. It was over, however, at last; and the evening brought more composure to Fanny than she could have hoped for. She trusted that she had done right: that her judgment had not misled her. She was sure of the purity of her intentions; and she hoped that her uncle's displeasure was abating, and would abate farther as he considered the matter, and felt, as a good man must feel, how wretched, how unpardonable, how hopeless, and how wicked it was to marry without affection. When the threatened meeting with Mr Crawford was past, the subject would be finally concluded, and once Mr. Crawford was gone from Mansfield, everything would soon be as if no such subject had existed. She could not believe that Mr. Crawford's affection for her could distress him long. London would soon bring its cure. In London he would learn to wonder at his infatuation. While Fanny's mind was engaged in these hopes, her uncle was called out of the room; she thought nothing of it till the butler reappeared, and advancing towards her, said, "Sir Thomas wishes to speak with you, ma'am, in his own room." Then a suspicion rushed over her mind which drove the colour from her cheeks. Instantly rising, she was preparing to obey, when Mrs. Norris called out, "Stay, Fanny! where are you going? don't be in such a hurry. Depend upon it, it is not you who are wanted, but me. You are very eager to put yourself forward. What should Sir Thomas want you for? You mean me, Baddeley, I am sure; not Miss Price." But Baddeley was stout. "No, ma'am, I am certain of its being Miss Price." And there was a half-smile with the words, which meant, "I do not think you would answer the purpose at all." Mrs. Norris was much discontented; and Fanny, walking off in agitation, found herself in another minute alone with Mr. Crawford.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 32

Henry Crawford had quite made up his mind by the next morning to give another fortnight to Mansfield, and having sent for his hunters, and written a few lines of explanation to the Admiral, he looked round at his sister as he sealed and threw the letter from him, and seeing the coast clear of the rest of the family, said, with a smile, "And how do you think I mean to amuse myself, Mary, on the days that I do not hunt? I am grown too old to go out more than three times a week; but I have a plan for the intermediate days, and what do you think it is?" "To walk and ride with me, to be sure." "Not exactly, though I shall be happy to do both, but _that_ would be exercise only to my body, and I must take care of my mind. Besides, _that_ would be all recreation and indulgence, without the wholesome alloy of labour, and I do not like to eat the bread of idleness. No, my plan is to make Fanny Price in love with me." "Fanny Price! Nonsense! No, no. You ought to be satisfied with her two cousins." "But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price's heart. You do not seem properly aware of her claims to notice. When we talked of her last night, you none of you seemed sensible of the wonderful improvement that has taken place in her looks within the last six weeks. You see her every day, and therefore do not notice it; but I assure you she is quite a different creature from what she was in the autumn. She was then merely a quiet, modest, not plain-looking girl, but she is now absolutely pretty. I used to think she had neither complexion nor countenance; but in that soft skin of hers, so frequently tinged with a blush as it was yesterday, there is decided beauty; and from what I observed of her eyes and mouth, I do not despair of their being capable of expression enough when she has anything to express. And then, her air, her manner, her _tout_ _ensemble_, is so indescribably improved! She must be grown two inches, at least, since October." "Phoo! phoo! This is only because there were no tall women to compare her with, and because she has got a new gown, and you never saw her so well dressed before. She is just what she was in October, believe me. The truth is, that she was the only girl in company for you to notice, and you must have a somebody. I have always thought her pretty-not strikingly pretty-but 'pretty enough,' as people say; a sort of beauty that grows on one. Her eyes should be darker, but she has a sweet smile; but as for this wonderful degree of improvement, I am sure it may all be resolved into a better style of dress, and your having nobody else to look at; and therefore, if you do set about a flirtation with her, you never will persuade me that it is in compliment to her beauty, or that it proceeds from anything but your own idleness and folly." Her brother gave only a smile to this accusation, and soon afterwards said, "I do not quite know what to make of Miss Fanny. I do not understand her. I could not tell what she would be at yesterday. What is her character? Is she solemn? Is she queer? Is she prudish? Why did she draw back and look so grave at me? I could hardly get her to speak. I never was so long in company with a girl in my life, trying to entertain her, and succeed so ill! Never met with a girl who looked so grave on me! I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, 'I will not like you, I am determined not to like you'; and I say she shall." "Foolish fellow! And so this is her attraction after all! This it is, her not caring about you, which gives her such a soft skin, and makes her so much taller, and produces all these charms and graces! I do desire that you will not be making her really unhappy; a _little_ love, perhaps, may animate and do her good, but I will not have you plunge her deep, for she is as good a little creature as ever lived, and has a great deal of feeling." "It can be but for a fortnight," said Henry; "and if a fortnight can kill her, she must have a constitution which nothing could save. No, I will not do her any harm, dear little soul! I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall be never happy again. I want nothing more." "Moderation itself!" said Mary. "I can have no scruples now. Well, you will have opportunities enough of endeavouring to recommend yourself, for we are a great deal together." And without attempting any farther remonstrance, she left Fanny to her fate, a fate which, had not Fanny's heart been guarded in a way unsuspected by Miss Crawford, might have been a little harder than she deserved; for although there doubtless are such unconquerable young ladies of eighteen (or one should not read about them) as are never to be persuaded into love against their judgment by all that talent, manner, attention, and flattery can do, I have no inclination to believe Fanny one of them, or to think that with so much tenderness of disposition, and so much taste as belonged to her, she could have escaped heart-whole from the courtship (though the courtship only of a fortnight) of such a man as Crawford, in spite of there being some previous ill opinion of him to be overcome, had not her affection been engaged elsewhere. With all the security which love of another and disesteem of him could give to the peace of mind he was attacking, his continued attentions-continued, but not obtrusive, and adapting themselves more and more to the gentleness and delicacy of her character-obliged her very soon to dislike him less than formerly. She had by no means forgotten the past, and she thought as ill of him as ever; but she felt his powers: he was entertaining; and his manners were so improved, so polite, so seriously and blamelessly polite, that it was impossible not to be civil to him in return. A very few days were enough to effect this; and at the end of those few days, circumstances arose which had a tendency rather to forward his views of pleasing her, inasmuch as they gave her a degree of happiness which must dispose her to be pleased with everybody. William, her brother, the so long absent and dearly loved brother, was in England again. She had a letter from him herself, a few hurried happy lines, written as the ship came up Channel, and sent into Portsmouth with the first boat that left the Antwerp at anchor in Spithead; and when Crawford walked up with the newspaper in his hand, which he had hoped would bring the first tidings, he found her trembling with joy over this letter, and listening with a glowing, grateful countenance to the kind invitation which her uncle was most collectedly dictating in reply. It was but the day before that Crawford had made himself thoroughly master of the subject, or had in fact become at all aware of her having such a brother, or his being in such a ship, but the interest then excited had been very properly lively, determining him on his return to town to apply for information as to the probable period of the Antwerp's return from the Mediterranean, etc.; and the good luck which attended his early examination of ship news the next morning seemed the reward of his ingenuity in finding out such a method of pleasing her, as well as of his dutiful attention to the Admiral, in having for many years taken in the paper esteemed to have the earliest naval intelligence. He proved, however, to be too late. All those fine first feelings, of which he had hoped to be the exciter, were already given. But his intention, the kindness of his intention, was thankfully acknowledged: quite thankfully and warmly, for she was elevated beyond the common timidity of her mind by the flow of her love for William. This dear William would soon be amongst them. There could be no doubt of his obtaining leave of absence immediately, for he was still only a midshipman; and as his parents, from living on the spot, must already have seen him, and be seeing him perhaps daily, his direct holidays might with justice be instantly given to the sister, who had been his best correspondent through a period of seven years, and the uncle who had done most for his support and advancement; and accordingly the reply to her reply, fixing a very early day for his arrival, came as soon as possible; and scarcely ten days had passed since Fanny had been in the agitation of her first dinner-visit, when she found herself in an agitation of a higher nature, watching in the hall, in the lobby, on the stairs, for the first sound of the carriage which was to bring her a brother. It came happily while she was thus waiting; and there being neither ceremony nor fearfulness to delay the moment of meeting, she was with him as he entered the house, and the first minutes of exquisite feeling had no interruption and no witnesses, unless the servants chiefly intent upon opening the proper doors could be called such. This was exactly what Sir Thomas and Edmund had been separately conniving at, as each proved to the other by the sympathetic alacrity with which they both advised Mrs. Norris's continuing where she was, instead of rushing out into the hall as soon as the noises of the arrival reached them. William and Fanny soon shewed themselves; and Sir Thomas had the pleasure of receiving, in his protg, certainly a very different person from the one he had equipped seven years ago, but a young man of an open, pleasant countenance, and frank, unstudied, but feeling and respectful manners, and such as confirmed him his friend. It was long before Fanny could recover from the agitating happiness of such an hour as was formed by the last thirty minutes of expectation, and the first of fruition; it was some time even before her happiness could be said to make her happy, before the disappointment inseparable from the alteration of person had vanished, and she could see in him the same William as before, and talk to him, as her heart had been yearning to do through many a past year. That time, however, did gradually come, forwarded by an affection on his side as warm as her own, and much less encumbered by refinement or self-distrust. She was the first object of his love, but it was a love which his stronger spirits, and bolder temper, made it as natural for him to express as to feel. On the morrow they were walking about together with true enjoyment, and every succeeding morrow renewed a _tte--tte_ which Sir Thomas could not but observe with complacency, even before Edmund had pointed it out to him. Excepting the moments of peculiar delight, which any marked or unlooked-for instance of Edmund's consideration of her in the last few months had excited, Fanny had never known so much felicity in her life, as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse with the brother and friend who was opening all his heart to her, telling her all his hopes and fears, plans, and solicitudes respecting that long thought of, dearly earned, and justly valued blessing of promotion; who could give her direct and minute information of the father and mother, brothers and sisters, of whom she very seldom heard; who was interested in all the comforts and all the little hardships of her home at Mansfield; ready to think of every member of that home as she directed, or differing only by a less scrupulous opinion, and more noisy abuse of their aunt Norris, and with whom (perhaps the dearest indulgence of the whole) all the evil and good of their earliest years could be gone over again, and every former united pain and pleasure retraced with the fondest recollection. An advantage this, a strengthener of love, in which even the conjugal tie is beneath the fraternal. Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connexions can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connexion can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived. Too often, alas! it is so. Fraternal love, sometimes almost everything, is at others worse than nothing. But with William and Fanny Price it was still a sentiment in all its prime and freshness, wounded by no opposition of interest, cooled by no separate attachment, and feeling the influence of time and absence only in its increase. An affection so amiable was advancing each in the opinion of all who had hearts to value anything good. Henry Crawford was as much struck with it as any. He honoured the warm-hearted, blunt fondness of the young sailor, which led him to say, with his hands stretched towards Fanny's head, "Do you know, I begin to like that queer fashion already, though when I first heard of such things being done in England, I could not believe it; and when Mrs. Brown, and the other women at the Commissioner's at Gibraltar, appeared in the same trim, I thought they were mad; but Fanny can reconcile me to anything"; and saw, with lively admiration, the glow of Fanny's cheek, the brightness of her eye, the deep interest, the absorbed attention, while her brother was describing any of the imminent hazards, or terrific scenes, which such a period at sea must supply. It was a picture which Henry Crawford had moral taste enough to value. Fanny's attractions increased-increased twofold; for the sensibility which beautified her complexion and illumined her countenance was an attraction in itself. He was no longer in doubt of the capabilities of her heart. She had feeling, genuine feeling. It would be something to be loved by such a girl, to excite the first ardours of her young unsophisticated mind! She interested him more than he had foreseen. A fortnight was not enough. His stay became indefinite. William was often called on by his uncle to be the talker. His recitals were amusing in themselves to Sir Thomas, but the chief object in seeking them was to understand the reciter, to know the young man by his histories; and he listened to his clear, simple, spirited details with full satisfaction, seeing in them the proof of good principles, professional knowledge, energy, courage, and cheerfulness, everything that could deserve or promise well. Young as he was, William had already seen a great deal. He had been in the Mediterranean; in the West Indies; in the Mediterranean again; had been often taken on shore by the favour of his captain, and in the course of seven years had known every variety of danger which sea and war together could offer. With such means in his power he had a right to be listened to; and though Mrs. Norris could fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of two needlefuls of thread or a second-hand shirt button, in the midst of her nephew's account of a shipwreck or an engagement, everybody else was attentive; and even Lady Bertram could not hear of such horrors unmoved, or without sometimes lifting her eyes from her work to say, "Dear me! how disagreeable! I wonder anybody can ever go to sea." To Henry Crawford they gave a different feeling. He longed to have been at sea, and seen and done and suffered as much. His heart was warmed, his fancy fired, and he felt the highest respect for a lad who, before he was twenty, had gone through such bodily hardships and given such proofs of mind. The glory of heroism, of usefulness, of exertion, of endurance, made his own habits of selfish indulgence appear in shameful contrast; and he wished he had been a William Price, distinguishing himself and working his way to fortune and consequence with so much self-respect and happy ardour, instead of what he was! The wish was rather eager than lasting. He was roused from the reverie of retrospection and regret produced by it, by some inquiry from Edmund as to his plans for the next day's hunting; and he found it was as well to be a man of fortune at once with horses and grooms at his command. In one respect it was better, as it gave him the means of conferring a kindness where he wished to oblige. With spirits, courage, and curiosity up to anything, William expressed an inclination to hunt; and Crawford could mount him without the slightest inconvenience to himself, and with only some scruples to obviate in Sir Thomas, who knew better than his nephew the value of such a loan, and some alarms to reason away in Fanny. She feared for William; by no means convinced by all that he could relate of his own horsemanship in various countries, of the scrambling parties in which he had been engaged, the rough horses and mules he had ridden, or his many narrow escapes from dreadful falls, that he was at all equal to the management of a high-fed hunter in an English fox-chase; nor till he returned safe and well, without accident or discredit, could she be reconciled to the risk, or feel any of that obligation to Mr. Crawford for lending the horse which he had fully intended it should produce. When it was proved, however, to have done William no harm, she could allow it to be a kindness, and even reward the owner with a smile when the animal was one minute tendered to his use again; and the next, with the greatest cordiality, and in a manner not to be resisted, made over to his use entirely so long as he remained in Northamptonshire.

Henry Crawford had made up his mind by the next morning to give another fortnight to Mansfield. Having sent for his hunters, he looked round at his sister, and said, with a smile, "How do you think I mean to amuse myself, Mary, on the days that I do not hunt?" "To walk and ride with me, to be sure." "Not exactly, though I shall be happy to do both, but that would be all recreation, without the wholesome alloy of labour, and I do not like to eat the bread of idleness. No, my plan is to make Fanny Price in love with me." "Fanny Price! Nonsense! No, no. You ought to be satisfied with her two cousins." "But I cannot be satisfied without making a small hole in Fanny Price's heart. You do not seem properly aware of the wonderful improvement that has taken place in her looks. You see her every day, and therefore do not notice it; but I assure you she is quite a different creature from what she was in the autumn. She was then merely a quiet, modest girl, but she is now absolutely pretty. I used to think she had neither complexion nor countenance; but in that soft skin of hers, there is decided beauty; and I do not despair of her eyes being capable of expression when she has anything to express. And then, her air is so indescribably improved! She must be grown two inches since October." "Phoo! phoo! This is only because there were no tall women to compare her with, and because she has got a new gown, and you never saw her so well dressed before. She is just what she was in October, believe me. The truth is, that she was the only girl in company for you to notice, and you must have a somebody. I have always thought her pretty enough; but as for this wonderful improvement, it may all be resolved into a better style of dress, and your having nobody else to look at. If you do set about a flirtation with her, it will proceed from nothing but your own idleness and folly." Her brother only smiled, and said, "I do not quite know what to make of Miss Fanny. Is she solemn? Is she prudish? Why did she look so grave at me? I could hardly get her to speak. I never met with a girl who looked so grave on me! I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, 'I will not like you, I am determined not to like you'; and I say she shall." "Foolish fellow! So this is her attraction! It is her not caring about you, which produces all these charms! You must not make her really unhappy; a little love, perhaps, may animate her, but I will not have you plunge her deep, for she is a good little creature, and has a great deal of feeling." "It can be but for a fortnight," said Henry; "and if a fortnight can kill her, she must have a constitution which nothing could save. No, I will not do her any harm, dear little soul! I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles, to keep a chair for me wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it; to think as I think, be interested in all my pleasures, and feel when I go away that she shall be never happy again. I want nothing more." "Moderation itself!" said Mary. "I can have no scruples now." And without any farther remonstrance, she left Fanny to her fate, a fate which, had not Fanny's heart been guarded in a way unsuspected by Miss Crawford, might have been a little harder than she deserved; for although there doubtless are such unconquerable young ladies of eighteen as can never be persuaded into love by talent, attention, and flattery, I have no inclination to believe Fanny one of them, or to think that she could have escaped heart-whole from the courtship of such a man as Crawford, if her affection had not been engaged elsewhere. His continued attentions, adapted to the gentleness of her character, obliged her soon to dislike him less than formerly. She had not forgotten the past, and she thought as ill of him as ever; but she felt his powers: he was entertaining; and his manners were so improved that it was impossible not to be civil to him in return. A few days were enough to effect this; and then happy circumstances arose which disposed her to be pleased with everybody. William, the long absent and dearly loved brother, was in England. She had a letter from him, written as the ship came up the Channel; and when Crawford walked up with the newspaper in his hand, which he had hoped would bring the first tidings, he found her trembling with joy over this letter, and listening with a glowing countenance to the kind invitation to her brother which her uncle was dictating. It was but the day before that Crawford had become aware of her having such a brother, or his being in such a ship; but he had hunted for information as to the probable date of the ship's return; and had found it in the newspaper the next morning. He proved, however, to be too late. All those fine first feelings, of which he hoped to be the exciter, were already given. But the kindness of his intention was thankfully acknowledged: for she was elevated beyond her usual timidity by her love for William. This dear William would soon be amongst them. His reply came, fixing an early day for his arrival; and scarcely ten days later, Fanny found herself watching in the hall, in the lobby, on the stairs, for the first sound of the carriage which was to bring her a brother. It came; and their meeting, and first minutes of exquisite feeling, had no interruption and no witnesses. This was exactly what Sir Thomas and Edmund had been conniving at, and why they both advised Mrs. Norris's staying where she was, instead of rushing out into the hall as soon as the noises of arrival reached them. William and Fanny soon showed themselves; and Sir Thomas had the pleasure of receiving, in his protg, a young man of an open, pleasant countenance, and frank, unstudied, but respectful manners. It was long before Fanny could recover from the agitating happiness of such an hour; it was some time even before her happiness could be said to make her happy, and she could talk to him as her heart had been yearning to do through many a past year. That time, however, did come, aided by an affection on his side as warm as her own, and much less encumbered by self-distrust. She was the first object of his love, a love which his bolder temper made it natural for him to express. On the morrow they were walking about together with true enjoyment, and every succeeding morrow renewed a tte--tte which Sir Thomas observed with complacency. Except for the moments of delight caused by any instance of Edmund's consideration of her, Fanny had never known so much joy, as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse with the brother and friend who was opening all his heart to her, telling her all his hopes, fears and plans respecting his promotion; who could give her information of the family of whom she very seldom heard; who was interested in all the comforts and little hardships of her home at Mansfield; ready to think of every member of that home as she directed, or differing only by more noisy abuse of their aunt Norris, and with whom (perhaps the dearest indulgence of all) all their earliest years could be gone over again, and every former pain and pleasure fondly recollected. It must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, if such precious memories shared by members of a family are outlived. Too often, alas! it is so. Fraternal love is at times worse than nothing. But with William and Fanny Price it was still in its prime and freshness. Henry Crawford was much struck with their mutual affection. He honoured the warm-hearted, blunt fondness of the young sailor, which led him to say, with his hands stretched towards Fanny's head, "Do you know, I begin to like that queer fashion, though when the women at the Commissioner's at Gibraltar appeared in the same trim, I thought they were mad; but Fanny can reconcile me to anything". He saw, with admiration, the glow of Fanny's cheek, the brightness of her eye, the absorbed attention, while her brother was describing the hazards of his life at sea. It was a picture which Henry Crawford had moral taste enough to value. Fanny's attractions increased twofold; for he no longer doubted the capabilities of her heart. She had feeling, genuine feeling. It would be something to be loved by such a girl, to excite the first ardours of her unsophisticated mind! She interested him more than he had foreseen. A fortnight was not enough. His stay became indefinite. William was often called on by his uncle to be the talker. His recitals were amusing to Sir Thomas, but the chief object in seeking them was to understand the reciter, to know the young man; and he listened to his clear, simple, spirited details with satisfaction, seeing in them the proof of good principles, professional knowledge, energy, courage, and cheerfulness. Young as he was, William had already seen a great deal. He had been in the Mediterranean and the West Indies; had been often taken on shore by the favour of his captain, and in seven years had known every danger which sea and war could offer. Though Mrs. Norris could fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of thread or a shirt button in the midst of her nephew's account of a shipwreck, everybody else was attentive; and even Lady Bertram could not hear of such horrors without sometimes lifting her eyes from her work to say, "How disagreeable! I wonder anybody can ever go to sea." To Henry Crawford they gave a different feeling. He longed to have seen and done as much. His heart was warmed, his fancy fired, and he felt the highest respect for a lad who, before he was twenty, had gone through such hardships. The glory of heroism, of usefulness, of exertion, of endurance, made his own habits appear in shameful contrast; and he wished he had been a William Price, instead of what he was! The wish was not lasting. He was roused from his regret by some inquiry from Edmund as to the next day's hunting; and he found it was as well to be a man of fortune with horses and grooms at his command. In one respect it was better, as it gave him the means of conferring a kindness to William, who expressed a wish to hunt. Crawford could mount him without inconvenience to himself, and with only some alarms to reason away in Fanny. She feared for William; by no means convinced by all that he could relate of his own horsemanship in various rough countries, that he was at all equal to the management of a high-fed hunter in an English fox-chase. Till he returned safe and well, she could not feel any gratitude to Mr. Crawford for lending the horse. When it was proved, however, to have done William no harm, she could reward the owner with a smile. With the greatest cordiality, Mr Crawford gave William the horse for his use so long as he remained in Northamptonshire.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 24

Edmund's first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his judgment in it very doubtful. He was anxious, while vindicating himself, to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence or palliation. "We have all been more or less to blame," said he, "every one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout; who has been consistent. _Her_ feelings have been steadily against it from first to last. She never ceased to think of what was due to you. You will find Fanny everything you could wish." Sir Thomas saw all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party, and at such a time, as strongly as his son had ever supposed he must; he felt it too much, indeed, for many words; and having shaken hands with Edmund, meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression, and forget how much he had been forgotten himself as soon as he could, after the house had been cleared of every object enforcing the remembrance, and restored to its proper state. He did not enter into any remonstrance with his other children: he was more willing to believe they felt their error than to run the risk of investigation. The reproof of an immediate conclusion of everything, the sweep of every preparation, would be sufficient. There was one person, however, in the house, whom he could not leave to learn his sentiments merely through his conduct. He could not help giving Mrs. Norris a hint of his having hoped that her advice might have been interposed to prevent what her judgment must certainly have disapproved. The young people had been very inconsiderate in forming the plan; they ought to have been capable of a better decision themselves; but they were young; and, excepting Edmund, he believed, of unsteady characters; and with greater surprise, therefore, he must regard her acquiescence in their wrong measures, her countenance of their unsafe amusements, than that such measures and such amusements should have been suggested. Mrs. Norris was a little confounded and as nearly being silenced as ever she had been in her life; for she was ashamed to confess having never seen any of the impropriety which was so glaring to Sir Thomas, and would not have admitted that her influence was insufficient-that she might have talked in vain. Her only resource was to get out of the subject as fast as possible, and turn the current of Sir Thomas's ideas into a happier channel. She had a great deal to insinuate in her own praise as to _general_ attention to the interest and comfort of his family, much exertion and many sacrifices to glance at in the form of hurried walks and sudden removals from her own fireside, and many excellent hints of distrust and economy to Lady Bertram and Edmund to detail, whereby a most considerable saving had always arisen, and more than one bad servant been detected. But her chief strength lay in Sotherton. Her greatest support and glory was in having formed the connexion with the Rushworths. _There_ she was impregnable. She took to herself all the credit of bringing Mr. Rushworth's admiration of Maria to any effect. "If I had not been active," said she, "and made a point of being introduced to his mother, and then prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit, I am as certain as I sit here that nothing would have come of it; for Mr. Rushworth is the sort of amiable modest young man who wants a great deal of encouragement, and there were girls enough on the catch for him if we had been idle. But I left no stone unturned. I was ready to move heaven and earth to persuade my sister, and at last I did persuade her. You know the distance to Sotherton; it was in the middle of winter, and the roads almost impassable, but I did persuade her." "I know how great, how justly great, your influence is with Lady Bertram and her children, and am the more concerned that it should not have been-" "My dear Sir Thomas, if you had seen the state of the roads _that_ day! I thought we should never have got through them, though we had the four horses of course; and poor old coachman would attend us, out of his great love and kindness, though he was hardly able to sit the box on account of the rheumatism which I had been doctoring him for ever since Michaelmas. I cured him at last; but he was very bad all the winter-and this was such a day, I could not help going to him up in his room before we set off to advise him not to venture: he was putting on his wig; so I said, 'Coachman, you had much better not go; your Lady and I shall be very safe; you know how steady Stephen is, and Charles has been upon the leaders so often now, that I am sure there is no fear.' But, however, I soon found it would not do; he was bent upon going, and as I hate to be worrying and officious, I said no more; but my heart quite ached for him at every jolt, and when we got into the rough lanes about Stoke, where, what with frost and snow upon beds of stones, it was worse than anything you can imagine, I was quite in an agony about him. And then the poor horses too! To see them straining away! You know how I always feel for the horses. And when we got to the bottom of Sandcroft Hill, what do you think I did? You will laugh at me; but I got out and walked up. I did indeed. It might not be saving them much, but it was something, and I could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of those noble animals. I caught a dreadful cold, but _that_ I did not regard. My object was accomplished in the visit." "I hope we shall always think the acquaintance worth any trouble that might be taken to establish it. There is nothing very striking in Mr. Rushworth's manners, but I was pleased last night with what appeared to be his opinion on one subject: his decided preference of a quiet family party to the bustle and confusion of acting. He seemed to feel exactly as one could wish." "Yes, indeed, and the more you know of him the better you will like him. He is not a shining character, but he has a thousand good qualities; and is so disposed to look up to you, that I am quite laughed at about it, for everybody considers it as my doing. 'Upon my word, Mrs. Norris,' said Mrs. Grant the other day, 'if Mr. Rushworth were a son of your own, he could not hold Sir Thomas in greater respect.'" Sir Thomas gave up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness did sometimes overpower her judgment. It was a busy morning with him. Conversation with any of them occupied but a small part of it. He had to reinstate himself in all the wonted concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to examine and compute, and, in the intervals of business, to walk into his stables and his gardens, and nearest plantations; but active and methodical, he had not only done all this before he resumed his seat as master of the house at dinner, he had also set the carpenter to work in pulling down what had been so lately put up in the billiard-room, and given the scene-painter his dismissal long enough to justify the pleasing belief of his being then at least as far off as Northampton. The scene-painter was gone, having spoilt only the floor of one room, ruined all the coachman's sponges, and made five of the under-servants idle and dissatisfied; and Sir Thomas was in hopes that another day or two would suffice to wipe away every outward memento of what had been, even to the destruction of every unbound copy of Lovers' Vows in the house, for he was burning all that met his eye. Mr. Yates was beginning now to understand Sir Thomas's intentions, though as far as ever from understanding their source. He and his friend had been out with their guns the chief of the morning, and Tom had taken the opportunity of explaining, with proper apologies for his father's particularity, what was to be expected. Mr. Yates felt it as acutely as might be supposed. To be a second time disappointed in the same way was an instance of very severe ill-luck; and his indignation was such, that had it not been for delicacy towards his friend, and his friend's youngest sister, he believed he should certainly attack the baronet on the absurdity of his proceedings, and argue him into a little more rationality. He believed this very stoutly while he was in Mansfield Wood, and all the way home; but there was a something in Sir Thomas, when they sat round the same table, which made Mr. Yates think it wiser to let him pursue his own way, and feel the folly of it without opposition. He had known many disagreeable fathers before, and often been struck with the inconveniences they occasioned, but never, in the whole course of his life, had he seen one of that class so unintelligibly moral, so infamously tyrannical as Sir Thomas. He was not a man to be endured but for his children's sake, and he might be thankful to his fair daughter Julia that Mr. Yates did yet mean to stay a few days longer under his roof. The evening passed with external smoothness, though almost every mind was ruffled; and the music which Sir Thomas called for from his daughters helped to conceal the want of real harmony. Maria was in a good deal of agitation. It was of the utmost consequence to her that Crawford should now lose no time in declaring himself, and she was disturbed that even a day should be gone by without seeming to advance that point. She had been expecting to see him the whole morning, and all the evening, too, was still expecting him. Mr. Rushworth had set off early with the great news for Sotherton; and she had fondly hoped for such an immediate _eclaircissement_ as might save him the trouble of ever coming back again. But they had seen no one from the Parsonage, not a creature, and had heard no tidings beyond a friendly note of congratulation and inquiry from Mrs. Grant to Lady Bertram. It was the first day for many, many weeks, in which the families had been wholly divided. Four-and-twenty hours had never passed before, since August began, without bringing them together in some way or other. It was a sad, anxious day; and the morrow, though differing in the sort of evil, did by no means bring less. A few moments of feverish enjoyment were followed by hours of acute suffering. Henry Crawford was again in the house: he walked up with Dr. Grant, who was anxious to pay his respects to Sir Thomas, and at rather an early hour they were ushered into the breakfast-room, where were most of the family. Sir Thomas soon appeared, and Maria saw with delight and agitation the introduction of the man she loved to her father. Her sensations were indefinable, and so were they a few minutes afterwards upon hearing Henry Crawford, who had a chair between herself and Tom, ask the latter in an undervoice whether there were any plans for resuming the play after the present happy interruption (with a courteous glance at Sir Thomas), because, in that case, he should make a point of returning to Mansfield at any time required by the party: he was going away immediately, being to meet his uncle at Bath without delay; but if there were any prospect of a renewal of Lovers' Vows, he should hold himself positively engaged, he should break through every other claim, he should absolutely condition with his uncle for attending them whenever he might be wanted. The play should not be lost by _his_ absence. "From Bath, Norfolk, London, York, wherever I may be," said he; "I will attend you from any place in England, at an hour's notice." It was well at that moment that Tom had to speak, and not his sister. He could immediately say with easy fluency, "I am sorry you are going; but as to our play, _that_ is all over-entirely at an end" (looking significantly at his father). "The painter was sent off yesterday, and very little will remain of the theatre to-morrow. I knew how _that_ would be from the first. It is early for Bath. You will find nobody there." "It is about my uncle's usual time." "When do you think of going?" "I may, perhaps, get as far as Banbury to-day." "Whose stables do you use at Bath?" was the next question; and while this branch of the subject was under discussion, Maria, who wanted neither pride nor resolution, was preparing to encounter her share of it with tolerable calmness. To her he soon turned, repeating much of what he had already said, with only a softened air and stronger expressions of regret. But what availed his expressions or his air? He was going, and, if not voluntarily going, voluntarily intending to stay away; for, excepting what might be due to his uncle, his engagements were all self-imposed. He might talk of necessity, but she knew his independence. The hand which had so pressed hers to his heart! the hand and the heart were alike motionless and passive now! Her spirit supported her, but the agony of her mind was severe. She had not long to endure what arose from listening to language which his actions contradicted, or to bury the tumult of her feelings under the restraint of society; for general civilities soon called his notice from her, and the farewell visit, as it then became openly acknowledged, was a very short one. He was gone-he had touched her hand for the last time, he had made his parting bow, and she might seek directly all that solitude could do for her. Henry Crawford was gone, gone from the house, and within two hours afterwards from the parish; and so ended all the hopes his selfish vanity had raised in Maria and Julia Bertram. Julia could rejoice that he was gone. His presence was beginning to be odious to her; and if Maria gained him not, she was now cool enough to dispense with any other revenge. She did not want exposure to be added to desertion. Henry Crawford gone, she could even pity her sister. With a purer spirit did Fanny rejoice in the intelligence. She heard it at dinner, and felt it a blessing. By all the others it was mentioned with regret; and his merits honoured with due gradation of feeling-from the sincerity of Edmund's too partial regard, to the unconcern of his mother speaking entirely by rote. Mrs. Norris began to look about her, and wonder that his falling in love with Julia had come to nothing; and could almost fear that she had been remiss herself in forwarding it; but with so many to care for, how was it possible for even _her_ activity to keep pace with her wishes? Another day or two, and Mr. Yates was gone likewise. In _his_ departure Sir Thomas felt the chief interest: wanting to be alone with his family, the presence of a stranger superior to Mr. Yates must have been irksome; but of him, trifling and confident, idle and expensive, it was every way vexatious. In himself he was wearisome, but as the friend of Tom and the admirer of Julia he became offensive. Sir Thomas had been quite indifferent to Mr. Crawford's going or staying: but his good wishes for Mr. Yates's having a pleasant journey, as he walked with him to the hall-door, were given with genuine satisfaction. Mr. Yates had staid to see the destruction of every theatrical preparation at Mansfield, the removal of everything appertaining to the play: he left the house in all the soberness of its general character; and Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of it, to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme, and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence. Mrs. Norris contrived to remove one article from his sight that might have distressed him. The curtain, over which she had presided with such talent and such success, went off with her to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in want of green baize.

Edmund's first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own share in it as far only as he could feel his motives to deserve. He was anxious to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one whose conduct he could mention without necessity of defence. "We have all been to blame," said he, "excepting Fanny. Fanny has judged rightly throughout. Her feelings have been steadily against it from first to last. She never ceased to think of what was due to you. You will find Fanny everything you could wish." Sir Thomas saw all the impropriety of the scheme as strongly as his son had supposed. Having shaken hands with Edmund, he meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression as soon as the house had been restored to its proper state. He did not remonstrate with his other children: he was willing to believe they felt their error. There was one person, however, to whom he must speak. He hinted to Mrs. Norris that he hoped she might have advised the young people against the play. They ought to have been capable of a better decision themselves; but they were young; and, excepting Edmund, of unsteady characters. He was greatly surprised at her allowing their unsafe amusements. Mrs. Norris was a little confounded and as close to being silenced as ever she had been in her life; for she was ashamed to confess to having never seen any of the impropriety which was so glaring to Sir Thomas. Her only resource was to get out of the subject as fast as possible. She had a great deal to say in her own praise as to her exertion and many sacrifices and economies, whereby a considerable saving had arisen. But her chief strength lay in Sotherton. Her greatest glory was in having formed the connexion with the Rushworths. There she was impregnable. She took all the credit. "If I had not been active," said she, "and prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit, nothing would have come of it; for Mr. Rushworth is a modest young man who wants encouragement. But I left no stone unturned. I was ready to move heaven and earth to persuade my sister. You know the distance to Sotherton; it was in the middle of winter, and the roads almost impassable, but I did persuade her." "I know how great your influence is with Lady Bertram and her children, and am the more concerned that it should not have been on the occasion of the play." "My dear Sir Thomas, if you had seen the state of the roads that day! I thought we should never have got through, though we had the four horses; and poor old coachman would attend us, though he was hardly able to sit on account of the rheumatism which I had been doctoring him for ever since Michaelmas. I cured him at last; but he was very bad all the winter, and I said to him, 'Coachman, you had much better not go.' But he was bent upon going, and as I hate to be officious, I said no more; but my heart quite ached for him at every jolt, and when we got into the rough lanes about Stoke, I was quite in an agony about him. And then the poor horses too! You know how I always feel for the horses. When we got to the bottom of Sandcroft Hill, what do you think I did? You will laugh at me; but I got out and walked up. I did indeed. It might not be saving them much, but it was something, and I could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of those noble animals. I caught a dreadful cold, but that I did not regard. My object was accomplished in the visit." "I hope we shall always think the acquaintance worth any trouble that might be taken to establish it. There is nothing very striking in Mr. Rushworth's manners, but I was pleased last night with his opinion on one subject: his decided preference of a quiet family party to the bustle of acting." "Yes, indeed. He is not a shining character, but he has a thousand good qualities; and is so disposed to look up to you, that I am quite laughed at about it, for everybody considers it as my doing. 'Upon my word, Mrs. Norris,' said Mrs. Grant the other day, 'if Mr. Rushworth were a son of your own, he could not hold Sir Thomas in greater respect.'" Sir Thomas gave up, foiled by her evasions and disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to be satisfied with the conviction that her kindness sometimes overpowered her judgment. It was a busy morning for him. He had to reinstate himself in all the concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to visit his stables, gardens and plantations; but, active and methodical, he had not only done all this before dinner, he had also set the carpenter to work in pulling down the theatre. The scene-painter was gone, having only spoilt the floor of one room, ruined all the coachman's sponges, and made five of the under-servants idle and dissatisfied; and Sir Thomas hoped that another day or two would suffice to wipe away every outward memento of what had been, even to the destruction of every copy of Lovers' Vows in the house, for he was burning all that met his eye. Mr. Yates was beginning now to understand Sir Thomas's intentions. He and his friend had been out with their guns, and Tom had explained what was to be expected. Mr. Yates felt it acutely. To be a second time disappointed in the same way was severe ill-luck; and had it not been for delicacy towards his friend, and his friend's youngest sister, he believed he should certainly attack the baronet on the absurdity of his proceedings. He believed this very stoutly all the way home; but there was a something in Sir Thomas, when they sat round the table, which made Mr. Yates think it wiser to let him pursue his own way. He had known many disagreeable fathers before, but never had he seen one so tyrannical as Sir Thomas. He might be thankful to his fair daughter Julia that Mr. Yates meant to stay a few days longer under his roof. The evening passed with external smoothness, though every mind was ruffled; and the music which Sir Thomas called for from his daughters helped to conceal the want of real harmony. Maria was in a good deal of agitation. It was of the utmost consequence to her that Crawford should now lose no time in declaring himself, and she was disturbed that even a day should go by without seeming to advance that point. She had been expecting to see him the whole day, and was still expecting him. Mr. Rushworth had set off for Sotherton; and she had fondly hoped for such an immediate declaration as might save him the trouble of ever coming back again. But they had seen no one from the Parsonage, and had heard no tidings beyond a friendly note from Mrs. Grant to Lady Bertram. It was a sad, anxious day; and the morrow brought more evil for Maria. A few moments of feverish enjoyment were followed by hours of acute suffering. Henry Crawford was again in the house: he walked up with Dr. Grant, and they were ushered into the breakfast-room. Sir Thomas appeared, and Maria saw with delight and agitation the introduction of the man she loved to her father. Her sensations were indefinable, and so were they a few minutes afterwards upon hearing Henry Crawford ask Tom in an undervoice whether there were any plans for resuming the play, because, in that case, he should make a point of returning to Mansfield at any time required by the party. He was going away immediately to meet his uncle at Bath; but if there were any prospect of a renewal of Lovers' Vows, he should hold himself engaged, and break through every other claim. "From Bath, Norfolk, London, wherever I may be," said he; "I will attend you at an hour's notice." Tom said, "I am sorry you are going; but our play is entirely at an end. The painter was sent off yesterday, and little will remain of the theatre tomorrow. It is early for Bath. You will find nobody there." "It is my uncle's usual time." "When do you think of going?" "I may, perhaps, get as far as Banbury to-day." "Whose stables do you use at Bath?" was the next question; and while this was under discussion, Maria, who wanted neither pride nor resolution, prepared herself with tolerable calmness. To her he soon turned, repeating what he had already said, with only a softened air and stronger expressions of regret. But what availed his expressions or his air? He was going, and intending to stay away; for, excepting what might be due to his uncle, his engagements were all self-imposed. He might talk of necessity, but she knew his independence. The hand which had so pressed hers to his heart! hand and heart were alike motionless and passive now! Her spirit supported her, but the agony of her mind was severe. She had not long to bury the tumult of her feelings; for the farewell visit was a very short one. He was gone-he had touched her hand for the last time. Henry Crawford was gone, gone from the house, and two hours afterwards from the parish; and so ended all the hopes his selfish vanity had raised in Maria and Julia Bertram. Julia could rejoice that he was gone. His presence was beginning to be odious to her. Henry Crawford gone, she could even pity her sister. With a purer spirit did Fanny rejoice in the news. She heard it at dinner, and felt it a blessing. By all the others it was mentioned with regret; Mrs. Norris began to wonder that his falling in love with Julia had come to nothing. Another day or two, and Mr. Yates was gone likewise. Sir Thomas had been quite indifferent to Mr. Crawford's going or staying: but his goodbyes to Mr. Yates were given with genuine satisfaction. Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of the house, to be rid of the worst object connected with the theatrical scheme, and now the theatre was dismantled, the last that must be reminding him of its existence. Mrs. Norris contrived to remove one article from his sight that might have distressed him. The curtain, over which she had presided with such talent and success, went off with her to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in want of green baize.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 20

Fanny was right enough in not expecting to hear from Miss Crawford now at the rapid rate in which their correspondence had begun; Mary's next letter was after a decidedly longer interval than the last, but she was not right in supposing that such an interval would be felt a great relief to herself. Here was another strange revolution of mind! She was really glad to receive the letter when it did come. In her present exile from good society, and distance from everything that had been wont to interest her, a letter from one belonging to the set where her heart lived, written with affection, and some degree of elegance, was thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of increasing engagements was made in excuse for not having written to her earlier; "And now that I have begun," she continued, "my letter will not be worth your reading, for there will be no little offering of love at the end, no three or four lines _passionnes_ from the most devoted H. C. in the world, for Henry is in Norfolk; business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or perhaps he only pretended the call, for the sake of being travelling at the same time that you were. But there he is, and, by the bye, his absence may sufficiently account for any remissness of his sister's in writing, for there has been no 'Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny? Is not it time for you to write to Fanny?' to spur me on. At last, after various attempts at meeting, I have seen your cousins, 'dear Julia and dearest Mrs. Rushworth'; they found me at home yesterday, and we were glad to see each other again. We _seemed_ _very_ glad to see each other, and I do really think we were a little. We had a vast deal to say. Shall I tell you how Mrs. Rushworth looked when your name was mentioned? I did not use to think her wanting in self-possession, but she had not quite enough for the demands of yesterday. Upon the whole, Julia was in the best looks of the two, at least after you were spoken of. There was no recovering the complexion from the moment that I spoke of 'Fanny,' and spoke of her as a sister should. But Mrs. Rushworth's day of good looks will come; we have cards for her first party on the 28th. Then she will be in beauty, for she will open one of the best houses in Wimpole Street. I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle's, and prefer it to almost any I know in London, and certainly she will then feel, to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her penny. Henry could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will recollect it, and be satisfied, as well as she may, with moving the queen of a palace, though the king may appear best in the background; and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never _force_ your name upon her again. She will grow sober by degrees. From all that I hear and guess, Baron Wildenheim's attentions to Julia continue, but I do not know that he has any serious encouragement. She ought to do better. A poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine any liking in the case, for take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothing. What a difference a vowel makes! If his rents were but equal to his rants! Your cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish duties. There may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a _young_ one. Adieu! my dear sweet Fanny, this is a long letter from London: write me a pretty one in reply to gladden Henry's eyes, when he comes back, and send me an account of all the dashing young captains whom you disdain for his sake." There was great food for meditation in this letter, and chiefly for unpleasant meditation; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied, it connected her with the absent, it told her of people and things about whom she had never felt so much curiosity as now, and she would have been glad to have been sure of such a letter every week. Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only concern of higher interest. As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends for deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her father's and mother's acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction: she saw nobody in whose favour she could wish to overcome her own shyness and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert, everybody underbred; and she gave as little contentment as she received from introductions either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies who approached her at first with some respect, in consideration of her coming from a baronet's family, were soon offended by what they termed "airs"; for, as she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine pelisses, they could, on farther observation, admit no right of superiority. The first solid consolation which Fanny received for the evils of home, the first which her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any promise of durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of being of service to her. Susan had always behaved pleasantly to herself, but the determined character of her general manners had astonished and alarmed her, and it was at least a fortnight before she began to understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan saw that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girl of fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err in the method of reform, was not wonderful; and Fanny soon became more disposed to admire the natural light of the mind which could so early distinguish justly, than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it led. Susan was only acting on the same truths, and pursuing the same system, which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine and yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be useful, where _she_ could only have gone away and cried; and that Susan was useful she could perceive; that things, bad as they were, would have been worse but for such interposition, and that both her mother and Betsey were restrained from some excesses of very offensive indulgence and vulgarity. In every argument with her mother, Susan had in point of reason the advantage, and never was there any maternal tenderness to buy her off. The blind fondness which was for ever producing evil around her she had never known. There was no gratitude for affection past or present to make her better bear with its excesses to the others. All this became gradually evident, and gradually placed Susan before her sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect. That her manner was wrong, however, at times very wrong, her measures often ill-chosen and ill-timed, and her looks and language very often indefensible, Fanny could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they might be rectified. Susan, she found, looked up to her and wished for her good opinion; and new as anything like an office of authority was to Fanny, new as it was to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one, she did resolve to give occasional hints to Susan, and endeavour to exercise for her advantage the juster notions of what was due to everybody, and what would be wisest for herself, which her own more favoured education had fixed in her. Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it, originated in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after many hesitations of delicacy, she at last worked herself up to. It had very early occurred to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for ever on the sore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it now was continually, and the riches which she was in possession of herself, her uncle having given her 10 at parting, made her as able as she was willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused to confer favours, except on the very poor, so unpractised in removing evils, or bestowing kindnesses among her equals, and so fearful of appearing to elevate herself as a great lady at home, that it took some time to determine that it would not be unbecoming in her to make such a present. It was made, however, at last: a silver knife was bought for Betsey, and accepted with great delight, its newness giving it every advantage over the other that could be desired; Susan was established in the full possession of her own, Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got one so much prettier herself, she should never want _that_ again; and no reproach seemed conveyed to the equally satisfied mother, which Fanny had almost feared to be impossible. The deed thoroughly answered: a source of domestic altercation was entirely done away, and it was the means of opening Susan's heart to her, and giving her something more to love and be interested in. Susan shewed that she had delicacy: pleased as she was to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for at least two years, she yet feared that her sister's judgment had been against her, and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggled as to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity of the house. Her temper was open. She acknowledged her fears, blamed herself for having contended so warmly; and from that hour Fanny, understanding the worth of her disposition and perceiving how fully she was inclined to seek her good opinion and refer to her judgment, began to feel again the blessing of affection, and to entertain the hope of being useful to a mind so much in need of help, and so much deserving it. She gave advice, advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding, and given so mildly and considerately as not to irritate an imperfect temper, and she had the happiness of observing its good effects not unfrequently. More was not expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic acuteness of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a girl like Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subject soon became-not that Susan should have been provoked into disrespect and impatience against her better knowledge-but that so much better knowledge, so many good notions should have been hers at all; and that, brought up in the midst of negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions of what ought to be; she, who had had no cousin Edmund to direct her thoughts or fix her principles. The intimacy thus begun between them was a material advantage to each. By sitting together upstairs, they avoided a great deal of the disturbance of the house; Fanny had peace, and Susan learned to think it no misfortune to be quietly employed. They sat without a fire; but that was a privation familiar even to Fanny, and she suffered the less because reminded by it of the East room. It was the only point of resemblance. In space, light, furniture, and prospect, there was nothing alike in the two apartments; and she often heaved a sigh at the remembrance of all her books and boxes, and various comforts there. By degrees the girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs, at first only in working and talking, but after a few days, the remembrance of the said books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny found it impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father's house; but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers found its way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber; amazed at being anything _in propria persona_, amazed at her own doings in every way, to be a renter, a chuser of books! And to be having any one's improvement in view in her choice! But so it was. Susan had read nothing, and Fanny longed to give her a share in her own first pleasures, and inspire a taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself. In this occupation she hoped, moreover, to bury some of the recollections of Mansfield, which were too apt to seize her mind if her fingers only were busy; and, especially at this time, hoped it might be useful in diverting her thoughts from pursuing Edmund to London, whither, on the authority of her aunt's last letter, she knew he was gone. She had no doubt of what would ensue. The promised notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors, and if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.

Fanny was right in not expecting to hear from Miss Crawford so regularly; Mary's next letter was after a decidedly longer interval than the last, but she was not right in supposing that such an interval would be a great relief. Here was another strange revolution of mind! She was really glad to receive the letter when it did come. In her present exile from good society, a letter from one belonging to the set where her heart lived, written with affection and elegance, was thoroughly acceptable. "My letter will not be worth your reading," Mary wrote, "for there will be no little offering of love at the end from the most devoted H. C. in the world, as Henry is in Norfolk. Business called him to Everingham, and his absence may account for his sister's remissness in writing, for there has been no 'Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny? Is not it time for you to write?' to spur me on. At last, I have seen your cousins, 'dear Julia and dearest Mrs. Rushworth'. We seemed very glad to see each other, and I do really think we were a little. We had a vast deal to say. Shall I tell you how Mrs. Rushworth looked when your name was mentioned? She had not quite self-possession enough for the demands of yesterday. Julia was in the best looks of the two, at least after you were spoken of. But Mrs. Rushworth's day of good looks will come; we have invitations for her first party on the 28th. Then she will be in beauty, for she will open one of the best houses in Wimpole Street. Henry could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will be satisfied with being the queen of a palace, though the king may be best in the background. As I have no desire to tease her, I shall never force your name upon her again. From all that I hear, Baron Wildenheim's attentions to Julia continue, but without serious encouragement. She ought to do better. A poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine that she likes him, for take away his rants, and the baron has nothing. If his rents were only equal to his rants! Your cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish duties. There may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a young one. Adieu! my dear sweet Fanny: write me a pretty reply to gladden Henry's eyes, and send me an account of all the dashing young captains whom you disdain for his sake." There was great food for meditation in this letter; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied, it connected her with the absent, and she would have been glad to have such a letter every week. Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only concern of higher interest. As for any society in Portsmouth, there were none amongst her parents' acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction. The men appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert; and she gave as little contentment as she received. The young ladies who approached her at first with some respect, were soon offended by what they termed "airs"; for, as she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine furs, they could admit no superiority. The first consolation which Fanny received for the evils of home, was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of being of service to her. Susan had always behaved pleasantly to Fanny, but the determined character of her general manners had astonished her, and it was a fortnight before she began to understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan saw that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girl of fourteen, without guidance, should err in the method of reform, was not extraordinary; and Fanny soon came to admire the mind which could so early distinguish justly. Susan was only acting on the same truths which Fanny herself acknowledged, but which her more yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be useful, where she could only have gone away and cried; and that Susan was useful she could perceive. Bad as they were, things would have been worse without her intervention, and both her mother and Betsey were restrained from some excesses of very offensive vulgarity. All this became evident, and gradually placed Susan before her sister as an object of compassion and respect. That her manner was wrong, her measures often ill-chosen and ill-timed, and her looks and language often indefensible, Fanny could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they might be rectified. Susan looked up to her and wished for her good opinion; and new as it was to Fanny to imagine herself capable of guiding anyone, she did resolve to give occasional hints to her. Her influence began in an act of kindness to Susan, which, after many hesitations, she at last worked herself up to. It had occurred to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for ever on the sore subject of the silver knife; and the riches which her uncle had given her made her able to be generous. But she was so wholly unused to confer favours, and so fearful of appearing to elevate herself as a great lady, that it took some time to decide to make such a present. It was made, however, at last. A silver knife was bought for Betsey, and accepted with great delight, its newness giving it every advantage over the other. Susan was established in the full possession of her own, Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got one so much prettier herself, she should never want that again; and the mother was equally satisfied. It was the means of opening Susan's heart, and giving Fanny something more to love and be interested in. Susan showed that she had delicacy: although she was pleased to be mistress of her property, she feared that her sister's judgment had been against her, and that a reproof was designed her in the purchase, made necessary for the tranquillity of the house. Her temper was open. She acknowledged her fears and blamed herself for having argued so heatedly. Fanny, understanding her worth and perceiving how much she wished for her good opinion, began to hope of being useful to a mind so much needing and deserving help. She gave sound advice, yet so mildly and considerately as not to irritate an imperfect temper, and she had the happiness of observing its good effects. She saw with acute sympathy all that must be hourly grating to a girl like Susan. Her greatest wonder soon became-not that Susan should have been provoked into disrespect and impatience-but that so many good notions should have been hers at all; and that, brought up in the midst of negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions of what ought to be; even with no cousin Edmund to fix her principles. The intimacy thus begun between them benefited each. By sitting together upstairs, they avoided much of the disturbance of the house; Fanny had peace, and Susan learned to enjoy being quietly employed. They sat without a fire; but that was a hardship familiar to Fanny, and she suffered less because reminded by it of the East room. It was the only point of resemblance. In space, light, furniture, and prospect, there was nothing alike in the two apartments; and she often heaved a sigh as she remembered all her books and comforts. By degrees the girls came to spend most of the morning upstairs, working and talking, but after a few days, Fanny found it impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father's house; but she became a subscriber to a circulating library, amazed at becoming a renter, a chooser of books! But so it was. Susan had read nothing, and Fanny longed to give her a share in her own first pleasures in biography and poetry. She hoped, moreover, that it might be useful in diverting her own thoughts from pursuing Edmund to London, where she knew he was now gone. She had no doubt of what would follow. The postman's knock was beginning to bring daily terrors, and if reading could banish the idea for half an hour, it was something gained.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 40

It was presumed that Mr. Crawford was travelling back, to London, on the morrow, for nothing more was seen of him at Mr. Price's; and two days afterwards, it was a fact ascertained to Fanny by the following letter from his sister, opened and read by her, on another account, with the most anxious curiosity:- "I have to inform you, my dearest Fanny, that Henry has been down to Portsmouth to see you; that he had a delightful walk with you to the dockyard last Saturday, and one still more to be dwelt on the next day, on the ramparts; when the balmy air, the sparkling sea, and your sweet looks and conversation were altogether in the most delicious harmony, and afforded sensations which are to raise ecstasy even in retrospect. This, as well as I understand, is to be the substance of my information. He makes me write, but I do not know what else is to be communicated, except this said visit to Portsmouth, and these two said walks, and his introduction to your family, especially to a fair sister of yours, a fine girl of fifteen, who was of the party on the ramparts, taking her first lesson, I presume, in love. I have not time for writing much, but it would be out of place if I had, for this is to be a mere letter of business, penned for the purpose of conveying necessary information, which could not be delayed without risk of evil. My dear, dear Fanny, if I had you here, how I would talk to you! You should listen to me till you were tired, and advise me till you were still tired more; but it is impossible to put a hundredth part of my great mind on paper, so I will abstain altogether, and leave you to guess what you like. I have no news for you. You have politics, of course; and it would be too bad to plague you with the names of people and parties that fill up my time. I ought to have sent you an account of your cousin's first party, but I was lazy, and now it is too long ago; suffice it, that everything was just as it ought to be, in a style that any of her connexions must have been gratified to witness, and that her own dress and manners did her the greatest credit. My friend, Mrs. Fraser, is mad for such a house, and it would not make _me_ miserable. I go to Lady Stornaway after Easter; she seems in high spirits, and very happy. I fancy Lord S. is very good-humoured and pleasant in his own family, and I do not think him so very ill-looking as I did-at least, one sees many worse. He will not do by the side of your cousin Edmund. Of the last-mentioned hero, what shall I say? If I avoided his name entirely, it would look suspicious. I will say, then, that we have seen him two or three times, and that my friends here are very much struck with his gentlemanlike appearance. Mrs. Fraser (no bad judge) declares she knows but three men in town who have so good a person, height, and air; and I must confess, when he dined here the other day, there were none to compare with him, and we were a party of sixteen. Luckily there is no distinction of dress nowadays to tell tales, but-but-but Yours affectionately." "I had almost forgot (it was Edmund's fault: he gets into my head more than does me good) one very material thing I had to say from Henry and myself-I mean about our taking you back into Northamptonshire. My dear little creature, do not stay at Portsmouth to lose your pretty looks. Those vile sea-breezes are the ruin of beauty and health. My poor aunt always felt affected if within ten miles of the sea, which the Admiral of course never believed, but I know it was so. I am at your service and Henry's, at an hour's notice. I should like the scheme, and we would make a little circuit, and shew you Everingham in our way, and perhaps you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St. George's, Hanover Square. Only keep your cousin Edmund from me at such a time: I should not like to be tempted. What a long letter! one word more. Henry, I find, has some idea of going into Norfolk again upon some business that _you_ approve; but this cannot possibly be permitted before the middle of next week; that is, he cannot anyhow be spared till after the 14th, for _we_ have a party that evening. The value of a man like Henry, on such an occasion, is what you can have no conception of; so you must take it upon my word to be inestimable. He will see the Rushworths, which I own I am not sorry for-having a little curiosity, and so I think has he-though he will not acknowledge it." This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to be read deliberately, to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater suspense than ever. The only certainty to be drawn from it was, that nothing decisive had yet taken place. Edmund had not yet spoken. How Miss Crawford really felt, how she meant to act, or might act without or against her meaning; whether his importance to her were quite what it had been before the last separation; whether, if lessened, it were likely to lessen more, or to recover itself, were subjects for endless conjecture, and to be thought of on that day and many days to come, without producing any conclusion. The idea that returned the oftenest was that Miss Crawford, after proving herself cooled and staggered by a return to London habits, would yet prove herself in the end too much attached to him to give him up. She would try to be more ambitious than her heart would allow. She would hesitate, she would tease, she would condition, she would require a great deal, but she would finally accept. This was Fanny's most frequent expectation. A house in town-that, she thought, must be impossible. Yet there was no saying what Miss Crawford might not ask. The prospect for her cousin grew worse and worse. The woman who could speak of him, and speak only of his appearance! What an unworthy attachment! To be deriving support from the commendations of Mrs. Fraser! _She_ who had known him intimately half a year! Fanny was ashamed of her. Those parts of the letter which related only to Mr. Crawford and herself, touched her, in comparison, slightly. Whether Mr. Crawford went into Norfolk before or after the 14th was certainly no concern of hers, though, everything considered, she thought he _would_ go without delay. That Miss Crawford should endeavour to secure a meeting between him and Mrs. Rushworth, was all in her worst line of conduct, and grossly unkind and ill-judged; but she hoped _he_ would not be actuated by any such degrading curiosity. He acknowledged no such inducement, and his sister ought to have given him credit for better feelings than her own. She was yet more impatient for another letter from town after receiving this than she had been before; and for a few days was so unsettled by it altogether, by what had come, and what might come, that her usual readings and conversation with Susan were much suspended. She could not command her attention as she wished. If Mr. Crawford remembered her message to her cousin, she thought it very likely, most likely, that he would write to her at all events; it would be most consistent with his usual kindness; and till she got rid of this idea, till it gradually wore off, by no letters appearing in the course of three or four days more, she was in a most restless, anxious state. At length, a something like composure succeeded. Suspense must be submitted to, and must not be allowed to wear her out, and make her useless. Time did something, her own exertions something more, and she resumed her attentions to Susan, and again awakened the same interest in them. Susan was growing very fond of her, and though without any of the early delight in books which had been so strong in Fanny, with a disposition much less inclined to sedentary pursuits, or to information for information's sake, she had so strong a desire of not _appearing_ ignorant, as, with a good clear understanding, made her a most attentive, profitable, thankful pupil. Fanny was her oracle. Fanny's explanations and remarks were a most important addition to every essay, or every chapter of history. What Fanny told her of former times dwelt more on her mind than the pages of Goldsmith; and she paid her sister the compliment of preferring her style to that of any printed author. The early habit of reading was wanting. Their conversations, however, were not always on subjects so high as history or morals. Others had their hour; and of lesser matters, none returned so often, or remained so long between them, as Mansfield Park, a description of the people, the manners, the amusements, the ways of Mansfield Park. Susan, who had an innate taste for the genteel and well-appointed, was eager to hear, and Fanny could not but indulge herself in dwelling on so beloved a theme. She hoped it was not wrong; though, after a time, Susan's very great admiration of everything said or done in her uncle's house, and earnest longing to go into Northamptonshire, seemed almost to blame her for exciting feelings which could not be gratified. Poor Susan was very little better fitted for home than her elder sister; and as Fanny grew thoroughly to understand this, she began to feel that when her own release from Portsmouth came, her happiness would have a material drawback in leaving Susan behind. That a girl so capable of being made everything good should be left in such hands, distressed her more and more. Were _she_ likely to have a home to invite her to, what a blessing it would be! And had it been possible for her to return Mr. Crawford's regard, the probability of his being very far from objecting to such a measure would have been the greatest increase of all her own comforts. She thought he was really good-tempered, and could fancy his entering into a plan of that sort most pleasantly.

Mr. Crawford was travelling back to London on the morrow; and two days afterwards, Fanny read a letter from his sister with anxious curiosity:- "I have to inform you, my dearest Fanny, that Henry has been down to Portsmouth to see you; that he had a delightful walk with you to the dockyard last Saturday, and one still more delightful the next day, on the ramparts; when the balmy air, the sparkling sea, and your sweet looks and conversation were altogether in the most delicious harmony. This, as I understand, is to be the substance of my information. He makes me write, but I do not know what else is to be said, except his introduction to your family, especially to a fair sister of yours, a fine girl of fifteen, who was of the party on the ramparts, taking her first lesson, I presume, in love. I have not time for writing much, for this is to be a mere letter of business, penned for the purpose of conveying necessary information. My dear, dear Fanny, if I had you here, how I would talk to you! You should listen to me till you were tired, and advise me till you were still tired more. I ought to have sent you an account of your cousin Maria's first party, but I was lazy, and now it is too long ago; suffice it, that everything was just as it ought to be, and that her own dress and manners did her the greatest credit. My friend, Mrs. Fraser, is mad for such a house, and it would not make me miserable. I go to Lady Stornaway after Easter; she seems in high spirits, and very happy. I fancy Lord S. is very good-humoured in his own family, and I do not think him so very ill-looking as I did. However, he will not do by the side of your cousin Edmund. Of whom, what shall I say? If I avoided his name, it would look suspicious. I will say, then, that we have seen him two or three times, and that my friends are very struck with his gentlemanlike appearance. Mrs. Fraser (no bad judge) declares she knows but three men in town who have so good an appearance, height, and air; and I must confess, when he dined here the other day, there were none to compare with him. Luckily there is no distinction of dress nowadays to tell tales, but-but-but Yours affectionately." "I had almost forgot (it was Edmund's fault: he gets into my head more than does me good) one thing I had to say from Henry and myself-I mean about our taking you back into Northamptonshire. My dear little creature, do not stay at Portsmouth to lose your pretty looks. Those vile sea-breezes are the ruin of beauty and health. I am at your service and Henry's, at an hour's notice. We would show you Everingham on our way, and perhaps you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St. George's church on Hanover Square. Only keep your cousin Edmund from me at such a time: I should not like to be tempted. What a long letter! one word more. Henry, I find, has some idea of going into Norfolk again upon some business that you approve; but he cannot be spared till after the 14th, for we have a party that evening. The value of a man like Henry, on such an occasion, is immense. He will see the Rushworths, which I own I am not sorry for-having a little curiosity, and so I think has he-though he will not acknowledge it." This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater suspense than ever. The only certainty to be drawn from it was that nothing decisive had yet taken place. Edmund had not yet spoken. How Miss Crawford really felt, how she meant to act; whether his importance to her were quite what it had been before, and whether, if lessened, it were likely to recover, were subjects for endless conjecture, and to be thought of for many days to come, without producing any conclusion. The idea that returned the oftenest was that Miss Crawford, though cooled by a return to London habits, would yet prove in the end too much attached to him to give him up. She would hesitate, she would tease, she would condition, she would require a great deal, but she would finally accept. This was Fanny's most frequent expectation. A house in town-that must be impossible. Yet there was no saying what Miss Crawford might not ask. The prospect for her cousin grew worse and worse. To speak only of his appearance! To be deriving support from the commendations of Mrs. Fraser! She who had known him intimately half a year! Fanny was ashamed of her. Those parts of the letter which related to Mr. Crawford and herself touched her, in comparison, only slightly. Whether Mr. Crawford went into Norfolk before or after the 14th was no concern of hers. That Miss Crawford should try to arrange a meeting between him and Mrs. Rushworth was grossly unkind and ill-judged; but she hoped he would not feel such degrading curiosity. His sister ought to have given him credit for better feelings than her own. She was yet more impatient for another letter from town after receiving this; and for a few days was so unsettled altogether that her usual readings with Susan were much suspended. She could not command her attention as she wished. If Mr. Crawford remembered her message to her cousin Edmund, she thought it very likely that he would write to her; and till this idea gradually wore off, by no letters appearing in the course of several days, she was in a most restless, anxious state. At length, a something like composure succeeded. Suspense must be submitted to, and must not make her useless. Time did something, her own exertions something more, and she resumed her attentions to Susan. Susan was growing very fond of her, and though without any of Fanny's delight in books and information for information's sake, she had so strong a desire of not appearing ignorant, as, with a good clear understanding, made her an attentive pupil. Fanny was her oracle. Fanny's explanations were a most important addition to every chapter of history. Their conversations, however, were not always on subjects so high. Of lesser matters, none returned so often as Mansfield Park, a description of its people, its manners, and its ways. Susan was eager to hear, and Fanny could not help indulging herself in dwelling on so beloved a theme. She hoped it was not wrong; though Susan's great admiration of everything said or done in her uncle's house, and earnest longing to go into Northamptonshire, made her fear she was creating feelings which could not be gratified. Poor Susan was very little better fitted for home than her elder sister; and as Fanny grew to understand this, she began to feel that when her own release from Portsmouth came, her happiness would have a drawback in leaving Susan behind. That Susan should be left in such hands, distressed her more and more. If she had a home to invite her to, what a blessing it would be! And had it been possible for her to return Mr. Crawford's regard, his probable assent to such a measure would have been the greatest increase of all her own comforts. She thought he was really good-tempered, and could fancy his entering into a plan of that sort most pleasantly.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 43

Sir Thomas's return made a striking change in the ways of the family, independent of Lovers' Vows. Under his government, Mansfield was an altered place. Some members of their society sent away, and the spirits of many others saddened-it was all sameness and gloom compared with the past-a sombre family party rarely enlivened. There was little intercourse with the Parsonage. Sir Thomas, drawing back from intimacies in general, was particularly disinclined, at this time, for any engagements but in one quarter. The Rushworths were the only addition to his own domestic circle which he could solicit. Edmund did not wonder that such should be his father's feelings, nor could he regret anything but the exclusion of the Grants. "But they," he observed to Fanny, "have a claim. They seem to belong to us; they seem to be part of ourselves. I could wish my father were more sensible of their very great attention to my mother and sisters while he was away. I am afraid they may feel themselves neglected. But the truth is, that my father hardly knows them. They had not been here a twelvemonth when he left England. If he knew them better, he would value their society as it deserves; for they are in fact exactly the sort of people he would like. We are sometimes a little in want of animation among ourselves: my sisters seem out of spirits, and Tom is certainly not at his ease. Dr. and Mrs. Grant would enliven us, and make our evenings pass away with more enjoyment even to my father." "Do you think so?" said Fanny: "in my opinion, my uncle would not like _any_ addition. I think he values the very quietness you speak of, and that the repose of his own family circle is all he wants. And it does not appear to me that we are more serious than we used to be-I mean before my uncle went abroad. As well as I can recollect, it was always much the same. There was never much laughing in his presence; or, if there is any difference, it is not more, I think, than such an absence has a tendency to produce at first. There must be a sort of shyness; but I cannot recollect that our evenings formerly were ever merry, except when my uncle was in town. No young people's are, I suppose, when those they look up to are at home". "I believe you are right, Fanny," was his reply, after a short consideration. "I believe our evenings are rather returned to what they were, than assuming a new character. The novelty was in their being lively. Yet, how strong the impression that only a few weeks will give! I have been feeling as if we had never lived so before." "I suppose I am graver than other people," said Fanny. "The evenings do not appear long to me. I love to hear my uncle talk of the West Indies. I could listen to him for an hour together. It entertains _me_ more than many other things have done; but then I am unlike other people, I dare say." "Why should you dare say _that_?" (smiling). "Do you want to be told that you are only unlike other people in being more wise and discreet? But when did you, or anybody, ever get a compliment from me, Fanny? Go to my father if you want to be complimented. He will satisfy you. Ask your uncle what he thinks, and you will hear compliments enough: and though they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it, and trust to his seeing as much beauty of mind in time." Such language was so new to Fanny that it quite embarrassed her. "Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny-and that is the long and the short of the matter. Anybody but myself would have made something more of it, and anybody but you would resent that you had not been thought very pretty before; but the truth is, that your uncle never did admire you till now-and now he does. Your complexion is so improved!-and you have gained so much countenance!-and your figure-nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it-it is but an uncle. If you cannot bear an uncle's admiration, what is to become of you? You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman." "Oh! don't talk so, don't talk so," cried Fanny, distressed by more feelings than he was aware of; but seeing that she was distressed, he had done with the subject, and only added more seriously- "Your uncle is disposed to be pleased with you in every respect; and I only wish you would talk to him more. You are one of those who are too silent in the evening circle." "But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?" "I did-and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther." "And I longed to do it-but there was such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all interested in the subject, I did not like-I thought it would appear as if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by shewing a curiosity and pleasure in his information which he must wish his own daughters to feel." "Miss Crawford was very right in what she said of you the other day: that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect. We were talking of you at the Parsonage, and those were her words. She has great discernment. I know nobody who distinguishes characters better. For so young a woman it is remarkable! She certainly understands _you_ better than you are understood by the greater part of those who have known you so long; and with regard to some others, I can perceive, from occasional lively hints, the unguarded expressions of the moment, that she could define _many_ as accurately, did not delicacy forbid it. I wonder what she thinks of my father! She must admire him as a fine-looking man, with most gentlemanlike, dignified, consistent manners; but perhaps, having seen him so seldom, his reserve may be a little repulsive. Could they be much together, I feel sure of their liking each other. He would enjoy her liveliness and she has talents to value his powers. I wish they met more frequently! I hope she does not suppose there is any dislike on his side." "She must know herself too secure of the regard of all the rest of you," said Fanny, with half a sigh, "to have any such apprehension. And Sir Thomas's wishing just at first to be only with his family, is so very natural, that she can argue nothing from that. After a little while, I dare say, we shall be meeting again in the same sort of way, allowing for the difference of the time of year." "This is the first October that she has passed in the country since her infancy. I do not call Tunbridge or Cheltenham the country; and November is a still more serious month, and I can see that Mrs. Grant is very anxious for her not finding Mansfield dull as winter comes on." Fanny could have said a great deal, but it was safer to say nothing, and leave untouched all Miss Crawford's resources-her accomplishments, her spirits, her importance, her friends, lest it should betray her into any observations seemingly unhandsome. Miss Crawford's kind opinion of herself deserved at least a grateful forbearance, and she began to talk of something else. "To-morrow, I think, my uncle dines at Sotherton, and you and Mr. Bertram too. We shall be quite a small party at home. I hope my uncle may continue to like Mr. Rushworth." "That is impossible, Fanny. He must like him less after to-morrow's visit, for we shall be five hours in his company. I should dread the stupidity of the day, if there were not a much greater evil to follow-the impression it must leave on Sir Thomas. He cannot much longer deceive himself. I am sorry for them all, and would give something that Rushworth and Maria had never met." In this quarter, indeed, disappointment was impending over Sir Thomas. Not all his good-will for Mr. Rushworth, not all Mr. Rushworth's deference for him, could prevent him from soon discerning some part of the truth-that Mr. Rushworth was an inferior young man, as ignorant in business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without seeming much aware of it himself. He had expected a very different son-in-law; and beginning to feel grave on Maria's account, tried to understand _her_ feelings. Little observation there was necessary to tell him that indifference was the most favourable state they could be in. Her behaviour to Mr. Rushworth was careless and cold. She could not, did not like him. Sir Thomas resolved to speak seriously to her. Advantageous as would be the alliance, and long standing and public as was the engagement, her happiness must not be sacrificed to it. Mr. Rushworth had, perhaps, been accepted on too short an acquaintance, and, on knowing him better, she was repenting. With solemn kindness Sir Thomas addressed her: told her his fears, inquired into her wishes, entreated her to be open and sincere, and assured her that every inconvenience should be braved, and the connexion entirely given up, if she felt herself unhappy in the prospect of it. He would act for her and release her. Maria had a moment's struggle as she listened, and only a moment's: when her father ceased, she was able to give her answer immediately, decidedly, and with no apparent agitation. She thanked him for his great attention, his paternal kindness, but he was quite mistaken in supposing she had the smallest desire of breaking through her engagement, or was sensible of any change of opinion or inclination since her forming it. She had the highest esteem for Mr. Rushworth's character and disposition, and could not have a doubt of her happiness with him. Sir Thomas was satisfied; too glad to be satisfied, perhaps, to urge the matter quite so far as his judgment might have dictated to others. It was an alliance which he could not have relinquished without pain; and thus he reasoned. Mr. Rushworth was young enough to improve. Mr. Rushworth must and would improve in good society; and if Maria could now speak so securely of her happiness with him, speaking certainly without the prejudice, the blindness of love, she ought to be believed. Her feelings, probably, were not acute; he had never supposed them to be so; but her comforts might not be less on that account; and if she could dispense with seeing her husband a leading, shining character, there would certainly be everything else in her favour. A well-disposed young woman, who did not marry for love, was in general but the more attached to her own family; and the nearness of Sotherton to Mansfield must naturally hold out the greatest temptation, and would, in all probability, be a continual supply of the most amiable and innocent enjoyments. Such and such-like were the reasonings of Sir Thomas, happy to escape the embarrassing evils of a rupture, the wonder, the reflections, the reproach that must attend it; happy to secure a marriage which would bring him such an addition of respectability and influence, and very happy to think anything of his daughter's disposition that was most favourable for the purpose. To her the conference closed as satisfactorily as to him. She was in a state of mind to be glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall: that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton; that she was safe from the possibility of giving Crawford the triumph of governing her actions, and destroying her prospects; and retired in proud resolve, determined only to behave more cautiously to Mr. Rushworth in future, that her father might not be again suspecting her. Had Sir Thomas applied to his daughter within the first three or four days after Henry Crawford's leaving Mansfield, before her feelings were at all tranquillised, before she had given up every hope of him, or absolutely resolved on enduring his rival, her answer might have been different; but after another three or four days, when there was no return, no letter, no message, no symptom of a softened heart, no hope of advantage from separation, her mind became cool enough to seek all the comfort that pride and self revenge could give. Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that he had done it; he should not destroy her credit, her appearance, her prosperity, too. He should not have to think of her as pining in the retirement of Mansfield for _him_, rejecting Sotherton and London, independence and splendour, for _his_ sake. Independence was more needful than ever; the want of it at Mansfield more sensibly felt. She was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father imposed. The liberty which his absence had given was now become absolutely necessary. She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and the world, for a wounded spirit. Her mind was quite determined, and varied not. To such feelings delay, even the delay of much preparation, would have been an evil, and Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the marriage than herself. In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and spring, when her own taste could have fairer play. The principals being all agreed in this respect, it soon appeared that a very few weeks would be sufficient for such arrangements as must precede the wedding. Mrs. Rushworth was quite ready to retire, and make way for the fortunate young woman whom her dear son had selected; and very early in November removed herself, her maid, her footman, and her chariot, with true dowager propriety, to Bath, there to parade over the wonders of Sotherton in her evening parties; enjoying them as thoroughly, perhaps, in the animation of a card-table, as she had ever done on the spot; and before the middle of the same month the ceremony had taken place which gave Sotherton another mistress. It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed; the two bridesmaids were duly inferior; her father gave her away; her mother stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be agitated; her aunt tried to cry; and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant. Nothing could be objected to when it came under the discussion of the neighbourhood, except that the carriage which conveyed the bride and bridegroom and Julia from the church-door to Sotherton was the same chaise which Mr. Rushworth had used for a twelvemonth before. In everything else the etiquette of the day might stand the strictest investigation. It was done, and they were gone. Sir Thomas felt as an anxious father must feel, and was indeed experiencing much of the agitation which his wife had been apprehensive of for herself, but had fortunately escaped. Mrs. Norris, most happy to assist in the duties of the day, by spending it at the Park to support her sister's spirits, and drinking the health of Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth in a supernumerary glass or two, was all joyous delight; for she had made the match; she had done everything; and no one would have supposed, from her confident triumph, that she had ever heard of conjugal infelicity in her life, or could have the smallest insight into the disposition of the niece who had been brought up under her eye. The plan of the young couple was to proceed, after a few days, to Brighton, and take a house there for some weeks. Every public place was new to Maria, and Brighton is almost as gay in winter as in summer. When the novelty of amusement there was over, it would be time for the wider range of London. Julia was to go with them to Brighton. Since rivalry between the sisters had ceased, they had been gradually recovering much of their former good understanding; and were at least sufficiently friends to make each of them exceedingly glad to be with the other at such a time. Some other companion than Mr. Rushworth was of the first consequence to his lady; and Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as Maria, though she might not have struggled through so much to obtain them, and could better bear a subordinate situation. Their departure made another material change at Mansfield, a chasm which required some time to fill up. The family circle became greatly contracted; and though the Miss Bertrams had latterly added little to its gaiety, they could not but be missed. Even their mother missed them; and how much more their tenderhearted cousin, who wandered about the house, and thought of them, and felt for them, with a degree of affectionate regret which they had never done much to deserve!

Sir Thomas's return made a striking change in the ways of the family. Mansfield was an altered place; the spirits of many were saddened. There was little intercourse with the Parsonage, for Sir Thomas was disinclined for any engagements but in one quarter: the Rushworths. Edmund did not wonder at his father's feelings, nor could he regret anything but the exclusion of the Grants. "But they," he observed to Fanny, "have a claim. They seem to belong to us. I am afraid they may feel themselves neglected. If my father knew them better, he would value their society. My sisters seem out of spirits, and Tom is not at his ease. Dr. and Mrs. Grant would enliven us, and make our evenings pass with more enjoyment to my father." "Do you think so?" said Fanny: "in my opinion, my uncle would not like any addition. I think he values the quietness you speak of. And we are no more serious than we used to be before my uncle went abroad; I cannot recollect that our evenings formerly were ever merry, except when my uncle was away." "I believe you are right, Fanny," was his reply. "I believe our evenings are rather returned to what they were. The novelty was in their being lively. Yet, how strong the impression that a few weeks will give! I feel as if we had never lived so before." "I suppose I am graver than other people," said Fanny. "The evenings do not appear long to me. I love to hear my uncle talk of the West Indies. I could listen to him for an hour together. I am unlike other people, I dare say." "Why should you dare say that?" (smiling). "Do you want to be told that you are only unlike other people in being more wise? But when did you ever get a compliment from me, Fanny? Go to my father if you want to be complimented. From him you will hear compliments enough: and though they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it, and trust to his seeing as much beauty of mind in time." Such language was so new to Fanny that it quite embarrassed her. "Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny. Your complexion is so improved!-and you have gained so much countenance!-and your figure-nay, Fanny, do not turn away. If you cannot bear an uncle's admiration, what is to become of you? You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman." "Oh! don't talk so," cried Fanny, distressed by more feelings than he was aware of; but seeing her distress, he stopped, and only added- "I wish you would talk to your uncle more. You are too silent in the evening circle." "But I do talk to him more than I used. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?" "I did-and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle." "I longed to do it-but there was such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, I did not like-I thought it would appear as if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by showing a pleasure in his information which he must wish his daughters to feel." "Miss Crawford was very right in what she said the other day: that you seemed almost as fearful of notice as other women were of neglect. We were talking of you at the Parsonage. She has great discernment. For so young a woman it is remarkable! She certainly understands you better than you are understood by many here. I wonder what she thinks of my father! She must admire him as a fine-looking man, with gentlemanlike manners; but perhaps his reserve may be a little repulsive. Could they be much together, I feel sure of their liking each other. He would enjoy her liveliness. I wish they met more frequently! I hope she does not suppose there is any dislike on his side." "She must know herself secure in the regard of the rest of you," said Fanny, with half a sigh. "And Sir Thomas's wishing at first to be only with his family will seem natural to her. After a little while, I dare say, we shall be meeting again." "This is the first October that she has ever passed in the country. Mrs. Grant is very anxious for her not finding Mansfield dull as winter comes on." Fanny could have said a great deal to that, but it was safer to say nothing about Miss Crawford's resources-her accomplishments, her importance, her friends, lest it should betray her into any observations that seemed unhandsome. Miss Crawford's kind opinion of herself deserved gratitude, and she began to talk of something else. "To-morrow, my uncle dines at Sotherton. I hope he may continue to like Mr. Rushworth." "That is impossible, Fanny. He must like him less after to-morrow's visit, for we shall be five hours in his company. He cannot much longer deceive himself. I wish that Rushworth and Maria had never met." In this quarter, indeed, disappointment was impending for Sir Thomas. Not all his good-will for Mr. Rushworth could prevent him from soon discerning that he was an inferior young man, as ignorant in business as in books, without seeming aware of it. He had expected a very different son-in-law; and beginning to feel grave on Maria's account, tried to understand her feelings. He observed that she was indifferent at best: her behaviour to Mr. Rushworth was careless and cold. She could not, did not like him. Sir Thomas resolved to speak seriously to her. Advantageous as would be the alliance, her happiness must not be sacrificed to it. Mr. Rushworth had, perhaps, been accepted on too short an acquaintance, and, on knowing him better, she was repenting. With solemn kindness Sir Thomas addressed her: inquired into her wishes, entreated her to be open and sincere, and assured her that the connexion could be entirely given up, if she felt unhappy. He would act for her and release her. Maria had a moment's struggle as she listened, and only a moment's: when her father ceased, she was able to give her answer decidedly. She thanked him for his kindness, but he was quite mistaken in supposing she had the smallest desire of breaking her engagement. She had the highest esteem for Mr. Rushworth's character, and could not doubt her happiness with him. Sir Thomas was satisfied; too glad to be satisfied, perhaps, to urge the matter further. It was an alliance which he could not have relinquished without pain; and Mr. Rushworth was young enough to improve. If Maria could speak so securely of her happiness with him, without the blindness of love, she ought to be believed. He did not suppose her feelings to be acute; but if she could dispense with seeing her husband as a shining character, there would certainly be everything else in her favour. A young woman who did not marry for love, was in general but the more attached to her own family. Such were the reasonings of Sir Thomas, happy to escape the embarrassment that must attend a rupture; happy to secure a respectable connexion, and very happy to think anything of his daughter that was most favourable for the purpose. As for Maria, she was glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall: that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton. She retired in proud resolve, determined only to behave more cautiously to Mr. Rushworth in future, that her father might not be again suspecting her. Had Sir Thomas applied to his daughter within three or four days after Henry Crawford's leaving Mansfield, before she had given up every hope, her answer might have been different; but when there was no letter, no message, her mind became cool enough to seek all the comfort that pride and self revenge could give. Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know it; he should not destroy her credit and prosperity too. He should not think of her as pining for him. Independence was more needful than ever; she was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father imposed. Liberty was now become absolutely necessary. She must escape from Mansfield as soon as possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence for a wounded spirit. She was quite determined. To such feelings delay was an evil, and Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the marriage than herself. Her mind was fully prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. It appeared that a very few weeks would be sufficient for the wedding arrangements. Mrs. Rushworth was ready to make way for the fortunate young woman whom her dear son had selected, and removed herself with true dowager propriety to Bath; and before the middle of November the ceremony had taken place which gave Sotherton another mistress. It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed; the two bridesmaids were duly inferior; her father gave her away; her mother stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be agitated; her aunt tried to cry; and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant. It was done, and they were gone. Sir Thomas felt as an anxious father must feel, and was indeed experiencing much of the agitation which his wife had fortunately escaped. Mrs. Norris, most happy to assist by spending the day at the Park to support her sister's spirits, and drinking the health of Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth, was all joyous delight; for she had made the match; and no one would have supposed that she had ever heard of conjugal unhappiness in her life, or could have the smallest insight into the disposition of the niece who had been brought up under her eye. The couple planned to proceed to Brighton, and take a house there for some weeks. When the novelty of amusement there was over, it would be time for the wider range of London. Julia was to go with them to Brighton. Since rivalry between the sisters had ceased, they had been gradually recovering much of their former good understanding; and were exceedingly glad to be with each other at such a time. Some other companion than Mr. Rushworth was of great importance to his lady; and Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as Maria. Their departure made another change at Mansfield, a chasm which required some time to fill up. Even their mother missed them; and how much more their tenderhearted cousin, who wandered about the house, and thought of them with an affectionate regret which they had never done much to deserve!

Mansfield Park

Chapter 21

William's desire of seeing Fanny dance made more than a momentary impression on his uncle. The hope of an opportunity, which Sir Thomas had then given, was not given to be thought of no more. He remained steadily inclined to gratify so amiable a feeling; to gratify anybody else who might wish to see Fanny dance, and to give pleasure to the young people in general; and having thought the matter over, and taken his resolution in quiet independence, the result of it appeared the next morning at breakfast, when, after recalling and commending what his nephew had said, he added, "I do not like, William, that you should leave Northamptonshire without this indulgence. It would give me pleasure to see you both dance. You spoke of the balls at Northampton. Your cousins have occasionally attended them; but they would not altogether suit us now. The fatigue would be too much for your aunt. I believe we must not think of a Northampton ball. A dance at home would be more eligible; and if-" "Ah, my dear Sir Thomas!" interrupted Mrs. Norris, "I knew what was coming. I knew what you were going to say. If dear Julia were at home, or dearest Mrs. Rushworth at Sotherton, to afford a reason, an occasion for such a thing, you would be tempted to give the young people a dance at Mansfield. I know you would. If _they_ were at home to grace the ball, a ball you would have this very Christmas. Thank your uncle, William, thank your uncle!" "My daughters," replied Sir Thomas, gravely interposing, "have their pleasures at Brighton, and I hope are very happy; but the dance which I think of giving at Mansfield will be for their cousins. Could we be all assembled, our satisfaction would undoubtedly be more complete, but the absence of some is not to debar the others of amusement." Mrs. Norris had not another word to say. She saw decision in his looks, and her surprise and vexation required some minutes' silence to be settled into composure. A ball at such a time! His daughters absent and herself not consulted! There was comfort, however, soon at hand. _She_ must be the doer of everything: Lady Bertram would of course be spared all thought and exertion, and it would all fall upon _her_. She should have to do the honours of the evening; and this reflection quickly restored so much of her good-humour as enabled her to join in with the others, before their happiness and thanks were all expressed. Edmund, William, and Fanny did, in their different ways, look and speak as much grateful pleasure in the promised ball as Sir Thomas could desire. Edmund's feelings were for the other two. His father had never conferred a favour or shewn a kindness more to his satisfaction. Lady Bertram was perfectly quiescent and contented, and had no objections to make. Sir Thomas engaged for its giving her very little trouble; and she assured him "that she was not at all afraid of the trouble; indeed, she could not imagine there would be any." Mrs. Norris was ready with her suggestions as to the rooms he would think fittest to be used, but found it all prearranged; and when she would have conjectured and hinted about the day, it appeared that the day was settled too. Sir Thomas had been amusing himself with shaping a very complete outline of the business; and as soon as she would listen quietly, could read his list of the families to be invited, from whom he calculated, with all necessary allowance for the shortness of the notice, to collect young people enough to form twelve or fourteen couple: and could detail the considerations which had induced him to fix on the 22nd as the most eligible day. William was required to be at Portsmouth on the 24th; the 22nd would therefore be the last day of his visit; but where the days were so few it would be unwise to fix on any earlier. Mrs. Norris was obliged to be satisfied with thinking just the same, and with having been on the point of proposing the 22nd herself, as by far the best day for the purpose. The ball was now a settled thing, and before the evening a proclaimed thing to all whom it concerned. Invitations were sent with despatch, and many a young lady went to bed that night with her head full of happy cares as well as Fanny. To her the cares were sometimes almost beyond the happiness; for young and inexperienced, with small means of choice and no confidence in her own taste, the "how she should be dressed" was a point of painful solicitude; and the almost solitary ornament in her possession, a very pretty amber cross which William had brought her from Sicily, was the greatest distress of all, for she had nothing but a bit of ribbon to fasten it to; and though she had worn it in that manner once, would it be allowable at such a time in the midst of all the rich ornaments which she supposed all the other young ladies would appear in? And yet not to wear it! William had wanted to buy her a gold chain too, but the purchase had been beyond his means, and therefore not to wear the cross might be mortifying him. These were anxious considerations; enough to sober her spirits even under the prospect of a ball given principally for her gratification. The preparations meanwhile went on, and Lady Bertram continued to sit on her sofa without any inconvenience from them. She had some extra visits from the housekeeper, and her maid was rather hurried in making up a new dress for her: Sir Thomas gave orders, and Mrs. Norris ran about; but all this gave _her_ no trouble, and as she had foreseen, "there was, in fact, no trouble in the business." Edmund was at this time particularly full of cares: his mind being deeply occupied in the consideration of two important events now at hand, which were to fix his fate in life-ordination and matrimony-events of such a serious character as to make the ball, which would be very quickly followed by one of them, appear of less moment in his eyes than in those of any other person in the house. On the 23rd he was going to a friend near Peterborough, in the same situation as himself, and they were to receive ordination in the course of the Christmas week. Half his destiny would then be determined, but the other half might not be so very smoothly wooed. His duties would be established, but the wife who was to share, and animate, and reward those duties, might yet be unattainable. He knew his own mind, but he was not always perfectly assured of knowing Miss Crawford's. There were points on which they did not quite agree; there were moments in which she did not seem propitious; and though trusting altogether to her affection, so far as to be resolved-almost resolved-on bringing it to a decision within a very short time, as soon as the variety of business before him were arranged, and he knew what he had to offer her, he had many anxious feelings, many doubting hours as to the result. His conviction of her regard for him was sometimes very strong; he could look back on a long course of encouragement, and she was as perfect in disinterested attachment as in everything else. But at other times doubt and alarm intermingled with his hopes; and when he thought of her acknowledged disinclination for privacy and retirement, her decided preference of a London life, what could he expect but a determined rejection? unless it were an acceptance even more to be deprecated, demanding such sacrifices of situation and employment on his side as conscience must forbid. The issue of all depended on one question. Did she love him well enough to forego what had used to be essential points? Did she love him well enough to make them no longer essential? And this question, which he was continually repeating to himself, though oftenest answered with a "Yes," had sometimes its "No." Miss Crawford was soon to leave Mansfield, and on this circumstance the "no" and the "yes" had been very recently in alternation. He had seen her eyes sparkle as she spoke of the dear friend's letter, which claimed a long visit from her in London, and of the kindness of Henry, in engaging to remain where he was till January, that he might convey her thither; he had heard her speak of the pleasure of such a journey with an animation which had "no" in every tone. But this had occurred on the first day of its being settled, within the first hour of the burst of such enjoyment, when nothing but the friends she was to visit was before her. He had since heard her express herself differently, with other feelings, more chequered feelings: he had heard her tell Mrs. Grant that she should leave her with regret; that she began to believe neither the friends nor the pleasures she was going to were worth those she left behind; and that though she felt she must go, and knew she should enjoy herself when once away, she was already looking forward to being at Mansfield again. Was there not a "yes" in all this? With such matters to ponder over, and arrange, and re-arrange, Edmund could not, on his own account, think very much of the evening which the rest of the family were looking forward to with a more equal degree of strong interest. Independent of his two cousins' enjoyment in it, the evening was to him of no higher value than any other appointed meeting of the two families might be. In every meeting there was a hope of receiving farther confirmation of Miss Crawford's attachment; but the whirl of a ballroom, perhaps, was not particularly favourable to the excitement or expression of serious feelings. To engage her early for the two first dances was all the command of individual happiness which he felt in his power, and the only preparation for the ball which he could enter into, in spite of all that was passing around him on the subject, from morning till night. Thursday was the day of the ball; and on Wednesday morning Fanny, still unable to satisfy herself as to what she ought to wear, determined to seek the counsel of the more enlightened, and apply to Mrs. Grant and her sister, whose acknowledged taste would certainly bear her blameless; and as Edmund and William were gone to Northampton, and she had reason to think Mr. Crawford likewise out, she walked down to the Parsonage without much fear of wanting an opportunity for private discussion; and the privacy of such a discussion was a most important part of it to Fanny, being more than half-ashamed of her own solicitude. She met Miss Crawford within a few yards of the Parsonage, just setting out to call on her, and as it seemed to her that her friend, though obliged to insist on turning back, was unwilling to lose her walk, she explained her business at once, and observed, that if she would be so kind as to give her opinion, it might be all talked over as well without doors as within. Miss Crawford appeared gratified by the application, and after a moment's thought, urged Fanny's returning with her in a much more cordial manner than before, and proposed their going up into her room, where they might have a comfortable coze, without disturbing Dr. and Mrs. Grant, who were together in the drawing-room. It was just the plan to suit Fanny; and with a great deal of gratitude on her side for such ready and kind attention, they proceeded indoors, and upstairs, and were soon deep in the interesting subject. Miss Crawford, pleased with the appeal, gave her all her best judgment and taste, made everything easy by her suggestions, and tried to make everything agreeable by her encouragement. The dress being settled in all its grander parts-"But what shall you have by way of necklace?" said Miss Crawford. "Shall not you wear your brother's cross?" And as she spoke she was undoing a small parcel, which Fanny had observed in her hand when they met. Fanny acknowledged her wishes and doubts on this point: she did not know how either to wear the cross, or to refrain from wearing it. She was answered by having a small trinket-box placed before her, and being requested to chuse from among several gold chains and necklaces. Such had been the parcel with which Miss Crawford was provided, and such the object of her intended visit: and in the kindest manner she now urged Fanny's taking one for the cross and to keep for her sake, saying everything she could think of to obviate the scruples which were making Fanny start back at first with a look of horror at the proposal. "You see what a collection I have," said she; "more by half than I ever use or think of. I do not offer them as new. I offer nothing but an old necklace. You must forgive the liberty, and oblige me." Fanny still resisted, and from her heart. The gift was too valuable. But Miss Crawford persevered, and argued the case with so much affectionate earnestness through all the heads of William and the cross, and the ball, and herself, as to be finally successful. Fanny found herself obliged to yield, that she might not be accused of pride or indifference, or some other littleness; and having with modest reluctance given her consent, proceeded to make the selection. She looked and looked, longing to know which might be least valuable; and was determined in her choice at last, by fancying there was one necklace more frequently placed before her eyes than the rest. It was of gold, prettily worked; and though Fanny would have preferred a longer and a plainer chain as more adapted for her purpose, she hoped, in fixing on this, to be chusing what Miss Crawford least wished to keep. Miss Crawford smiled her perfect approbation; and hastened to complete the gift by putting the necklace round her, and making her see how well it looked. Fanny had not a word to say against its becomingness, and, excepting what remained of her scruples, was exceedingly pleased with an acquisition so very apropos. She would rather, perhaps, have been obliged to some other person. But this was an unworthy feeling. Miss Crawford had anticipated her wants with a kindness which proved her a real friend. "When I wear this necklace I shall always think of you," said she, "and feel how very kind you were." "You must think of somebody else too, when you wear that necklace," replied Miss Crawford. "You must think of Henry, for it was his choice in the first place. He gave it to me, and with the necklace I make over to you all the duty of remembering the original giver. It is to be a family remembrancer. The sister is not to be in your mind without bringing the brother too." Fanny, in great astonishment and confusion, would have returned the present instantly. To take what had been the gift of another person, of a brother too, impossible! it must not be! and with an eagerness and embarrassment quite diverting to her companion, she laid down the necklace again on its cotton, and seemed resolved either to take another or none at all. Miss Crawford thought she had never seen a prettier consciousness. "My dear child," said she, laughing, "what are you afraid of? Do you think Henry will claim the necklace as mine, and fancy you did not come honestly by it? or are you imagining he would be too much flattered by seeing round your lovely throat an ornament which his money purchased three years ago, before he knew there was such a throat in the world? or perhaps"-looking archly-"you suspect a confederacy between us, and that what I am now doing is with his knowledge and at his desire?" With the deepest blushes Fanny protested against such a thought. "Well, then," replied Miss Crawford more seriously, but without at all believing her, "to convince me that you suspect no trick, and are as unsuspicious of compliment as I have always found you, take the necklace and say no more about it. Its being a gift of my brother's need not make the smallest difference in your accepting it, as I assure you it makes none in my willingness to part with it. He is always giving me something or other. I have such innumerable presents from him that it is quite impossible for me to value or for him to remember half. And as for this necklace, I do not suppose I have worn it six times: it is very pretty, but I never think of it; and though you would be most heartily welcome to any other in my trinket-box, you have happened to fix on the very one which, if I have a choice, I would rather part with and see in your possession than any other. Say no more against it, I entreat you. Such a trifle is not worth half so many words." Fanny dared not make any farther opposition; and with renewed but less happy thanks accepted the necklace again, for there was an expression in Miss Crawford's eyes which she could not be satisfied with. It was impossible for her to be insensible of Mr. Crawford's change of manners. She had long seen it. He evidently tried to please her: he was gallant, he was attentive, he was something like what he had been to her cousins: he wanted, she supposed, to cheat her of her tranquillity as he had cheated them; and whether he might not have some concern in this necklace-she could not be convinced that he had not, for Miss Crawford, complaisant as a sister, was careless as a woman and a friend. Reflecting and doubting, and feeling that the possession of what she had so much wished for did not bring much satisfaction, she now walked home again, with a change rather than a diminution of cares since her treading that path before.

William's desire of seeing Fanny dance made an impression on his uncle. Sir Thomas wished to gratify him, and to give pleasure to the young people; and having thought the matter over, the next morning at breakfast he said, "William, I do not wish you to leave Northamptonshire without this indulgence. It would give me pleasure to see you both dance. I believe we must not think of a Northampton ball. A dance at home would be more eligible; and if-" "Ah, my dear Sir Thomas!" interrupted Mrs. Norris, "I knew what you were going to say. If dear Julia were at home, or dearest Mrs. Rushworth, you would be tempted to give the young people a dance at Mansfield. If they were at home, a ball you would have this very Christmas. Thank your uncle, William, thank your uncle!" "My daughters," replied Sir Thomas, "have their pleasures at Brighton, and I hope are very happy; but the dance which I think of giving at Mansfield will be for their cousins." Mrs. Norris had not another word to say. Her surprise and vexation required some minutes' silence to be settled into composure. His daughters absent and herself not consulted! There was comfort, however, soon at hand. She must be the doer of everything: Lady Bertram must be spared exertion, and it would all fall upon her. This reflection restored much of her good-humour. Edmund, William, and Fanny, in their different ways, expressed as much grateful pleasure in the promised ball as Sir Thomas could desire. Edmund's feelings were for the other two. His father had never shown a kindness more to his satisfaction. Lady Bertram was perfectly contented, and had no objections. Mrs. Norris was ready with suggestions as to the rooms fittest to be used, but found it all arranged; and it appeared that the day was settled too. Sir Thomas had been amusing himself with shaping a very complete outline of the business; had planned for twelve or fourteen couples: and had fixed on the 22nd as the most eligible day. The 22nd would be the last day of William's visit; but where the days were so few it would be unwise to fix on any earlier. Mrs. Norris was obliged to be satisfied with thinking just the same, and with having been on the point of proposing the 22nd herself, as the best day for the purpose. Invitations were sent, and many a young lady went to bed with her head full of happy cares, as well as Fanny. To her, the cares were almost beyond the happiness; for young and inexperienced, with small choice and no confidence in her own taste, the "how she should be dressed" was a point of painful worry; and the almost solitary ornament in her possession, a very pretty amber cross which William had brought her, was the greatest distress of all, for she had nothing but a bit of ribbon to fasten it to; and would that be allowable amidst of the rich ornaments which she supposed all the other young ladies would wear? And yet not to wear it! William had wanted to buy her a gold chain too, but the purchase had been beyond his means, and therefore not to wear the cross might mortify him. These were anxious considerations. Edmund was at this time particularly full of cares: his mind being deeply occupied by two important events which were to fix his fate in life-ordination and matrimony. On the 23rd he was going to a friend near Peterborough, in the same situation as himself, and they were to receive ordination during Christmas week. Half his destiny would then be determined, but the other half might not go so smoothly. His duties would be established, but the wife who was to share and reward those duties might yet be unattainable. He knew his own mind, but he was not perfectly assured of knowing Miss Crawford's. There were points on which they did not quite agree; and though trusting to her affection, and resolving to ask her within a very short time, he had many anxious feelings as to the result. Sometimes doubt and alarm intermingled with his hopes; and when he thought of her decided preference of a London life, what could he expect but a determined rejection? The issue depended on one question. Did she love him well enough to give up what used to be essential points? Did she love him well enough to make them no longer essential? And this question, which he was continually repeating to himself, though oftenest answered with a "Yes," had sometimes its "No." Miss Crawford was soon to leave Mansfield, and on this circumstance the "no" and the "yes" had been in alternation. He had seen her eyes sparkle as she spoke of the dear friend's letter, which invited her to London; she spoke with pleasure of the journey with a "no" in every tone. But this had been on the day of the invitation. He had since heard her express herself differently: he had heard her tell Mrs. Grant that she should leave with regret; that she believed neither the friends nor the pleasures she was going to were worth those she left behind; and that though she felt she must go, and knew she should enjoy herself when once away, she was already looking forward to being at Mansfield again. Was there not a "yes" in all this? With such matters to ponder over, Edmund could not think very much of the evening which the rest of the family were looking forward to. The whirl of a ballroom was not particularly favourable to the expression of serious feelings. To engage her early for the two first dances was all the command of happiness which he felt in his power. Thursday was the day of the ball; and on Wednesday morning Fanny, still unsure as to what she ought to wear, determined to apply to Mrs. Grant and her sister. As Edmund and William were gone to Northampton, and she had reason to think Mr. Crawford likewise out, she walked down to the Parsonage. The privacy of such a discussion was most important to Fanny. She met Miss Crawford just setting out to call on her. She explained her business at once. Miss Crawford, gratified, cordially urged Fanny to return with her to the Parsonage, and proposed their going up into her room, where they might have a comfortable coze without disturbing Dr. and Mrs. Grant. It was just the plan to suit Fanny; and they proceeded upstairs, and were soon deep in the interesting subject. Miss Crawford gave her all her best judgment and taste, made everything easy by her suggestions, and gave her encouragement. The dress being settled-"But what shall you have for a necklace?" said Miss Crawford. "Shall not you wear your brother's cross?" As she spoke she was undoing a small parcel, which Fanny had observed in her hand when they met. Fanny explained that she did not know how either to wear the cross, or to refrain from wearing it. She was answered by having a small trinket-box placed before her, and being requested to choose from several gold chains and necklaces. This parcel had been the object of Miss Crawford's intended visit: and in the kindest manner she now urged Fanny's taking a chain for the cross. "You see what a collection I have," said she; "more than I ever use. I offer nothing but an old necklace. You must oblige me." Fanny resisted. The gift was too valuable. But Miss Crawford persevered, and argued the case with so much affectionate earnestness as to be finally successful. Fanny was obliged to yield; and proceeded to choose. She looked and looked, longing to know which might be least valuable; and decided on her choice at last, by fancying there was one necklace more frequently placed before her eyes than the rest. It was of gold, prettily worked; and though Fanny would have preferred a longer and a plainer chain, she hoped, in fixing on this, to be choosing what Miss Crawford least wished to keep. Miss Crawford smiled, and put the necklace round her, making her see how well it looked. Fanny was exceedingly pleased with it. She would rather, perhaps, have been obliged to some other person. But this was an unworthy feeling. Miss Crawford's kindness proved her a real friend. "When I wear this necklace I shall always think of you," said she, "and feel how very kind you were." "You must think of somebody else too, when you wear that necklace," replied Miss Crawford. "You must think of Henry, for it was his choice first. He gave it to me. The sister is not to be in your mind without the brother too." Fanny, in great confusion, would have returned the present instantly. To take what had been the gift of a brother, impossible! and with an embarrassment quite diverting to her companion, she laid down the necklace again, and seemed resolved either to take another or none at all. Miss Crawford thought she had never seen a prettier consciousness. "My dear child," said she, laughing, "what are you afraid of? Do you think Henry will claim you stole it? or perhaps"-looking archly-"you suspect a confederacy between us, and that what I am now doing is with his knowledge and at his desire?" With the deepest blushes Fanny protested against such a thought. "Well, then," replied Miss Crawford more seriously, but without believing her, "to convince me that you suspect no trick, take the necklace and say no more about it. Its being a gift of my brother's need not make the smallest difference. He is always giving me something or other. As for this necklace, I do not suppose I have worn it six times: it is very pretty, but I never think of it; and you have happened to fix on the very one which I would rather part with than any other. Say no more against it, I entreat you." Fanny dared not make any farther opposition; and with less happy thanks accepted the necklace again, for there was an expression in Miss Crawford's eyes which she could not be satisfied with. It was impossible for her to be unaware of Mr. Crawford's change of manners. She had long seen it. He tried to please her: he was gallant and attentive, as he had been to her cousins: he wanted, she supposed, to cheat her of her tranquillity as he had cheated them. She was convinced that he had some concern in this necklace, for Miss Crawford, an indulgent sister, was careless as a woman and a friend. Feeling that the possession of it did not bring much satisfaction, she walked home again, with a change rather than a lessening of cares.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 26

Her uncle and both her aunts were in the drawing-room when Fanny went down. To the former she was an interesting object, and he saw with pleasure the general elegance of her appearance, and her being in remarkably good looks. The neatness and propriety of her dress was all that he would allow himself to commend in her presence, but upon her leaving the room again soon afterwards, he spoke of her beauty with very decided praise. "Yes," said Lady Bertram, "she looks very well. I sent Chapman to her." "Look well! Oh, yes!" cried Mrs. Norris, "she has good reason to look well with all her advantages: brought up in this family as she has been, with all the benefit of her cousins' manners before her. Only think, my dear Sir Thomas, what extraordinary advantages you and I have been the means of giving her. The very gown you have been taking notice of is your own generous present to her when dear Mrs. Rushworth married. What would she have been if we had not taken her by the hand?" Sir Thomas said no more; but when they sat down to table the eyes of the two young men assured him that the subject might be gently touched again, when the ladies withdrew, with more success. Fanny saw that she was approved; and the consciousness of looking well made her look still better. From a variety of causes she was happy, and she was soon made still happier; for in following her aunts out of the room, Edmund, who was holding open the door, said, as she passed him, "You must dance with me, Fanny; you must keep two dances for me; any two that you like, except the first." She had nothing more to wish for. She had hardly ever been in a state so nearly approaching high spirits in her life. Her cousins' former gaiety on the day of a ball was no longer surprising to her; she felt it to be indeed very charming, and was actually practising her steps about the drawing-room as long as she could be safe from the notice of her aunt Norris, who was entirely taken up at first in fresh arranging and injuring the noble fire which the butler had prepared. Half an hour followed that would have been at least languid under any other circumstances, but Fanny's happiness still prevailed. It was but to think of her conversation with Edmund, and what was the restlessness of Mrs. Norris? What were the yawns of Lady Bertram? The gentlemen joined them; and soon after began the sweet expectation of a carriage, when a general spirit of ease and enjoyment seemed diffused, and they all stood about and talked and laughed, and every moment had its pleasure and its hope. Fanny felt that there must be a struggle in Edmund's cheerfulness, but it was delightful to see the effort so successfully made. When the carriages were really heard, when the guests began really to assemble, her own gaiety of heart was much subdued: the sight of so many strangers threw her back into herself; and besides the gravity and formality of the first great circle, which the manners of neither Sir Thomas nor Lady Bertram were of a kind to do away, she found herself occasionally called on to endure something worse. She was introduced here and there by her uncle, and forced to be spoken to, and to curtsey, and speak again. This was a hard duty, and she was never summoned to it without looking at William, as he walked about at his ease in the background of the scene, and longing to be with him. The entrance of the Grants and Crawfords was a favourable epoch. The stiffness of the meeting soon gave way before their popular manners and more diffused intimacies: little groups were formed, and everybody grew comfortable. Fanny felt the advantage; and, drawing back from the toils of civility, would have been again most happy, could she have kept her eyes from wandering between Edmund and Mary Crawford. _She_ looked all loveliness-and what might not be the end of it? Her own musings were brought to an end on perceiving Mr. Crawford before her, and her thoughts were put into another channel by his engaging her almost instantly for the first two dances. Her happiness on this occasion was very much _ la mortal_, finely chequered. To be secure of a partner at first was a most essential good-for the moment of beginning was now growing seriously near; and she so little understood her own claims as to think that if Mr. Crawford had not asked her, she must have been the last to be sought after, and should have received a partner only through a series of inquiry, and bustle, and interference, which would have been terrible; but at the same time there was a pointedness in his manner of asking her which she did not like, and she saw his eye glancing for a moment at her necklace, with a smile-she thought there was a smile-which made her blush and feel wretched. And though there was no second glance to disturb her, though his object seemed then to be only quietly agreeable, she could not get the better of her embarrassment, heightened as it was by the idea of his perceiving it, and had no composure till he turned away to some one else. Then she could gradually rise up to the genuine satisfaction of having a partner, a voluntary partner, secured against the dancing began. When the company were moving into the ballroom, she found herself for the first time near Miss Crawford, whose eyes and smiles were immediately and more unequivocally directed as her brother's had been, and who was beginning to speak on the subject, when Fanny, anxious to get the story over, hastened to give the explanation of the second necklace: the real chain. Miss Crawford listened; and all her intended compliments and insinuations to Fanny were forgotten: she felt only one thing; and her eyes, bright as they had been before, shewing they could yet be brighter, she exclaimed with eager pleasure, "Did he? Did Edmund? That was like himself. No other man would have thought of it. I honour him beyond expression." And she looked around as if longing to tell him so. He was not near, he was attending a party of ladies out of the room; and Mrs. Grant coming up to the two girls, and taking an arm of each, they followed with the rest. Fanny's heart sunk, but there was no leisure for thinking long even of Miss Crawford's feelings. They were in the ballroom, the violins were playing, and her mind was in a flutter that forbade its fixing on anything serious. She must watch the general arrangements, and see how everything was done. In a few minutes Sir Thomas came to her, and asked if she were engaged; and the "Yes, sir; to Mr. Crawford," was exactly what he had intended to hear. Mr. Crawford was not far off; Sir Thomas brought him to her, saying something which discovered to Fanny, that _she_ was to lead the way and open the ball; an idea that had never occurred to her before. Whenever she had thought of the minutiae of the evening, it had been as a matter of course that Edmund would begin with Miss Crawford; and the impression was so strong, that though _her_ _uncle_ spoke the contrary, she could not help an exclamation of surprise, a hint of her unfitness, an entreaty even to be excused. To be urging her opinion against Sir Thomas's was a proof of the extremity of the case; but such was her horror at the first suggestion, that she could actually look him in the face and say that she hoped it might be settled otherwise; in vain, however: Sir Thomas smiled, tried to encourage her, and then looked too serious, and said too decidedly, "It must be so, my dear," for her to hazard another word; and she found herself the next moment conducted by Mr. Crawford to the top of the room, and standing there to be joined by the rest of the dancers, couple after couple, as they were formed. She could hardly believe it. To be placed above so many elegant young women! The distinction was too great. It was treating her like her cousins! And her thoughts flew to those absent cousins with most unfeigned and truly tender regret, that they were not at home to take their own place in the room, and have their share of a pleasure which would have been so very delightful to them. So often as she had heard them wish for a ball at home as the greatest of all felicities! And to have them away when it was given-and for _her_ to be opening the ball-and with Mr. Crawford too! She hoped they would not envy her that distinction _now_; but when she looked back to the state of things in the autumn, to what they had all been to each other when once dancing in that house before, the present arrangement was almost more than she could understand herself. The ball began. It was rather honour than happiness to Fanny, for the first dance at least: her partner was in excellent spirits, and tried to impart them to her; but she was a great deal too much frightened to have any enjoyment till she could suppose herself no longer looked at. Young, pretty, and gentle, however, she had no awkwardnesses that were not as good as graces, and there were few persons present that were not disposed to praise her. She was attractive, she was modest, she was Sir Thomas's niece, and she was soon said to be admired by Mr. Crawford. It was enough to give her general favour. Sir Thomas himself was watching her progress down the dance with much complacency; he was proud of his niece; and without attributing all her personal beauty, as Mrs. Norris seemed to do, to her transplantation to Mansfield, he was pleased with himself for having supplied everything else: education and manners she owed to him. Miss Crawford saw much of Sir Thomas's thoughts as he stood, and having, in spite of all his wrongs towards her, a general prevailing desire of recommending herself to him, took an opportunity of stepping aside to say something agreeable of Fanny. Her praise was warm, and he received it as she could wish, joining in it as far as discretion, and politeness, and slowness of speech would allow, and certainly appearing to greater advantage on the subject than his lady did soon afterwards, when Mary, perceiving her on a sofa very near, turned round before she began to dance, to compliment her on Miss Price's looks. "Yes, she does look very well," was Lady Bertram's placid reply. "Chapman helped her to dress. I sent Chapman to her." Not but that she was really pleased to have Fanny admired; but she was so much more struck with her own kindness in sending Chapman to her, that she could not get it out of her head. Miss Crawford knew Mrs. Norris too well to think of gratifying _her_ by commendation of Fanny; to her, it was as the occasion offered-"Ah! ma'am, how much we want dear Mrs. Rushworth and Julia to-night!" and Mrs. Norris paid her with as many smiles and courteous words as she had time for, amid so much occupation as she found for herself in making up card-tables, giving hints to Sir Thomas, and trying to move all the chaperons to a better part of the room. Miss Crawford blundered most towards Fanny herself in her intentions to please. She meant to be giving her little heart a happy flutter, and filling her with sensations of delightful self-consequence; and, misinterpreting Fanny's blushes, still thought she must be doing so when she went to her after the two first dances, and said, with a significant look, "Perhaps _you_ can tell me why my brother goes to town to-morrow? He says he has business there, but will not tell me what. The first time he ever denied me his confidence! But this is what we all come to. All are supplanted sooner or later. Now, I must apply to you for information. Pray, what is Henry going for?" Fanny protested her ignorance as steadily as her embarrassment allowed. "Well, then," replied Miss Crawford, laughing, "I must suppose it to be purely for the pleasure of conveying your brother, and of talking of you by the way." Fanny was confused, but it was the confusion of discontent; while Miss Crawford wondered she did not smile, and thought her over-anxious, or thought her odd, or thought her anything rather than insensible of pleasure in Henry's attentions. Fanny had a good deal of enjoyment in the course of the evening; but Henry's attentions had very little to do with it. She would much rather _not_ have been asked by him again so very soon, and she wished she had not been obliged to suspect that his previous inquiries of Mrs. Norris, about the supper hour, were all for the sake of securing her at that part of the evening. But it was not to be avoided: he made her feel that she was the object of all; though she could not say that it was unpleasantly done, that there was indelicacy or ostentation in his manner; and sometimes, when he talked of William, he was really not unagreeable, and shewed even a warmth of heart which did him credit. But still his attentions made no part of her satisfaction. She was happy whenever she looked at William, and saw how perfectly he was enjoying himself, in every five minutes that she could walk about with him and hear his account of his partners; she was happy in knowing herself admired; and she was happy in having the two dances with Edmund still to look forward to, during the greatest part of the evening, her hand being so eagerly sought after that her indefinite engagement with _him_ was in continual perspective. She was happy even when they did take place; but not from any flow of spirits on his side, or any such expressions of tender gallantry as had blessed the morning. His mind was fagged, and her happiness sprung from being the friend with whom it could find repose. "I am worn out with civility," said he. "I have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But with _you_, Fanny, there may be peace. You will not want to be talked to. Let us have the luxury of silence." Fanny would hardly even speak her agreement. A weariness, arising probably, in great measure, from the same feelings which he had acknowledged in the morning, was peculiarly to be respected, and they went down their two dances together with such sober tranquillity as might satisfy any looker-on that Sir Thomas had been bringing up no wife for his younger son. The evening had afforded Edmund little pleasure. Miss Crawford had been in gay spirits when they first danced together, but it was not her gaiety that could do him good: it rather sank than raised his comfort; and afterwards, for he found himself still impelled to seek her again, she had absolutely pained him by her manner of speaking of the profession to which he was now on the point of belonging. They had talked, and they had been silent; he had reasoned, she had ridiculed; and they had parted at last with mutual vexation. Fanny, not able to refrain entirely from observing them, had seen enough to be tolerably satisfied. It was barbarous to be happy when Edmund was suffering. Yet some happiness must and would arise from the very conviction that he did suffer. When her two dances with him were over, her inclination and strength for more were pretty well at an end; and Sir Thomas, having seen her walk rather than dance down the shortening set, breathless, and with her hand at her side, gave his orders for her sitting down entirely. From that time Mr. Crawford sat down likewise. "Poor Fanny!" cried William, coming for a moment to visit her, and working away his partner's fan as if for life, "how soon she is knocked up! Why, the sport is but just begun. I hope we shall keep it up these two hours. How can you be tired so soon?" "So soon! my good friend," said Sir Thomas, producing his watch with all necessary caution; "it is three o'clock, and your sister is not used to these sort of hours." "Well, then, Fanny, you shall not get up to-morrow before I go. Sleep as long as you can, and never mind me." "Oh! William." "What! Did she think of being up before you set off?" "Oh! yes, sir," cried Fanny, rising eagerly from her seat to be nearer her uncle; "I must get up and breakfast with him. It will be the last time, you know; the last morning." "You had better not. He is to have breakfasted and be gone by half-past nine. Mr. Crawford, I think you call for him at half-past nine?" Fanny was too urgent, however, and had too many tears in her eyes for denial; and it ended in a gracious "Well, well!" which was permission. "Yes, half-past nine," said Crawford to William as the latter was leaving them, "and I shall be punctual, for there will be no kind sister to get up for _me_." And in a lower tone to Fanny, "I shall have only a desolate house to hurry from. Your brother will find my ideas of time and his own very different to-morrow." After a short consideration, Sir Thomas asked Crawford to join the early breakfast party in that house instead of eating alone: he should himself be of it; and the readiness with which his invitation was accepted convinced him that the suspicions whence, he must confess to himself, this very ball had in great measure sprung, were well founded. Mr. Crawford was in love with Fanny. He had a pleasing anticipation of what would be. His niece, meanwhile, did not thank him for what he had just done. She had hoped to have William all to herself the last morning. It would have been an unspeakable indulgence. But though her wishes were overthrown, there was no spirit of murmuring within her. On the contrary, she was so totally unused to have her pleasure consulted, or to have anything take place at all in the way she could desire, that she was more disposed to wonder and rejoice in having carried her point so far, than to repine at the counteraction which followed. Shortly afterward, Sir Thomas was again interfering a little with her inclination, by advising her to go immediately to bed. "Advise" was his word, but it was the advice of absolute power, and she had only to rise, and, with Mr. Crawford's very cordial adieus, pass quietly away; stopping at the entrance-door, like the Lady of Branxholm Hall, "one moment and no more," to view the happy scene, and take a last look at the five or six determined couple who were still hard at work; and then, creeping slowly up the principal staircase, pursued by the ceaseless country-dance, feverish with hopes and fears, soup and negus, sore-footed and fatigued, restless and agitated, yet feeling, in spite of everything, that a ball was indeed delightful. In thus sending her away, Sir Thomas perhaps might not be thinking merely of her health. It might occur to him that Mr. Crawford had been sitting by her long enough, or he might mean to recommend her as a wife by shewing her persuadableness.

Her uncle and her aunts were in the drawing-room when Fanny went down. The former saw with pleasure the elegance of her appearance. The neatness and propriety of her dress was all that he would commend in her presence, but upon her leaving the room, he spoke of her beauty with decided praise. "Yes," said Lady Bertram, "she looks very well. I sent Chapman to her." "Look well! Oh, yes!" cried Mrs. Norris, "she has good reason to look well with all her advantages: brought up in this family as she has been, with all the benefit of her cousins' manners before her. What would she have been if we had not taken her in hand?" When they sat down to table the eyes of the two young men told Fanny that she was approved; and the consciousness of looking well made her look still better. Edmund said, "You must dance with me, Fanny; keep two dances for me; any two that you like, except the first." She had nothing more to wish for. She had hardly ever been in a state so close to high spirits in her life. She felt that a ball was indeed very charming, and was actually practising her steps about the drawing-room. Soon afterwards began the sweet expectation of a carriage, while they all stood about and talked and laughed, and every moment had its pleasure and its hope. Fanny felt that there must be a struggle in Edmund's cheerfulness, but it was delightful to see the effort so successfully made. When the guests began to assemble, her own gaiety was much subdued: the sight of so many strangers threw her back into herself; and as she was introduced here and there by her uncle, she found herself forced to be spoken to, and to curtsey, and speak again. This was a hard duty, and she was never summoned to it without looking longingly at William, who walked about at his ease. With the entrance of the Grants and Crawfords, stiffness gave way before their popular manners: everybody grew comfortable. Fanny would have been again most happy, could she have kept her eyes from wandering between Edmund and Mary Crawford. She looked all loveliness-and what might not be the end of it? Her musings were ended on seeing Mr. Crawford before her; he engaged her for the first two dances. Her happiness on this occasion was finely chequered. To be secure of a partner at first was a most essential good-for she so little understood her own claims as to think that if Mr. Crawford had not asked her, she must have been the last to be sought after; but at the same time there was a pointedness in his manner of asking her which she did not like, and she saw his eye glancing for a moment at her necklace, with a smile which made her blush and feel wretched. Embarrassed, she had no composure till he turned away to some one else. Then she could gradually rise up to the genuine satisfaction of having a partner secured before the dancing began. When the company were moving into the ballroom, she found herself near Miss Crawford, and hastened to explain the second necklace. Miss Crawford listened; and all her intended insinuations to Fanny were forgotten: she felt only one thing; and she exclaimed with eager pleasure, "Did Edmund? That was like himself. No other man would have thought of it. I honour him beyond expression." And she looked around as if longing to tell him so. Fanny's heart sunk, but there was no leisure for thinking long. They were in the ballroom, the violins were playing, and her mind was in a flutter. Sir Thomas came to her, and asked if she were engaged to dance; and the "Yes, sir; to Mr. Crawford," was exactly what he had intended to hear. He then told Fanny that she was to lead the way and open the ball; an idea that had never occurred to her before. She had assumed that Edmund would begin with Miss Crawford; and she could not help an exclamation of surprise, an entreaty even to be excused. Such was her horror, that she could actually look Sir Thomas in the face and say that she hoped it might be settled otherwise. In vain, however: Sir Thomas smiled, and said decidedly, "It must be so, my dear"; and she found herself the next moment conducted by Mr. Crawford to the top of the room, and standing there to be joined by the rest of the dancers, couple after couple, as they were formed. She could hardly believe it. To be placed above so many elegant young women! It was treating her like her cousins! And her thoughts flew to those absent cousins with truly tender regret, that they were not at home to share in a pleasure which would have been so delightful to them. So often she had heard them wish for a ball at home! And for her to be opening the ball-and with Mr. Crawford too! She hoped they would not envy her that distinction now; but when she looked back to the autumn, the present arrangement was almost more than she could understand. The ball began. It was rather honour than happiness to Fanny, for the first dance at least: her partner was in excellent spirits, but she was too frightened to have any enjoyment till she could suppose herself no longer looked at. Young, pretty, and gentle, however, there were few persons present that did not praise her. She was attractive, she was modest, she was Sir Thomas's niece, and she was soon said to be admired by Mr. Crawford. It was enough to give her general favour. Sir Thomas himself was proud of her; and without attributing her beauty, as Mrs. Norris did, to her transplantation to Mansfield, he was pleased with himself for having supplied everything else: education and manners she owed to him. Miss Crawford saw much of Sir Thomas's thoughts, and wishing to recommend herself to him, stepped aside to say something agreeable of Fanny. Her praise was warm, and he certainly received it better than his lady did, when Mary turned to compliment her on Miss Price's looks. "Yes, she looks very well," was Lady Bertram's placid reply. "Chapman helped her to dress. I sent Chapman to her." She was really pleased to have Fanny admired; but she was so struck with her own kindness in sending Chapman to her, that she could not get it out of her head. Miss Crawford knew Mrs. Norris too well to think of gratifying her by commendation of Fanny; instead-"Ah! ma'am, how much we want dear Mrs. Rushworth and Julia to-night!" Mrs. Norris paid her with as many courteous words as she had time for amid her occupation in making up card-tables, giving hints to Sir Thomas, and trying to move all the chaperons across the room. Miss Crawford blundered most towards Fanny herself in her intentions to please. She meant to be giving her little heart a happy flutter; and, misinterpreting Fanny's blushes, thought she must be doing so when she said, with a significant look, "Perhaps you can tell me why my brother goes to town to-morrow? He says he has business there, but will not tell me what. Now, I must ask you. Pray, what is Henry going for?" Fanny protested her ignorance. "Well, then," replied Miss Crawford, laughing, "I must suppose it to be purely for the pleasure of taking your brother, and talking about you on the way." Fanny was confused; while Miss Crawford wondered that she did not smile, and thought her over-anxious, or thought her odd, or thought her anything rather than insensible of pleasure in Henry's attentions. Fanny had a good deal of enjoyment in the course of the evening; but Henry's attentions had very little to do with it. She would rather not have been asked to dance by him again so soon. She could not say that it was unpleasantly done, and sometimes, when he talked of William, he was not unagreeable, and showed a warmth of heart which did him credit. But still his attentions made no part of her satisfaction. She was happy whenever she looked at William, and saw how he was enjoying himself; she was happy in knowing herself admired; and she was happy in having the two dances with Edmund to look forward to. She was happy even when they did take place; but not from any expressions of tender gallantry on his side. Edmund's mind was weary, and her happiness sprung from being the friend with whom it could find repose. "I am worn out with civility," said he. "I have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But with you, Fanny, there may be peace. You will not want to be talked to. Let us have the luxury of silence." Fanny would hardly even speak her agreement. His weariness was to be respected, and they went down their two dances together with such sober tranquillity as might satisfy any looker-on that Sir Thomas had been bringing up no wife for his younger son. The evening had afforded Edmund little pleasure. Miss Crawford had been in gay spirits when they first danced together, but her gaiety rather sank than raised his comfort; and afterwards, she had absolutely pained him by her manner of speaking of the profession to which he was now on the point of belonging. He had reasoned, she had ridiculed; and they had parted at last with mutual vexation. Fanny had seen enough to be tolerably satisfied. It was barbarous to be happy when Edmund was suffering. Yet some happiness must arise from the very conviction that he did suffer. When her two dances with him were over, her strength for more was pretty well at an end; and Sir Thomas, seeing her breathless, and with her hand at her side, gave his orders for her sitting down. Mr. Crawford sat down likewise. "Poor Fanny!" cried William, coming to visit her, "how soon she is knocked up! Why, the sport is but just begun. How can you be tired so soon?" "So soon! my good friend," said Sir Thomas, "it is three o'clock, and your sister is not used to these sort of hours." "Well, then, Fanny, you shall not get up to-morrow before I go. Sleep as long as you can, and never mind me." "What! Did she think of being up before you set off?" "Oh! yes, sir," cried Fanny eagerly; "I must get up and breakfast with him. It will be the last time, you know." "You had better not. He is to have gone by half-past nine. Mr. Crawford, I think you call for him at half-past nine?" Fanny, however, had too many tears in her eyes for denial; and it ended in a gracious "Well, well!" which was permission. Sir Thomas then asked Crawford to join the early breakfast party: and the readiness with which his invitation was accepted convinced him that he was right: Mr. Crawford was in love with Fanny. His niece, meanwhile, did not thank him for what he had just done. She had hoped to have William all to herself the last morning. But she was so totally unused to have her pleasure consulted, that she was more disposed to rejoice in having carried her point so far, than to repine. Shortly afterward, Sir Thomas advised her to go to bed. It was the advice of absolute power, and she had only to rise, and pass quietly away; stopping at the entrance-door to take a last look at the five or six determined couples who were still hard at work; and then, creeping slowly up the staircase, feverish with hopes and fears, sore-footed and fatigued, restless and agitated, yet feeling, in spite of everything, that a ball was indeed delightful. In thus sending her away, Sir Thomas perhaps might not be thinking merely of her health. It might occur to him that Mr. Crawford had been sitting by her long enough, or he might mean to recommend her as a wife by showing her persuadableness.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 28

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest. My Fanny, indeed, at this very time, I have the satisfaction of knowing, must have been happy in spite of everything. She must have been a happy creature in spite of all that she felt, or thought she felt, for the distress of those around her. She had sources of delight that must force their way. She was returned to Mansfield Park, she was useful, she was beloved; she was safe from Mr. Crawford; and when Sir Thomas came back she had every proof that could be given in his then melancholy state of spirits, of his perfect approbation and increased regard; and happy as all this must make her, she would still have been happy without any of it, for Edmund was no longer the dupe of Miss Crawford. It is true that Edmund was very far from happy himself. He was suffering from disappointment and regret, grieving over what was, and wishing for what could never be. She knew it was so, and was sorry; but it was with a sorrow so founded on satisfaction, so tending to ease, and so much in harmony with every dearest sensation, that there are few who might not have been glad to exchange their greatest gaiety for it. Sir Thomas, poor Sir Thomas, a parent, and conscious of errors in his own conduct as a parent, was the longest to suffer. He felt that he ought not to have allowed the marriage; that his daughter's sentiments had been sufficiently known to him to render him culpable in authorising it; that in so doing he had sacrificed the right to the expedient, and been governed by motives of selfishness and worldly wisdom. These were reflections that required some time to soften; but time will do almost everything; and though little comfort arose on Mrs. Rushworth's side for the misery she had occasioned, comfort was to be found greater than he had supposed in his other children. Julia's match became a less desperate business than he had considered it at first. She was humble, and wishing to be forgiven; and Mr. Yates, desirous of being really received into the family, was disposed to look up to him and be guided. He was not very solid; but there was a hope of his becoming less trifling, of his being at least tolerably domestic and quiet; and at any rate, there was comfort in finding his estate rather more, and his debts much less, than he had feared, and in being consulted and treated as the friend best worth attending to. There was comfort also in Tom, who gradually regained his health, without regaining the thoughtlessness and selfishness of his previous habits. He was the better for ever for his illness. He had suffered, and he had learned to think: two advantages that he had never known before; and the self-reproach arising from the deplorable event in Wimpole Street, to which he felt himself accessory by all the dangerous intimacy of his unjustifiable theatre, made an impression on his mind which, at the age of six-and-twenty, with no want of sense or good companions, was durable in its happy effects. He became what he ought to be: useful to his father, steady and quiet, and not living merely for himself. Here was comfort indeed! and quite as soon as Sir Thomas could place dependence on such sources of good, Edmund was contributing to his father's ease by improvement in the only point in which he had given him pain before-improvement in his spirits. After wandering about and sitting under trees with Fanny all the summer evenings, he had so well talked his mind into submission as to be very tolerably cheerful again. These were the circumstances and the hopes which gradually brought their alleviation to Sir Thomas, deadening his sense of what was lost, and in part reconciling him to himself; though the anguish arising from the conviction of his own errors in the education of his daughters was never to be entirely done away. Too late he became aware how unfavourable to the character of any young people must be the totally opposite treatment which Maria and Julia had been always experiencing at home, where the excessive indulgence and flattery of their aunt had been continually contrasted with his own severity. He saw how ill he had judged, in expecting to counteract what was wrong in Mrs. Norris by its reverse in himself; clearly saw that he had but increased the evil by teaching them to repress their spirits in his presence so as to make their real disposition unknown to him, and sending them for all their indulgences to a person who had been able to attach them only by the blindness of her affection, and the excess of her praise. Here had been grievous mismanagement; but, bad as it was, he gradually grew to feel that it had not been the most direful mistake in his plan of education. Something must have been wanting _within_, or time would have worn away much of its ill effect. He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments, the authorised object of their youth, could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition; and of the necessity of self-denial and humility, he feared they had never heard from any lips that could profit them. Bitterly did he deplore a deficiency which now he could scarcely comprehend to have been possible. Wretchedly did he feel, that with all the cost and care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought up his daughters without their understanding their first duties, or his being acquainted with their character and temper. The high spirit and strong passions of Mrs. Rushworth, especially, were made known to him only in their sad result. She was not to be prevailed on to leave Mr. Crawford. She hoped to marry him, and they continued together till she was obliged to be convinced that such hope was vain, and till the disappointment and wretchedness arising from the conviction rendered her temper so bad, and her feelings for him so like hatred, as to make them for a while each other's punishment, and then induce a voluntary separation. She had lived with him to be reproached as the ruin of all his happiness in Fanny, and carried away no better consolation in leaving him than that she _had_ divided them. What can exceed the misery of such a mind in such a situation? Mr. Rushworth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce; and so ended a marriage contracted under such circumstances as to make any better end the effect of good luck not to be reckoned on. She had despised him, and loved another; and he had been very much aware that it was so. The indignities of stupidity, and the disappointments of selfish passion, can excite little pity. His punishment followed his conduct, as did a deeper punishment the deeper guilt of his wife. _He_ was released from the engagement to be mortified and unhappy, till some other pretty girl could attract him into matrimony again, and he might set forward on a second, and, it is to be hoped, more prosperous trial of the state: if duped, to be duped at least with good humour and good luck; while she must withdraw with infinitely stronger feelings to a retirement and reproach which could allow no second spring of hope or character. Where she could be placed became a subject of most melancholy and momentous consultation. Mrs. Norris, whose attachment seemed to augment with the demerits of her niece, would have had her received at home and countenanced by them all. Sir Thomas would not hear of it; and Mrs. Norris's anger against Fanny was so much the greater, from considering _her_ residence there as the motive. She persisted in placing his scruples to _her_ account, though Sir Thomas very solemnly assured her that, had there been no young woman in question, had there been no young person of either sex belonging to him, to be endangered by the society or hurt by the character of Mrs. Rushworth, he would never have offered so great an insult to the neighbourhood as to expect it to notice her. As a daughter, he hoped a penitent one, she should be protected by him, and secured in every comfort, and supported by every encouragement to do right, which their relative situations admitted; but farther than _that_ he could not go. Maria had destroyed her own character, and he would not, by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored, by affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to lessen its disgrace, be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family as he had known himself. It ended in Mrs. Norris's resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment. Mrs. Norris's removal from Mansfield was the great supplementary comfort of Sir Thomas's life. His opinion of her had been sinking from the day of his return from Antigua: in every transaction together from that period, in their daily intercourse, in business, or in chat, she had been regularly losing ground in his esteem, and convincing him that either time had done her much disservice, or that he had considerably over-rated her sense, and wonderfully borne with her manners before. He had felt her as an hourly evil, which was so much the worse, as there seemed no chance of its ceasing but with life; she seemed a part of himself that must be borne for ever. To be relieved from her, therefore, was so great a felicity that, had she not left bitter remembrances behind her, there might have been danger of his learning almost to approve the evil which produced such a good. She was regretted by no one at Mansfield. She had never been able to attach even those she loved best; and since Mrs. Rushworth's elopement, her temper had been in a state of such irritation as to make her everywhere tormenting. Not even Fanny had tears for aunt Norris, not even when she was gone for ever. That Julia escaped better than Maria was owing, in some measure, to a favourable difference of disposition and circumstance, but in a greater to her having been less the darling of that very aunt, less flattered and less spoilt. Her beauty and acquirements had held but a second place. She had been always used to think herself a little inferior to Maria. Her temper was naturally the easiest of the two; her feelings, though quick, were more controllable, and education had not given her so very hurtful a degree of self-consequence. She had submitted the best to the disappointment in Henry Crawford. After the first bitterness of the conviction of being slighted was over, she had been tolerably soon in a fair way of not thinking of him again; and when the acquaintance was renewed in town, and Mr. Rushworth's house became Crawford's object, she had had the merit of withdrawing herself from it, and of chusing that time to pay a visit to her other friends, in order to secure herself from being again too much attracted. This had been her motive in going to her cousin's. Mr. Yates's convenience had had nothing to do with it. She had been allowing his attentions some time, but with very little idea of ever accepting him; and had not her sister's conduct burst forth as it did, and her increased dread of her father and of home, on that event, imagining its certain consequence to herself would be greater severity and restraint, made her hastily resolve on avoiding such immediate horrors at all risks, it is probable that Mr. Yates would never have succeeded. She had not eloped with any worse feelings than those of selfish alarm. It had appeared to her the only thing to be done. Maria's guilt had induced Julia's folly. Henry Crawford, ruined by early independence and bad domestic example, indulged in the freaks of a cold-blooded vanity a little too long. Once it had, by an opening undesigned and unmerited, led him into the way of happiness. Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one amiable woman's affections, could he have found sufficient exultation in overcoming the reluctance, in working himself into the esteem and tenderness of Fanny Price, there would have been every probability of success and felicity for him. His affection had already done something. Her influence over him had already given him some influence over her. Would he have deserved more, there can be no doubt that more would have been obtained, especially when that marriage had taken place, which would have given him the assistance of her conscience in subduing her first inclination, and brought them very often together. Would he have persevered, and uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward, and a reward very voluntarily bestowed, within a reasonable period from Edmund's marrying Mary. Had he done as he intended, and as he knew he ought, by going down to Everingham after his return from Portsmouth, he might have been deciding his own happy destiny. But he was pressed to stay for Mrs. Fraser's party; his staying was made of flattering consequence, and he was to meet Mrs. Rushworth there. Curiosity and vanity were both engaged, and the temptation of immediate pleasure was too strong for a mind unused to make any sacrifice to right: he resolved to defer his Norfolk journey, resolved that writing should answer the purpose of it, or that its purpose was unimportant, and staid. He saw Mrs. Rushworth, was received by her with a coldness which ought to have been repulsive, and have established apparent indifference between them for ever; but he was mortified, he could not bear to be thrown off by the woman whose smiles had been so wholly at his command: he must exert himself to subdue so proud a display of resentment; it was anger on Fanny's account; he must get the better of it, and make Mrs. Rushworth Maria Bertram again in her treatment of himself. In this spirit he began the attack, and by animated perseverance had soon re-established the sort of familiar intercourse, of gallantry, of flirtation, which bounded his views; but in triumphing over the discretion which, though beginning in anger, might have saved them both, he had put himself in the power of feelings on her side more strong than he had supposed. She loved him; there was no withdrawing attentions avowedly dear to her. He was entangled by his own vanity, with as little excuse of love as possible, and without the smallest inconstancy of mind towards her cousin. To keep Fanny and the Bertrams from a knowledge of what was passing became his first object. Secrecy could not have been more desirable for Mrs. Rushworth's credit than he felt it for his own. When he returned from Richmond, he would have been glad to see Mrs. Rushworth no more. All that followed was the result of her imprudence; and he went off with her at last, because he could not help it, regretting Fanny even at the moment, but regretting her infinitely more when all the bustle of the intrigue was over, and a very few months had taught him, by the force of contrast, to place a yet higher value on the sweetness of her temper, the purity of her mind, and the excellence of her principles. That punishment, the public punishment of disgrace, should in a just measure attend _his_ share of the offence is, we know, not one of the barriers which society gives to virtue. In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished; but without presuming to look forward to a juster appointment hereafter, we may fairly consider a man of sense, like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret: vexation that must rise sometimes to self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness, in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most estimable, and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom he had rationally as well as passionately loved. After what had passed to wound and alienate the two families, the continuance of the Bertrams and Grants in such close neighbourhood would have been most distressing; but the absence of the latter, for some months purposely lengthened, ended very fortunately in the necessity, or at least the practicability, of a permanent removal. Dr. Grant, through an interest on which he had almost ceased to form hopes, succeeded to a stall in Westminster, which, as affording an occasion for leaving Mansfield, an excuse for residence in London, and an increase of income to answer the expenses of the change, was highly acceptable to those who went and those who staid. Mrs. Grant, with a temper to love and be loved, must have gone with some regret from the scenes and people she had been used to; but the same happiness of disposition must in any place, and any society, secure her a great deal to enjoy, and she had again a home to offer Mary; and Mary had had enough of her own friends, enough of vanity, ambition, love, and disappointment in the course of the last half-year, to be in need of the true kindness of her sister's heart, and the rational tranquillity of her ways. They lived together; and when Dr. Grant had brought on apoplexy and death, by three great institutionary dinners in one week, they still lived together; for Mary, though perfectly resolved against ever attaching herself to a younger brother again, was long in finding among the dashing representatives, or idle heir-apparents, who were at the command of her beauty, and her 20,000, any one who could satisfy the better taste she had acquired at Mansfield, whose character and manners could authorise a hope of the domestic happiness she had there learned to estimate, or put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of her head. Edmund had greatly the advantage of her in this respect. He had not to wait and wish with vacant affections for an object worthy to succeed her in them. Scarcely had he done regretting Mary Crawford, and observing to Fanny how impossible it was that he should ever meet with such another woman, before it began to strike him whether a very different kind of woman might not do just as well, or a great deal better: whether Fanny herself were not growing as dear, as important to him in all her smiles and all her ways, as Mary Crawford had ever been; and whether it might not be a possible, a hopeful undertaking to persuade her that her warm and sisterly regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love. I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire. With such a regard for her, indeed, as his had long been, a regard founded on the most endearing claims of innocence and helplessness, and completed by every recommendation of growing worth, what could be more natural than the change? Loving, guiding, protecting her, as he had been doing ever since her being ten years old, her mind in so great a degree formed by his care, and her comfort depending on his kindness, an object to him of such close and peculiar interest, dearer by all his own importance with her than any one else at Mansfield, what was there now to add, but that he should learn to prefer soft light eyes to sparkling dark ones. And being always with her, and always talking confidentially, and his feelings exactly in that favourable state which a recent disappointment gives, those soft light eyes could not be very long in obtaining the pre-eminence. Having once set out, and felt that he had done so on this road to happiness, there was nothing on the side of prudence to stop him or make his progress slow; no doubts of her deserving, no fears of opposition of taste, no need of drawing new hopes of happiness from dissimilarity of temper. Her mind, disposition, opinions, and habits wanted no half-concealment, no self-deception on the present, no reliance on future improvement. Even in the midst of his late infatuation, he had acknowledged Fanny's mental superiority. What must be his sense of it now, therefore? She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting. Timid, anxious, doubting as she was, it was still impossible that such tenderness as hers should not, at times, hold out the strongest hope of success, though it remained for a later period to tell him the whole delightful and astonishing truth. His happiness in knowing himself to have been so long the beloved of such a heart, must have been great enough to warrant any strength of language in which he could clothe it to her or to himself; it must have been a delightful happiness. But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach. Let no one presume to give the feelings of a young woman on receiving the assurance of that affection of which she has scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope. Their own inclinations ascertained, there were no difficulties behind, no drawback of poverty or parent. It was a match which Sir Thomas's wishes had even forestalled. Sick of ambitious and mercenary connexions, prizing more and more the sterling good of principle and temper, and chiefly anxious to bind by the strongest securities all that remained to him of domestic felicity, he had pondered with genuine satisfaction on the more than possibility of the two young friends finding their natural consolation in each other for all that had occurred of disappointment to either; and the joyful consent which met Edmund's application, the high sense of having realised a great acquisition in the promise of Fanny for a daughter, formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl's coming had been first agitated, as time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals, for their own instruction, and their neighbours' entertainment. Fanny was indeed the daughter that he wanted. His charitable kindness had been rearing a prime comfort for himself. His liberality had a rich repayment, and the general goodness of his intentions by her deserved it. He might have made her childhood happier; but it had been an error of judgment only which had given him the appearance of harshness, and deprived him of her early love; and now, on really knowing each other, their mutual attachment became very strong. After settling her at Thornton Lacey with every kind attention to her comfort, the object of almost every day was to see her there, or to get her away from it. Selfishly dear as she had long been to Lady Bertram, she could not be parted with willingly by _her_. No happiness of son or niece could make her wish the marriage. But it was possible to part with her, because Susan remained to supply her place. Susan became the stationary niece, delighted to be so; and equally well adapted for it by a readiness of mind, and an inclination for usefulness, as Fanny had been by sweetness of temper, and strong feelings of gratitude. Susan could never be spared. First as a comfort to Fanny, then as an auxiliary, and last as her substitute, she was established at Mansfield, with every appearance of equal permanency. Her more fearless disposition and happier nerves made everything easy to her there. With quickness in understanding the tempers of those she had to deal with, and no natural timidity to restrain any consequent wishes, she was soon welcome and useful to all; and after Fanny's removal succeeded so naturally to her influence over the hourly comfort of her aunt, as gradually to become, perhaps, the most beloved of the two. In _her_ usefulness, in Fanny's excellence, in William's continued good conduct and rising fame, and in the general well-doing and success of the other members of the family, all assisting to advance each other, and doing credit to his countenance and aid, Sir Thomas saw repeated, and for ever repeated, reason to rejoice in what he had done for them all, and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure. With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune and friends, the happiness of the married cousins must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be. Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort; and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of Mansfield living, by the death of Dr. Grant, occurred just after they had been married long enough to begin to want an increase of income, and feel their distance from the paternal abode an inconvenience. On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long been. FINIS.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest. My Fanny, indeed, at this very time, must have been happy in spite of everything. She had many sources of delight. She was returned to Mansfield Park, she was useful, she was beloved; she was safe from Mr. Crawford; and when Sir Thomas came back she had every proof that could be given in his melancholy state of spirits, of his perfect approbation and increased regard. Happy as all this must make her, she would still have been happy without any of it, for Edmund was no longer the dupe of Miss Crawford. It is true that Edmund was very far from happy himself. He was grieving over what was, and wishing for what could never be. She knew it was so, and was sorry; but it was with a sorrow so founded on satisfaction, so tending to ease, that there are few who would not have been glad to exchange their greatest gaiety for it. Poor Sir Thomas, a parent conscious of errors in his conduct as a parent, was the longest to suffer. He felt that he ought not to have allowed Maria's marriage; that his daughter's sentiments had been sufficiently known to him to render him culpable; that he had been governed by motives of selfishness and worldly wisdom. These were reflections that required some time to soften; but time will do almost everything; and though little comfort arose on Mrs. Rushworth's side for the misery she had caused, some comfort was to be found in his other children. Julia's match became a less desperate business than he had considered it at first. She was humble, and wishing to be forgiven; and Mr. Yates, desirous of being received into the family, was disposed to look up to him and be guided. He was not very solid; but there was a hope of his becoming less trifling, of his being at least tolerably domestic and quiet; and there was comfort in finding his estate rather more, and his debts much less, than he had feared, and in being consulted as a respected friend. There was comfort also in Tom, who gradually regained his health, without regaining the thoughtlessness of his previous habits. He was the better for ever for his illness. He had suffered, and he had learned to think: two advantages that he had never known before. He became what he ought to be: useful to his father, steady and quiet, and not living merely for himself. Here was comfort indeed! and soon Edmund was contributing to his father's ease by improvement in his spirits. After wandering about and sitting under trees with Fanny all the summer evenings, he had so well talked his mind into submission as to be very tolerably cheerful again. These were the circumstances which gradually reconciled Sir Thomas to himself; though the anguish arising from the conviction of his own errors in the education of his daughters was never to be entirely done away. Too late he became aware how unfavourable must be the treatment of Maria and Julia at home, where the excessive indulgence and flattery of their aunt Norris had been continually contrasted with his own severity. He saw how ill he had judged, in expecting to counteract what was wrong in Mrs. Norris by its reverse in himself; clearly saw that he had merely increased the evil by teaching them to repress their spirits in his presence, so as to make their real disposition unknown to him; and sending them to be indulged by a person who could attach them only by the blindness of her affection, and the excess of her praise. Here had been grievous mismanagement; but he grew to feel that it had not been the worst mistake in his plan of education. Something must have been lacking within. He feared that principle had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by a sense of duty. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments could have had no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition; and they had never been instructed in self-denial and humility. Bitterly did he deplore this. Wretchedly did he feel, that with all the care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought up his daughters without their understanding their first duties, or his being acquainted with their character and temper. The high spirit and strong passions of Mrs. Rushworth, especially, were made known to him only in their sad result. She could not to be prevailed on to leave Mr. Crawford. She hoped to marry him, and they stayed together till she was obliged to be convinced that such hope was vain, and till the disappointment arising from the conviction rendered her temper so bad, and her feelings for him so like hatred, as to make them for a while each other's punishment, and then induce a voluntary separation. She had lived with him to be reproached as the ruin of all his happiness in Fanny, and carried away no better consolation than that she had divided them. What can exceed the misery of such a mind in such a situation? Mr. Rushworth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce. She had despised him, and loved another; and he had been very much aware that it was so. The indignities of stupidity can excite little pity. His punishment followed his conduct, as did a deeper punishment the deeper guilt of his wife. He was released to be mortified and unhappy, till some other pretty girl could attract him into matrimony again, and he might set forward on a second, and, it is to be hoped, more prosperous trial of the state; while Maria must withdraw to a retirement which could allow no second spring of hope or character. Where she could be placed became a subject of melancholy consultation. Mrs. Norris would have had her received at home and countenanced by them all. Sir Thomas would not hear of it; and Mrs. Norris's anger against Fanny was great, from considering her residence there as the reason, even though Sir Thomas solemnly assured her that, had there been no young woman in question, he would never have offered so great an insult to the neighbourhood as to expect it to receive his daughter into its society. She should be protected by him, and secured in every comfort; but farther than that he could not go. Maria had destroyed her own character, and he would not, by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored, be an accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family. It ended in Mrs. Norris's resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, in an establishment formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, and on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment. Mrs. Norris's removal from Mansfield was the great supplementary comfort of Sir Thomas's life. His opinion of her had been sinking from the day of his return from Antigua: ever since that period, she had been regularly losing ground in his esteem. He had felt her as an hourly evil, all the worse as there seemed no chance of its ceasing; it seemed she must be borne for ever. To be relieved from her, therefore, was a great felicity. She was regretted by no one at Mansfield. She had never been able to attach even those she loved best; and since Mrs. Rushworth's elopement, her temper had been in a state of such irritation as to make her everywhere tormenting. Not even Fanny had tears for aunt Norris when she was gone for ever. That Julia escaped better than Maria was owing, in some measure, to a favourable difference of disposition, but in a greater part to her having been less the darling of that very aunt, less flattered and less spoilt. She had held but a second place. She had been always used to think herself a little inferior to Maria. Her temper was naturally the easiest of the two; her feelings, though quick, were more controllable, and education had not given her so very hurtful a degree of self-consequence. She had submitted the best to the disappointment in Henry Crawford. After the first bitterness of being slighted was over, she had been soon in a fair way of not thinking of him again; and when the acquaintance was renewed in town, and Mr. Rushworth's house became Crawford's object, she had had the merit of withdrawing herself from it, and of choosing that time to pay a visit to her other friends, in order to secure herself from being again too much attracted. This had been her motive in going to her cousin's. Mr. Yates's convenience had had nothing to do with it. She had been allowing his attentions some time, but with very little idea of ever accepting him. Had not her sister's conduct burst forth as it did, and her made her fear the certain consequence of her father's greater severity and restraint, hastily resolving her to avoid such horrors, it is probable that Mr. Yates would never have succeeded. She had not eloped with any worse feelings than those of selfish alarm. Maria's guilt had induced Julia's folly. Henry Crawford, ruined by early independence and bad domestic example, indulged in the freaks of a cold-blooded vanity a little too long. Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one amiable woman's affections, could he have found sufficient exultation in gaining the esteem and tenderness of Fanny Price, there would have been every probability of success for him. His affection had already done something. There can be no doubt that he would have gained more success, especially when that marriage had taken place, which would have assisted him by subduing her first inclination, and brought them very often together. If he had persevered uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward, and a reward very voluntarily bestowed, within a reasonable period from Edmund's marrying Mary. Had he done as he intended, and as he knew he ought, by going down to Everingham after his return from Portsmouth, he might have decided his own happy destiny. But he was pressed to stay for Mrs. Fraser's party; his staying was made of flattering consequence, and he was to meet Mrs. Rushworth there. Curiosity and vanity were both engaged, and the temptation of immediate pleasure was too strong for a mind unused to make any sacrifice to right: he resolved to defer his Norfolk journey, and stayed. He saw Mrs. Rushworth, was received by her with a coldness which ought to have been repulsive; but he was mortified, he could not bear to be thrown off by the woman whose smiles had been so wholly at his command: he must exert himself to subdue so proud a display of resentment; it was anger on Fanny's account; he must get the better of it, and make Mrs. Rushworth Maria Bertram again in her treatment of himself. In this spirit he began the attack, and by animated perseverance had soon re-established the sort of familiar intercourse, of gallantry, of flirtation, which bounded his views; but in triumphing over Maria's discretion, which, though originating in anger, might have saved them both, he had put himself in the power of feelings on her side more strong than he had supposed. She loved him; there was no withdrawing attentions dear to her. He was entangled by his own vanity, with as little excuse of love as possible, and without the smallest inconstancy of mind towards her cousin. To keep Fanny and the Bertrams from a knowledge of what was passing became his first object. When he returned from Richmond, he would have been glad to see Mrs. Rushworth no more. All that followed was the result of her imprudence; and he went off with her at last, because he could not help it, regretting Fanny even at the moment, but regretting her infinitely more when all the bustle of the intrigue was over, and a very few months had taught him, by the force of contrast, to place a yet higher value on the sweetness of her temper, the purity of her mind, and the excellence of her principles. That the public punishment of disgrace should in a just measure attend his share of the offence is, we know, not customary in society. In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished; but without presuming to look forward to a juster appointment hereafter, we may fairly consider Henry Crawford to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret, in having so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most esteemed and dearest friends, and so lost the woman whom he had rationally as well as passionately loved. After what had passed to wound and alienate the two families, the continuance of the Bertrams and Grants in such close neighbourhood would have been most distressing; but there was soon a permanent removal of the latter. Dr. Grant succeeded to a post in Westminster Abbey, which as an excuse for residence in London, was highly acceptable to all concerned. Mrs. Grant, with a temper to love and be loved, must have gone with some regret; but her disposition must in any place secure her a great deal to enjoy, and she had again a home to offer Mary; and Mary had had enough of her own friends, enough of vanity, ambition, love, and disappointment to be in need of the true kindness of her sister's heart, and the rational tranquillity of her ways. They lived together; for Mary, though resolved against ever attaching herself to a younger brother again, failed to find among the idle heir-apparents who were at the command of her beauty, and her twenty thousand pounds, any one who could satisfy the better taste she had acquired at Mansfield, or whose character and manners could put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of her head. Edmund had greatly the advantage of her in this respect. He had not to wait with vacant affections for an object worthy to succeed her in them. Scarcely had he done regretting Mary Crawford, and observing to Fanny how impossible it was that he should ever meet with such another woman, before it began to strike him whether a very different kind of woman might not do just as well, or a great deal better: whether Fanny herself were not growing as dear to him as Mary Crawford had ever been; and whether it might not be possible to persuade her that her warm and sisterly regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love. I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, so that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary as to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire. With such a regard for her, indeed, what could be more natural than the change? Loving, guiding, protecting her, as he had done ever since her being ten years old, an object to him of such close interest, dearer by all his own importance with her than any one else at Mansfield, what was there now to add, but that he should learn to prefer soft light eyes to sparkling dark ones. Being always with her, with his feelings exactly in that favourable state which a recent disappointment gives, those soft light eyes could not be very long in obtaining the pre-eminence. There were no doubts of her deserving, no fears of opposition of taste. Her mind, opinions, and habits needed no half-concealment, no reliance on future improvement. Even in the midst of his infatuation, he had acknowledged Fanny's mental superiority. What must be his sense of it now, therefore? She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting. Timid, anxious, doubting as she was, he still held out strong hopes of success, though it remained for a later period to tell him the whole astonishing truth. His happiness in knowing himself to have been so long beloved, must have been delightful. But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach. Let no one presume to give the feelings of a young woman on receiving the assurance of that affection of which she has scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope. There was no drawback of poverty or parent. It was a match which Sir Thomas now wished for. Sick of mercenary connexions, prizing more and more the sterling good of principle and temper, and anxious to bind all that remained to him of domestic felicity, he had pondered on the possibility of the two young friends finding consolation in each other; and the joyful consent which met Edmund's request, the high sense of having realised a great acquisition in Fanny for a daughter, formed a striking contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl's coming had been first discussed. Fanny was indeed the daughter that he wanted. His charitable kindness had been rearing a prime comfort for himself. He might have made her childhood happier; but it had been an error of judgment only which had given him the appearance of harshness, and deprived him of her early love; and now, on really knowing each other, their mutual attachment became very strong. After settling her at Thornton Lacey with every attention to her comfort, his object almost every day was to see her there, or to get her away from it. No happiness of son or niece could make Lady Bertram wish the marriage. But it was possible to part with her, because Susan remained to supply her place. Susan became the stationary niece, delighted to be so; and well adapted for it by a readiness of mind, and an inclination for usefulness. Susan could never be spared. First as a comfort to Fanny, then as an auxiliary, and last as her substitute, she was established at Mansfield, with every appearance of equal permanency. Her more fearless disposition and happier nerves made everything easy to her. She was soon welcome and useful to all; and after Fanny's removal, succeeded so naturally to her, as gradually to become, perhaps, the most beloved of the two. In her usefulness, in Fanny's excellence, in William's continued good conduct and rising fame, Sir Thomas saw repeated reason to rejoice in what he had done for them all, and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure. With so much true merit and true love, the happiness of the married cousins must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be. Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort; and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of the Mansfield living, by the death of Dr. Grant, occurred just after they had been married long enough to begin to want an increase of income, and to feel their distance from their paternal home an inconvenience. On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach without some painful sensation or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 48

The little girl performed her long journey in safety; and at Northampton was met by Mrs. Norris, who thus regaled in the credit of being foremost to welcome her, and in the importance of leading her in to the others, and recommending her to their kindness. Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating: but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, or speaking one word where he spoke ten, by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two. The young people were all at home, and sustained their share in the introduction very well, with much good humour, and no embarrassment, at least on the part of the sons, who, at seventeen and sixteen, and tall of their age, had all the grandeur of men in the eyes of their little cousin. The two girls were more at a loss from being younger and in greater awe of their father, who addressed them on the occasion with rather an injudicious particularity. But they were too much used to company and praise to have anything like natural shyness; and their confidence increasing from their cousin's total want of it, they were soon able to take a full survey of her face and her frock in easy indifference. They were a remarkably fine family, the sons very well-looking, the daughters decidedly handsome, and all of them well-grown and forward of their age, which produced as striking a difference between the cousins in person, as education had given to their address; and no one would have supposed the girls so nearly of an age as they really were. There were in fact but two years between the youngest and Fanny. Julia Bertram was only twelve, and Maria but a year older. The little visitor meanwhile was as unhappy as possible. Afraid of everybody, ashamed of herself, and longing for the home she had left, she knew not how to look up, and could scarcely speak to be heard, or without crying. Mrs. Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy. The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, became soon no trifling evil. In vain were the well-meant condescensions of Sir Thomas, and all the officious prognostications of Mrs. Norris that she would be a good girl; in vain did Lady Bertram smile and make her sit on the sofa with herself and pug, and vain was even the sight of a gooseberry tart towards giving her comfort; she could scarcely swallow two mouthfuls before tears interrupted her, and sleep seeming to be her likeliest friend, she was taken to finish her sorrows in bed. "This is not a very promising beginning," said Mrs. Norris, when Fanny had left the room. "After all that I said to her as we came along, I thought she would have behaved better; I told her how much might depend upon her acquitting herself well at first. I wish there may not be a little sulkiness of temper-her poor mother had a good deal; but we must make allowances for such a child-and I do not know that her being sorry to leave her home is really against her, for, with all its faults, it _was_ her home, and she cannot as yet understand how much she has changed for the better; but then there is moderation in all things." It required a longer time, however, than Mrs. Norris was inclined to allow, to reconcile Fanny to the novelty of Mansfield Park, and the separation from everybody she had been used to. Her feelings were very acute, and too little understood to be properly attended to. Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort. The holiday allowed to the Miss Bertrams the next day, on purpose to afford leisure for getting acquainted with, and entertaining their young cousin, produced little union. They could not but hold her cheap on finding that she had but two sashes, and had never learned French; and when they perceived her to be little struck with the duet they were so good as to play, they could do no more than make her a generous present of some of their least valued toys, and leave her to herself, while they adjourned to whatever might be the favourite holiday sport of the moment, making artificial flowers or wasting gold paper. Fanny, whether near or from her cousins, whether in the schoolroom, the drawing-room, or the shrubbery, was equally forlorn, finding something to fear in every person and place. She was disheartened by Lady Bertram's silence, awed by Sir Thomas's grave looks, and quite overcome by Mrs. Norris's admonitions. Her elder cousins mortified her by reflections on her size, and abashed her by noticing her shyness: Miss Lee wondered at her ignorance, and the maid-servants sneered at her clothes; and when to these sorrows was added the idea of the brothers and sisters among whom she had always been important as playfellow, instructress, and nurse, the despondence that sunk her little heart was severe. The grandeur of the house astonished, but could not console her. The rooms were too large for her to move in with ease: whatever she touched she expected to injure, and she crept about in constant terror of something or other; often retreating towards her own chamber to cry; and the little girl who was spoken of in the drawing-room when she left it at night as seeming so desirably sensible of her peculiar good fortune, ended every day's sorrows by sobbing herself to sleep. A week had passed in this way, and no suspicion of it conveyed by her quiet passive manner, when she was found one morning by her cousin Edmund, the youngest of the sons, sitting crying on the attic stairs. "My dear little cousin," said he, with all the gentleness of an excellent nature, "what can be the matter?" And sitting down by her, he was at great pains to overcome her shame in being so surprised, and persuade her to speak openly. Was she ill? or was anybody angry with her? or had she quarrelled with Maria and Julia? or was she puzzled about anything in her lesson that he could explain? Did she, in short, want anything he could possibly get her, or do for her? For a long while no answer could be obtained beyond a "no, no-not at all-no, thank you"; but he still persevered; and no sooner had he begun to revert to her own home, than her increased sobs explained to him where the grievance lay. He tried to console her. "You are sorry to leave Mama, my dear little Fanny," said he, "which shows you to be a very good girl; but you must remember that you are with relations and friends, who all love you, and wish to make you happy. Let us walk out in the park, and you shall tell me all about your brothers and sisters." On pursuing the subject, he found that, dear as all these brothers and sisters generally were, there was one among them who ran more in her thoughts than the rest. It was William whom she talked of most, and wanted most to see. William, the eldest, a year older than herself, her constant companion and friend; her advocate with her mother (of whom he was the darling) in every distress. "William did not like she should come away; he had told her he should miss her very much indeed." "But William will write to you, I dare say." "Yes, he had promised he would, but he had told _her_ to write first." "And when shall you do it?" She hung her head and answered hesitatingly, "she did not know; she had not any paper." "If that be all your difficulty, I will furnish you with paper and every other material, and you may write your letter whenever you choose. Would it make you happy to write to William?" "Yes, very." "Then let it be done now. Come with me into the breakfast-room, we shall find everything there, and be sure of having the room to ourselves." "But, cousin, will it go to the post?" "Yes, depend upon me it shall: it shall go with the other letters; and, as your uncle will frank it, it will cost William nothing." "My uncle!" repeated Fanny, with a frightened look. "Yes, when you have written the letter, I will take it to my father to frank." Fanny thought it a bold measure, but offered no further resistance; and they went together into the breakfast-room, where Edmund prepared her paper, and ruled her lines with all the goodwill that her brother could himself have felt, and probably with somewhat more exactness. He continued with her the whole time of her writing, to assist her with his penknife or his orthography, as either were wanted; and added to these attentions, which she felt very much, a kindness to her brother which delighted her beyond all the rest. He wrote with his own hand his love to his cousin William, and sent him half a guinea under the seal. Fanny's feelings on the occasion were such as she believed herself incapable of expressing; but her countenance and a few artless words fully conveyed all their gratitude and delight, and her cousin began to find her an interesting object. He talked to her more, and, from all that she said, was convinced of her having an affectionate heart, and a strong desire of doing right; and he could perceive her to be farther entitled to attention by great sensibility of her situation, and great timidity. He had never knowingly given her pain, but he now felt that she required more positive kindness; and with that view endeavoured, in the first place, to lessen her fears of them all, and gave her especially a great deal of good advice as to playing with Maria and Julia, and being as merry as possible. From this day Fanny grew more comfortable. She felt that she had a friend, and the kindness of her cousin Edmund gave her better spirits with everybody else. The place became less strange, and the people less formidable; and if there were some amongst them whom she could not cease to fear, she began at least to know their ways, and to catch the best manner of conforming to them. The little rusticities and awkwardnesses which had at first made grievous inroads on the tranquillity of all, and not least of herself, necessarily wore away, and she was no longer materially afraid to appear before her uncle, nor did her aunt Norris's voice make her start very much. To her cousins she became occasionally an acceptable companion. Though unworthy, from inferiority of age and strength, to be their constant associate, their pleasures and schemes were sometimes of a nature to make a third very useful, especially when that third was of an obliging, yielding temper; and they could not but own, when their aunt inquired into her faults, or their brother Edmund urged her claims to their kindness, that "Fanny was good-natured enough." Edmund was uniformly kind himself; and she had nothing worse to endure on the part of Tom than that sort of merriment which a young man of seventeen will always think fair with a child of ten. He was just entering into life, full of spirits, and with all the liberal dispositions of an eldest son, who feels born only for expense and enjoyment. His kindness to his little cousin was consistent with his situation and rights: he made her some very pretty presents, and laughed at her. As her appearance and spirits improved, Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris thought with greater satisfaction of their benevolent plan; and it was pretty soon decided between them that, though far from clever, she showed a tractable disposition, and seemed likely to give them little trouble. A mean opinion of her abilities was not confined to _them_. Fanny could read, work, and write, but she had been taught nothing more; and as her cousins found her ignorant of many things with which they had been long familiar, they thought her prodigiously stupid, and for the first two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh report of it into the drawing-room. "Dear mama, only think, my cousin cannot put the map of Europe together-or my cousin cannot tell the principal rivers in Russia-or, she never heard of Asia Minor-or she does not know the difference between water-colours and crayons!-How strange!-Did you ever hear anything so stupid?" "My dear," their considerate aunt would reply, "it is very bad, but you must not expect everybody to be as forward and quick at learning as yourself." "But, aunt, she is really so very ignorant!-Do you know, we asked her last night which way she would go to get to Ireland; and she said, she should cross to the Isle of Wight. She thinks of nothing but the Isle of Wight, and she calls it _the_ _Island_, as if there were no other island in the world. I am sure I should have been ashamed of myself, if I had not known better long before I was so old as she is. I cannot remember the time when I did not know a great deal that she has not the least notion of yet. How long ago it is, aunt, since we used to repeat the chronological order of the kings of England, with the dates of their accession, and most of the principal events of their reigns!" "Yes," added the other; "and of the Roman emperors as low as Severus; besides a great deal of the heathen mythology, and all the metals, semi-metals, planets, and distinguished philosophers." "Very true indeed, my dears, but you are blessed with wonderful memories, and your poor cousin has probably none at all. There is a vast deal of difference in memories, as well as in everything else, and therefore you must make allowance for your cousin, and pity her deficiency. And remember that, if you are ever so forward and clever yourselves, you should always be modest; for, much as you know already, there is a great deal more for you to learn." "Yes, I know there is, till I am seventeen. But I must tell you another thing of Fanny, so odd and so stupid. Do you know, she says she does not want to learn either music or drawing." "To be sure, my dear, that is very stupid indeed, and shows a great want of genius and emulation. But, all things considered, I do not know whether it is not as well that it should be so, for, though you know (owing to me) your papa and mama are so good as to bring her up with you, it is not at all necessary that she should be as accomplished as you are;-on the contrary, it is much more desirable that there should be a difference." Such were the counsels by which Mrs. Norris assisted to form her nieces' minds; and it is not very wonderful that, with all their promising talents and early information, they should be entirely deficient in the less common acquirements of self-knowledge, generosity and humility. In everything but disposition they were admirably taught. Sir Thomas did not know what was wanting, because, though a truly anxious father, he was not outwardly affectionate, and the reserve of his manner repressed all the flow of their spirits before him. To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest attention. She had not time for such cares. She was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience, guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister. Had she possessed greater leisure for the service of her girls, she would probably have supposed it unnecessary, for they were under the care of a governess, with proper masters, and could want nothing more. As for Fanny's being stupid at learning, "she could only say it was very unlucky, but some people _were_ stupid, and Fanny must take more pains: she did not know what else was to be done; and, except her being so dull, she must add she saw no harm in the poor little thing, and always found her very handy and quick in carrying messages, and fetching what she wanted." Fanny, with all her faults of ignorance and timidity, was fixed at Mansfield Park, and learning to transfer in its favour much of her attachment to her former home, grew up there not unhappily among her cousins. There was no positive ill-nature in Maria or Julia; and though Fanny was often mortified by their treatment of her, she thought too lowly of her own claims to feel injured by it. From about the time of her entering the family, Lady Bertram, in consequence of a little ill-health, and a great deal of indolence, gave up the house in town, which she had been used to occupy every spring, and remained wholly in the country, leaving Sir Thomas to attend his duty in Parliament, with whatever increase or diminution of comfort might arise from her absence. In the country, therefore, the Miss Bertrams continued to exercise their memories, practise their duets, and grow tall and womanly: and their father saw them becoming in person, manner, and accomplishments, everything that could satisfy his anxiety. His eldest son was careless and extravagant, and had already given him much uneasiness; but his other children promised him nothing but good. His daughters, he felt, while they retained the name of Bertram, must be giving it new grace, and in quitting it, he trusted, would extend its respectable alliances; and the character of Edmund, his strong good sense and uprightness of mind, bid most fairly for utility, honour, and happiness to himself and all his connexions. He was to be a clergyman. Amid the cares and the complacency which his own children suggested, Sir Thomas did not forget to do what he could for the children of Mrs. Price: he assisted her liberally in the education and disposal of her sons as they became old enough for a determinate pursuit; and Fanny, though almost totally separated from her family, was sensible of the truest satisfaction in hearing of any kindness towards them, or of anything at all promising in their situation or conduct. Once, and once only, in the course of many years, had she the happiness of being with William. Of the rest she saw nothing: nobody seemed to think of her ever going amongst them again, even for a visit, nobody at home seemed to want her; but William determining, soon after her removal, to be a sailor, was invited to spend a week with his sister in Northamptonshire before he went to sea. Their eager affection in meeting, their exquisite delight in being together, their hours of happy mirth, and moments of serious conference, may be imagined; as well as the sanguine views and spirits of the boy even to the last, and the misery of the girl when he left her. Luckily the visit happened in the Christmas holidays, when she could directly look for comfort to her cousin Edmund; and he told her such charming things of what William was to do, and be hereafter, in consequence of his profession, as made her gradually admit that the separation might have some use. Edmund's friendship never failed her: his leaving Eton for Oxford made no change in his kind dispositions, and only afforded more frequent opportunities of proving them. Without any display of doing more than the rest, or any fear of doing too much, he was always true to her interests, and considerate of her feelings, trying to make her good qualities understood, and to conquer the diffidence which prevented their being more apparent; giving her advice, consolation, and encouragement. Kept back as she was by everybody else, his single support could not bring her forward; but his attentions were otherwise of the highest importance in assisting the improvement of her mind, and extending its pleasures. He knew her to be clever, to have a quick apprehension as well as good sense, and a fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself. Miss Lee taught her French, and heard her read the daily portion of history; but he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment: he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise. In return for such services she loved him better than anybody in the world except William: her heart was divided between the two.

The little girl made her long journey in safety; and at Northampton was met by Mrs. Norris. Fanny Price was just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small for her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas tried to be conciliating: but he had to work against his gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two. The young people were all at home, and received Fanny with much good humour, at least on the part of the sons, who, at seventeen and sixteen, had all the grandeur of men in the eyes of their little cousin. The two girls were more at a loss from being younger and in greater awe of their father. But, their confidence increasing from their cousin's want of it, they were soon able to take a survey of her face and her frock in easy indifference. They were a remarkably fine family, the sons well-looking, the daughters handsome, and all of them well-grown for their age, which produced a striking difference between the cousins; no one would have supposed the girls so close in age as they really were. There were in fact but two years between the youngest and Fanny. Julia Bertram was twelve, and Maria a year older. The little visitor meanwhile was as unhappy as possible. Afraid of everybody, ashamed of herself, and longing for the home she had left, she knew not how to look up, and could scarcely speak to be heard, or without crying. Mrs. Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude which it ought to produce, and her misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy. The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, was not trifling. She could scarcely swallow two mouthfuls of gooseberry tart before tears interrupted her, and she was taken to finish her sorrows in bed. "This is not a very promising beginning," said Mrs. Norris, when Fanny had left the room. "After all that I said to her as we came along, I thought she would have behaved better. I hope there may not be a little sulkiness of temper-her poor mother had a good deal; but we must make allowances for such a child-and I do not know that her being sorry to leave her home is really against her, for, with all its faults, it was her home." It required a long time, however, to reconcile Fanny to the novelty of Mansfield Park. Her feelings were very acute, and not properly attended to. Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort. The Miss Bertrams were allowed a holiday the next day, to give them leisure for getting acquainted with their young cousin. However, having found that she had but two sashes, and had never learned French, they made her a generous present of some of their least valued toys, and left her to herself. Fanny, whether in the schoolroom, the drawing-room, or the shrubbery, was equally forlorn, finding something to fear in every person and place. She was disheartened by Lady Bertram's silence, awed by Sir Thomas's grave looks, and quite overcome by Mrs. Norris's scoldings. Her elder cousins abashed her by noticing her shyness: Miss Lee wondered at her ignorance, and the maid-servants sneered at her clothes. When to these sorrows was added the memory of the brothers and sisters among whom she had been important as playfellow, instructress, and nurse, the despondence that sunk her little heart was severe. The grandeur of the house astonished, but could not console her. The rooms were too large: whatever she touched she expected to injure, and she crept about in constant terror, often retreating to her own chamber to cry; and ended every day's sorrows by sobbing herself to sleep. A week had passed in this way, with no suspicion of it conveyed by her quiet passive manner, when she was found one morning by her cousin Edmund, the youngest of the sons, sitting crying on the attic stairs. "My dear little cousin," said he, with all the gentleness of an excellent nature, "what can be the matter?" And sitting down by her, he was at great pains to persuade her to speak openly. Was she ill? or was anybody angry with her? or had she quarrelled with Maria and Julia? or was she puzzled about anything in her lesson that he could explain? For a long while no answer could be obtained beyond a "no, no-not at all"; but he persevered; and no sooner had he mentioned her own home, than her sobs explained where the grievance lay. He tried to console her. "You are sorry to leave Mama, my dear little Fanny," said he, "which shows you to be a very good girl; but you must remember that you are with relations and friends, who all love you, and wish to make you happy. Let us walk out in the park, and you shall tell me about your brothers and sisters." On doing this, he found that there was one among them who ran more in her thoughts than the rest. It was William whom she talked of most, and wanted most to see. William, the eldest, a year older than herself, her constant friend. "William did not like she should come away; he had told her he should miss her very much." "But William will write to you, I dare say." "Yes, but he had told her to write first." "And when shall you do it?" She hung her head and answered hesitatingly, "she had not any paper." "If that be all your difficulty, I will furnish you with paper, and you may write your letter whenever you choose. Would it make you happy to write to William?" "Yes, very." "Then let it be done now. Come with me into the breakfast-room, we shall find everything there." "But, cousin, will it go to the post?" "Yes, it shall go with the other letters; and, as your uncle will frank it, it will cost William nothing." "My uncle!" repeated Fanny, with a frightened look. "Yes, I will take it to my father to frank." Fanny offered no further resistance; and they went together into the breakfast-room, where Edmund prepared her paper, and ruled her lines with all the goodwill that her brother could have felt, and probably with more exactness. He stayed to assist her; and showed a kindness to her brother which delighted her. He wrote with his own hand his love to cousin William, and sent him half a guinea under the seal. Fanny's countenance and artless words fully conveyed all her gratitude, and her cousin began to find her an interesting object. He talked to her more, and was convinced of her having an affectionate heart, and a desire of doing right; and perceiving her great timidity, he gave her much good advice as to playing with Maria and Julia, and being as merry as possible. From this day Fanny grew more comfortable. She felt that she had a friend, and the kindness of her cousin Edmund gave her better spirits with everybody else. The place became less strange, and the people less formidable. She was no longer afraid to appear before her uncle, nor did her aunt Norris's voice startle her so much. To her cousins she became occasionally an acceptable companion. Their pleasures were sometimes of a nature to make a third very useful, especially when that third was of an obliging temper; and they owned that "Fanny was good-natured enough." Edmund was uniformly kind; and she had nothing worse to endure on the part of Tom than that sort of merriment which a young man of seventeen will always think fair with a child of ten. He was just entering into life, full of spirits, and with all the liberality of an eldest son, who feels born only for expense and enjoyment. His kindness to his little cousin was consistent with his situation: he made her some very pretty presents, and laughed at her. As her appearance and spirits improved, Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris thought with greater satisfaction of their benevolent plan; and it was soon decided that, though far from clever, she was tractable, and seemed likely to give them little trouble. A poor opinion of Fanny's abilities was not confined to them. As her cousins found her ignorant of many things with which they had been long familiar, they thought her prodigiously stupid, and for the first two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh report of it. "Dear mama, only think, my cousin cannot put the map of Europe together-or tell the principal rivers in Russia-she does not know the difference between water-colours and crayons!-Did you ever hear anything so stupid?" "My dear," their considerate aunt Norris would reply, "it is very bad, but you must not expect everybody to be as quick at learning as yourself." "But, aunt, she is really so very ignorant!-Do you know, we asked her last night which way she would go to get to Ireland; and she said, she should cross to the Isle of Wight. She calls it the Island, as if there were no other island in the world. I cannot remember the time when I did not know much more than her. How long ago it is, aunt, since we used to repeat the order of the kings of England, with their dates!" "Yes," added the other; "and the Roman emperors, and all the metals, semi-metals, planets, and distinguished philosophers." "Very true indeed, my dears, but you are blessed with wonderful memories, and your poor cousin has probably none at all. You must pity her deficiency. And remember that you should always be modest; for there is a great deal more for you to learn." "Yes, I know there is, till I am seventeen. But I must tell you another thing of Fanny, so stupid. Do you know, she does not want to learn either music or drawing." "To be sure, my dear, that is very stupid indeed. But, all things considered, it is well that it should be so, for it is not necessary that she should be as accomplished as you are; it is much more desirable that there should be a difference." Such were the counsels by which Mrs. Norris formed her nieces' minds; and it is no wonder that, with all their promising talents, they should be entirely deficient in self-knowledge, generosity and humility. In everything but disposition they were admirably taught. Sir Thomas did not know what was wanting because, though a truly anxious father, the reserve of his manner repressed all the flow of their spirits before him. To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest attention. She had not time for such cares. She was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug dog than her children, but indulgent to them when it did not cause her inconvenience, guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister. Her girls were under the care of a governess, and could need nothing more. As for Fanny's being stupid at learning, "it was very unlucky, but some people were stupid, and she saw no harm in the poor little thing, and found her very handy in carrying messages, and fetching things." Fanny, with all her faults of ignorance and timidity, was fixed at Mansfield Park, and grew up there not unhappily among her cousins. There was no positive ill-nature in Maria or Julia; and though Fanny was often mortified by their treatment of her, she thought too lowly of her own claims to feel injured by it. From about the time of her entering the family, Lady Bertram gave up the house in London, and remained wholly in the country, leaving Sir Thomas to attend his duty in Parliament without her. In the country, therefore, the Miss Bertrams continued to grow tall and womanly; and their father saw them becoming in person, manner, and accomplishments, everything that he could wish. His eldest son was careless and extravagant, and had already given him much uneasiness; but his other children promised nothing but good. His daughters, he trusted, would make respectable alliances; and the character of Edmund, his strong good sense and uprightness of mind, bid most fairly for utility, honour, and happiness. He was to be a clergyman. Sir Thomas did what he could for the children of Mrs. Price. He assisted her liberally in the education and careers of her sons; and Fanny had true satisfaction in hearing of any kindness towards them. Only once, in those years, had she the happiness of being with William. Of the rest she saw nothing: nobody seemed to think of her visiting them; but William, determining to be a sailor, was invited to spend a week with his sister before he went to sea. Their eager affection in meeting, their delight in being together, their hours of mirth, and moments of serious conference, may be imagined; as well as her misery when he left her. Luckily the visit happened in the Christmas holidays, when she could look for comfort to her cousin Edmund. Edmund's friendship never failed her: his leaving Eton for Oxford made no change in his kindness. He was always considerate of her feelings, trying to make her good qualities understood, and giving her advice, consolation, and encouragement. Kept back as she was by everybody else, his support alone could not bring her forward; but his attentions were otherwise of the highest importance in improving her mind. He knew her to be clever, and to have a fondness for reading. Miss Lee taught her French, and heard her read the daily portion of history; but he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment. In return for such services she loved him better than anybody in the world except William: her heart was divided between the two.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 2

At about the week's end from his return to Mansfield, Tom's immediate danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother perfectly easy; for being now used to the sight of him in his suffering, helpless state, and hearing only the best, and never thinking beyond what she heard, with no disposition for alarm and no aptitude at a hint, Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical imposition. The fever was subdued; the fever had been his complaint; of course he would soon be well again. Lady Bertram could think nothing less, and Fanny shared her aunt's security, till she received a few lines from Edmund, written purposely to give her a clearer idea of his brother's situation, and acquaint her with the apprehensions which he and his father had imbibed from the physician with respect to some strong hectic symptoms, which seemed to seize the frame on the departure of the fever. They judged it best that Lady Bertram should not be harassed by alarms which, it was to be hoped, would prove unfounded; but there was no reason why Fanny should not know the truth. They were apprehensive for his lungs. A very few lines from Edmund shewed her the patient and the sickroom in a juster and stronger light than all Lady Bertram's sheets of paper could do. There was hardly any one in the house who might not have described, from personal observation, better than herself; not one who was not more useful at times to her son. She could do nothing but glide in quietly and look at him; but when able to talk or be talked to, or read to, Edmund was the companion he preferred. His aunt worried him by her cares, and Sir Thomas knew not how to bring down his conversation or his voice to the level of irritation and feebleness. Edmund was all in all. Fanny would certainly believe him so at least, and must find that her estimation of him was higher than ever when he appeared as the attendant, supporter, cheerer of a suffering brother. There was not only the debility of recent illness to assist: there was also, as she now learnt, nerves much affected, spirits much depressed to calm and raise, and her own imagination added that there must be a mind to be properly guided. The family were not consumptive, and she was more inclined to hope than fear for her cousin, except when she thought of Miss Crawford; but Miss Crawford gave her the idea of being the child of good luck, and to her selfishness and vanity it would be good luck to have Edmund the only son. Even in the sick chamber the fortunate Mary was not forgotten. Edmund's letter had this postscript. "On the subject of my last, I had actually begun a letter when called away by Tom's illness, but I have now changed my mind, and fear to trust the influence of friends. When Tom is better, I shall go." Such was the state of Mansfield, and so it continued, with scarcely any change, till Easter. A line occasionally added by Edmund to his mother's letter was enough for Fanny's information. Tom's amendment was alarmingly slow. Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving Portsmouth till after it. It came, and she had yet heard nothing of her return-nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended. She supposed he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay to her. The end of April was coming on; it would soon be almost three months, instead of two, that she had been absent from them all, and that her days had been passing in a state of penance, which she loved them too well to hope they would thoroughly understand; and who could yet say when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her? Her eagerness, her impatience, her longings to be with them, were such as to bring a line or two of Cowper's Tirocinium for ever before her. "With what intense desire she wants her home," was continually on her tongue, as the truest description of a yearning which she could not suppose any schoolboy's bosom to feel more keenly. When she had been coming to Portsmouth, she had loved to call it her home, had been fond of saying that she was going home; the word had been very dear to her, and so it still was, but it must be applied to Mansfield. _That_ was now the home. Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield was home. They had been long so arranged in the indulgence of her secret meditations, and nothing was more consolatory to her than to find her aunt using the same language: "I cannot but say I much regret your being from home at this distressing time, so very trying to my spirits. I trust and hope, and sincerely wish you may never be absent from home so long again," were most delightful sentences to her. Still, however, it was her private regale. Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to betray such a preference of her uncle's house. It was always: "When I go back into Northamptonshire, or when I return to Mansfield, I shall do so and so." For a great while it was so, but at last the longing grew stronger, it overthrew caution, and she found herself talking of what she should do when she went home before she was aware. She reproached herself, coloured, and looked fearfully towards her father and mother. She need not have been uneasy. There was no sign of displeasure, or even of hearing her. They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield. She was as welcome to wish herself there as to be there. It was sad to Fanny to lose all the pleasures of spring. She had not known before what pleasures she _had_ to lose in passing March and April in a town. She had not known before how much the beginnings and progress of vegetation had delighted her. What animation, both of body and mind, she had derived from watching the advance of that season which cannot, in spite of its capriciousness, be unlovely, and seeing its increasing beauties from the earliest flowers in the warmest divisions of her aunt's garden, to the opening of leaves of her uncle's plantations, and the glory of his woods. To be losing such pleasures was no trifle; to be losing them, because she was in the midst of closeness and noise, to have confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty, freshness, fragrance, and verdure, was infinitely worse: but even these incitements to regret were feeble, compared with what arose from the conviction of being missed by her best friends, and the longing to be useful to those who were wanting her! Could she have been at home, she might have been of service to every creature in the house. She felt that she must have been of use to all. To all she must have saved some trouble of head or hand; and were it only in supporting the spirits of her aunt Bertram, keeping her from the evil of solitude, or the still greater evil of a restless, officious companion, too apt to be heightening danger in order to enhance her own importance, her being there would have been a general good. She loved to fancy how she could have read to her aunt, how she could have talked to her, and tried at once to make her feel the blessing of what was, and prepare her mind for what might be; and how many walks up and down stairs she might have saved her, and how many messages she might have carried. It astonished her that Tom's sisters could be satisfied with remaining in London at such a time, through an illness which had now, under different degrees of danger, lasted several weeks. _They_ might return to Mansfield when they chose; travelling could be no difficulty to _them_, and she could not comprehend how both could still keep away. If Mrs. Rushworth could imagine any interfering obligations, Julia was certainly able to quit London whenever she chose. It appeared from one of her aunt's letters that Julia had offered to return if wanted, but this was all. It was evident that she would rather remain where she was. Fanny was disposed to think the influence of London very much at war with all respectable attachments. She saw the proof of it in Miss Crawford, as well as in her cousins; _her_ attachment to Edmund had been respectable, the most respectable part of her character; her friendship for herself had at least been blameless. Where was either sentiment now? It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had some reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so dwelt on. It was weeks since she had heard anything of Miss Crawford or of her other connexions in town, except through Mansfield, and she was beginning to suppose that she might never know whether Mr. Crawford had gone into Norfolk again or not till they met, and might never hear from his sister any more this spring, when the following letter was received to revive old and create some new sensations- "Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence, and behave as if you could forgive me directly. This is my modest request and expectation, for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated better than I deserve, and I write now to beg an immediate answer. I want to know the state of things at Mansfield Park, and you, no doubt, are perfectly able to give it. One should be a brute not to feel for the distress they are in; and from what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad chance of ultimate recovery. I thought little of his illness at first. I looked upon him as the sort of person to be made a fuss with, and to make a fuss himself in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned for those who had to nurse him; but now it is confidently asserted that he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that part of the family, at least, are aware of it. If it be so, I am sure you must be included in that part, that discerning part, and therefore entreat you to let me know how far I have been rightly informed. I need not say how rejoiced I shall be to hear there has been any mistake, but the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling. To have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days is most melancholy. Poor Sir Thomas will feel it dreadfully. I really am quite agitated on the subject. Fanny, Fanny, I see you smile and look cunning, but, upon my honour, I never bribed a physician in my life. Poor young man! If he is to die, there will be _two_ poor young men less in the world; and with a fearless face and bold voice would I say to any one, that wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of them. It was a foolish precipitation last Christmas, but the evil of a few days may be blotted out in part. Varnish and gilding hide many stains. It will be but the loss of the Esquire after his name. With real affection, Fanny, like mine, more might be overlooked. Write to me by return of post, judge of my anxiety, and do not trifle with it. Tell me the real truth, as you have it from the fountainhead. And now, do not trouble yourself to be ashamed of either my feelings or your own. Believe me, they are not only natural, they are philanthropic and virtuous. I put it to your conscience, whether 'Sir Edmund' would not do more good with all the Bertram property than any other possible 'Sir.' Had the Grants been at home I would not have troubled you, but you are now the only one I can apply to for the truth, his sisters not being within my reach. Mrs. R. has been spending the Easter with the Aylmers at Twickenham (as to be sure you know), and is not yet returned; and Julia is with the cousins who live near Bedford Square, but I forget their name and street. Could I immediately apply to either, however, I should still prefer you, because it strikes me that they have all along been so unwilling to have their own amusements cut up, as to shut their eyes to the truth. I suppose Mrs. R.'s Easter holidays will not last much longer; no doubt they are thorough holidays to her. The Aylmers are pleasant people; and her husband away, she can have nothing but enjoyment. I give her credit for promoting his going dutifully down to Bath, to fetch his mother; but how will she and the dowager agree in one house? Henry is not at hand, so I have nothing to say from him. Do not you think Edmund would have been in town again long ago, but for this illness?-Yours ever, Mary." "I had actually begun folding my letter when Henry walked in, but he brings no intelligence to prevent my sending it. Mrs. R. knows a decline is apprehended; he saw her this morning: she returns to Wimpole Street to-day; the old lady is come. Now do not make yourself uneasy with any queer fancies because he has been spending a few days at Richmond. He does it every spring. Be assured he cares for nobody but you. At this very moment he is wild to see you, and occupied only in contriving the means for doing so, and for making his pleasure conduce to yours. In proof, he repeats, and more eagerly, what he said at Portsmouth about our conveying you home, and I join him in it with all my soul. Dear Fanny, write directly, and tell us to come. It will do us all good. He and I can go to the Parsonage, you know, and be no trouble to our friends at Mansfield Park. It would really be gratifying to see them all again, and a little addition of society might be of infinite use to them; and as to yourself, you must feel yourself to be so wanted there, that you cannot in conscience-conscientious as you are-keep away, when you have the means of returning. I have not time or patience to give half Henry's messages; be satisfied that the spirit of each and every one is unalterable affection." Fanny's disgust at the greater part of this letter, with her extreme reluctance to bring the writer of it and her cousin Edmund together, would have made her (as she felt) incapable of judging impartially whether the concluding offer might be accepted or not. To herself, individually, it was most tempting. To be finding herself, perhaps within three days, transported to Mansfield, was an image of the greatest felicity, but it would have been a material drawback to be owing such felicity to persons in whose feelings and conduct, at the present moment, she saw so much to condemn: the sister's feelings, the brother's conduct, _her_ cold-hearted ambition, _his_ thoughtless vanity. To have him still the acquaintance, the flirt perhaps, of Mrs. Rushworth! She was mortified. She had thought better of him. Happily, however, she was not left to weigh and decide between opposite inclinations and doubtful notions of right; there was no occasion to determine whether she ought to keep Edmund and Mary asunder or not. She had a rule to apply to, which settled everything. Her awe of her uncle, and her dread of taking a liberty with him, made it instantly plain to her what she had to do. She must absolutely decline the proposal. If he wanted, he would send for her; and even to offer an early return was a presumption which hardly anything would have seemed to justify. She thanked Miss Crawford, but gave a decided negative. "Her uncle, she understood, meant to fetch her; and as her cousin's illness had continued so many weeks without her being thought at all necessary, she must suppose her return would be unwelcome at present, and that she should be felt an encumbrance." Her representation of her cousin's state at this time was exactly according to her own belief of it, and such as she supposed would convey to the sanguine mind of her correspondent the hope of everything she was wishing for. Edmund would be forgiven for being a clergyman, it seemed, under certain conditions of wealth; and this, she suspected, was all the conquest of prejudice which he was so ready to congratulate himself upon. She had only learnt to think nothing of consequence but money.

About a week after his return to Mansfield, Tom's immediate danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother perfectly easy; for Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical deceit. The fever was subdued; of course he would soon be well again. Lady Bertram could think nothing less, and Fanny shared her aunt's security, till she received a few lines from Edmund, written to give her a clearer idea of his brother's situation, and acquaint her with the worries which he and his father had imbibed from the physician. They judged it best that Lady Bertram should not be harassed by alarms which, it was to be hoped, would prove unfounded; but there was no reason why Fanny should not know the truth. They were apprehensive for his lungs. A very few lines from Edmund showed her the patient in a clearer light than all Lady Bertram's sheets of paper could do. Edmund was the companion he preferred. His aunt worried him by her cares, and Sir Thomas knew not how to bring down his conversation to the level of irritation and feebleness. Edmund was all in all. Fanny certainly believed him so, and must find that she esteemed him more highly than ever when he appeared as the cheerer of a suffering brother. As she now learnt, Tom's nerves were also much affected; there were spirits much depressed to calm and raise, and her own imagination added that there must be a mind to be properly guided. The family were not consumptive, and she was inclined to hope, except when she thought of Miss Crawford; but Miss Crawford seemed to be the child of good luck, and to her selfishness and vanity it would be good luck to have Edmund the only son. Even in the sick chamber Mary was not forgotten. Edmund's letter had this postscript. "I had actually begun a letter to Miss Crawford when called away by Tom's illness, but I have now changed my mind, and fear the influence of her friends. When Tom is better, I shall go." Such was the state of Mansfield, with scarcely any change, till Easter. Tom's amendment was alarmingly slow. Easter came late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully considered, on learning that she had no chance of leaving Portsmouth till after it. It came, and she had still heard nothing of her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no message from the uncle on whom all depended. She supposed he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel delay. The end of April was coming; it would soon be almost three months that she had been absent from them all; and who could say when there might be leisure to think of or to fetch her? Before she came to Portsmouth, she had loved to call it her home; the word was still dear to her, but it must be applied to Mansfield. Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield was home. Nothing was more consoling than to find her aunt using the same language: "I very much regret your being from home at this distressing time. I sincerely wish you may never be absent from home so long again," were most delightful sentences to her. However, delicacy to her parents made Fanny careful not to betray such a preference of her uncle's house. It was always: "When I return to Mansfield." But at last the longing grew stronger, it overthrew caution, and she found herself talking of what she should do when she went home. She coloured, and looked fearfully towards her father and mother. She need not have been uneasy. There was no sign of displeasure, or even of hearing her. They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield. Fanny was sad to lose the pleasures of spring from being in town. She had not known before how much the beginnings and progress of vegetation had delighted her: what enjoyment she had derived from watching the increasing beauties of that season, from the earliest flowers in her aunt's garden, to the opening of leaves in her uncle's plantations, and the glory of his woods. To lose such pleasures was no trifle; to have confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty, freshness, and verdure, was infinitely worse: but worst of all was the conviction of being missed by her best friends, and the longing to be useful to those who needed her! At home, she might have been of use to every creature in the house. To all she must have saved some trouble; and were it only in supporting the spirits of her aunt Bertram, keeping her from the evil of solitude, or the greater evil of a restless, officious sister, too apt to heighten danger in order to enhance her own importance, Fanny's being there would have been a general good. She loved to fancy how she could have read to her aunt, and talked to her, and tried to make her feel the blessing of what was, and prepare her mind for what might be; and how many walks up and down stairs she might have saved her, and how many messages she might have carried. It astonished her that Tom's sisters could be satisfied with remaining in London, through an illness which had now lasted several weeks. They might return to Mansfield when they chose; travelling could be no difficulty to them. Even if Mrs. Rushworth could imagine any interfering obligations, Julia was certainly able to quit London whenever she chose. It appeared from one of her aunt's letters that Julia had offered to return if wanted, but this was all. She would rather remain where she was. Fanny thought the influence of London was at war with all respectable attachments. As well as her cousins, she saw proof of it in Miss Crawford. It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so dwelt on. It was weeks since she had heard anything of Miss Crawford or of her other connexions in town, except through Mansfield, and she was beginning to suppose that she might never hear from her any more this spring, when the following letter was received to revive old and create some new sensations- "Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence. You are so good, that I depend upon being treated better than I deserve, and I write now to beg an immediate answer. I want to know the state of things at Mansfield Park. One should be a brute not to feel for their distress; and from what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad chance of recovery. I thought little of his illness at first. I looked upon him as the sort of person to make a fuss in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned for those who had to nurse him; but now it seems that he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that part of the family, at least, are aware of it. I am sure you must be included in that part, and therefore entreat you to let me know how far I have been rightly informed. I shall be rejoiced to hear there has been any mistake, but the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling. To have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days is most melancholy. Poor Sir Thomas will feel it dreadfully. I really am quite agitated on the subject. Fanny, Fanny, I see you smile and look cunning, but, upon my honour, I never bribed a physician in my life. Poor young man! If he is to die, there will be two poor young men less in the world; and with a bold voice I would say that wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of them. It was a foolish haste last Christmas, but the evil of a few days may be blotted out in part. Varnish and gilding hide many stains. It will be but the loss of the Esquire after his name. With real affection, Fanny, more might be overlooked. Write to me by return of post, judge of my anxiety, and do not trifle with it. Tell me the real truth. And do not be ashamed of either my feelings or your own. Believe me, they are not only natural, they are philanthropic and virtuous. I put it to your conscience, whether 'Sir Edmund' would not do more good with all the Bertram property than any other possible 'Sir.' You are now the only one I can apply to for the truth, his sisters not being within my reach. Mrs. R. has been spending the Easter with the Aylmers at Twickenham, and is not yet returned; and Julia is with the cousins who live near Bedford Square. Could I apply to either, however, I should still prefer you, because they have been so unwilling to have their amusements cut up, as to shut their eyes to the truth. I suppose Mrs. R.'s Easter holidays will not last much longer; with her husband away, she can have nothing but enjoyment. I give her credit for encouraging him to go dutifully down to Bath, to fetch his mother; but how will she and the dowager agree in one house? Henry is not at hand, so I have nothing to say from him. Do not you think Edmund would have been in town again long ago, but for this illness?-Yours ever, Mary." "I had actually begun folding my letter when Henry walked in, but he brings no news to prevent my sending it. Mrs. R. knows a decline is feared; he saw her this morning: she returns to Wimpole Street to-day; the old lady, Mr. Rushworth's mother, is come. Now do not make yourself uneasy with any queer fancies because Henry has been spending a few days near Twickenham. He does it every spring. Be assured he cares for nobody but you. At this very moment he is wild to see you, and occupied only in contriving the means for doing so. He repeats, more eagerly, what he said at Portsmouth about our conveying you home, and I join him in it with all my soul. Dear Fanny, write directly, and tell us to come. It will do us all good. He and I can go to the Parsonage, you know, and be no trouble to our friends at Mansfield Park. It would really be gratifying to see them all again, and a little addition of society might benefit them; and as to yourself, you must feel yourself so wanted there, that you cannot in conscience keep away, when you have the means of returning. I have not time to give half Henry's messages; be satisfied that the spirit of each one is unalterable affection." Fanny's disgust at the greater part of this letter, with her extreme reluctance to bring the writer of it and her cousin Edmund together, would have made her incapable of judging impartially whether the concluding offer should be accepted or not. It was most tempting. To find herself transported to Mansfield was an image of the greatest happiness, but it would be a drawback to owe such felicity to persons in whose feelings and conduct she saw so much to condemn: the sister's feelings, the brother's conduct, her cold-hearted ambition, his thoughtless vanity. To have him still the acquaintance, the flirt perhaps, of Mrs. Rushworth! She was mortified. She had thought better of him. Happily, however, she was not left to weigh between doubtful notions of right. She had a rule to apply to, which settled everything. Her awe of her uncle, and her dread of taking a liberty with him, made it plain to her what she had to do. She must absolutely decline the proposal. If he wanted, he would send for her; and to offer an early return was a presumption. She thanked Miss Crawford, but gave a decided no. "Her uncle, she understood, meant to fetch her; and as her cousin's illness had continued so many weeks without her being thought necessary, she must suppose her return would be unwelcome at present, and that she should be felt an encumbrance." Her representation of her cousin's state was according to her own belief of it, and such as she supposed would give Miss Crawford the hope of everything she was wishing for. Edmund would be forgiven for being a clergyman, it seemed, under certain conditions of wealth; and this, she suspected, was all the conquest of prejudice which he was so ready to congratulate himself upon. She had only learnt to think nothing of consequence but money.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 45

Fanny's rides recommenced the very next day; and as it was a pleasant fresh-feeling morning, less hot than the weather had lately been, Edmund trusted that her losses, both of health and pleasure, would be soon made good. While she was gone Mr. Rushworth arrived, escorting his mother, who came to be civil and to shew her civility especially, in urging the execution of the plan for visiting Sotherton, which had been started a fortnight before, and which, in consequence of her subsequent absence from home, had since lain dormant. Mrs. Norris and her nieces were all well pleased with its revival, and an early day was named and agreed to, provided Mr. Crawford should be disengaged: the young ladies did not forget that stipulation, and though Mrs. Norris would willingly have answered for his being so, they would neither authorise the liberty nor run the risk; and at last, on a hint from Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth discovered that the properest thing to be done was for him to walk down to the Parsonage directly, and call on Mr. Crawford, and inquire whether Wednesday would suit him or not. Before his return Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford came in. Having been out some time, and taken a different route to the house, they had not met him. Comfortable hopes, however, were given that he would find Mr. Crawford at home. The Sotherton scheme was mentioned of course. It was hardly possible, indeed, that anything else should be talked of, for Mrs. Norris was in high spirits about it; and Mrs. Rushworth, a well-meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, who thought nothing of consequence, but as it related to her own and her son's concerns, had not yet given over pressing Lady Bertram to be of the party. Lady Bertram constantly declined it; but her placid manner of refusal made Mrs. Rushworth still think she wished to come, till Mrs. Norris's more numerous words and louder tone convinced her of the truth. "The fatigue would be too much for my sister, a great deal too much, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Rushworth. Ten miles there, and ten back, you know. You must excuse my sister on this occasion, and accept of our two dear girls and myself without her. Sotherton is the only place that could give her a _wish_ to go so far, but it cannot be, indeed. She will have a companion in Fanny Price, you know, so it will all do very well; and as for Edmund, as he is not here to speak for himself, I will answer for his being most happy to join the party. He can go on horseback, you know." Mrs. Rushworth being obliged to yield to Lady Bertram's staying at home, could only be sorry. "The loss of her ladyship's company would be a great drawback, and she should have been extremely happy to have seen the young lady too, Miss Price, who had never been at Sotherton yet, and it was a pity she should not see the place." "You are very kind, you are all kindness, my dear madam," cried Mrs. Norris; "but as to Fanny, she will have opportunities in plenty of seeing Sotherton. She has time enough before her; and her going now is quite out of the question. Lady Bertram could not possibly spare her." "Oh no! I cannot do without Fanny." Mrs. Rushworth proceeded next, under the conviction that everybody must be wanting to see Sotherton, to include Miss Crawford in the invitation; and though Mrs. Grant, who had not been at the trouble of visiting Mrs. Rushworth, on her coming into the neighbourhood, civilly declined it on her own account, she was glad to secure any pleasure for her sister; and Mary, properly pressed and persuaded, was not long in accepting her share of the civility. Mr. Rushworth came back from the Parsonage successful; and Edmund made his appearance just in time to learn what had been settled for Wednesday, to attend Mrs. Rushworth to her carriage, and walk half-way down the park with the two other ladies. On his return to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs. Norris trying to make up her mind as to whether Miss Crawford's being of the party were desirable or not, or whether her brother's barouche would not be full without her. The Miss Bertrams laughed at the idea, assuring her that the barouche would hold four perfectly well, independent of the box, on which _one_ might go with him. "But why is it necessary," said Edmund, "that Crawford's carriage, or his _only_, should be employed? Why is no use to be made of my mother's chaise? I could not, when the scheme was first mentioned the other day, understand why a visit from the family were not to be made in the carriage of the family." "What!" cried Julia: "go boxed up three in a postchaise in this weather, when we may have seats in a barouche! No, my dear Edmund, that will not quite do." "Besides," said Maria, "I know that Mr. Crawford depends upon taking us. After what passed at first, he would claim it as a promise." "And, my dear Edmund," added Mrs. Norris, "taking out _two_ carriages when _one_ will do, would be trouble for nothing; and, between ourselves, coachman is not very fond of the roads between this and Sotherton: he always complains bitterly of the narrow lanes scratching his carriage, and you know one should not like to have dear Sir Thomas, when he comes home, find all the varnish scratched off." "That would not be a very handsome reason for using Mr. Crawford's," said Maria; "but the truth is, that Wilcox is a stupid old fellow, and does not know how to drive. I will answer for it that we shall find no inconvenience from narrow roads on Wednesday." "There is no hardship, I suppose, nothing unpleasant," said Edmund, "in going on the barouche box." "Unpleasant!" cried Maria: "oh dear! I believe it would be generally thought the favourite seat. There can be no comparison as to one's view of the country. Probably Miss Crawford will choose the barouche-box herself." "There can be no objection, then, to Fanny's going with you; there can be no doubt of your having room for her." "Fanny!" repeated Mrs. Norris; "my dear Edmund, there is no idea of her going with us. She stays with her aunt. I told Mrs. Rushworth so. She is not expected." "You can have no reason, I imagine, madam," said he, addressing his mother, "for wishing Fanny _not_ to be of the party, but as it relates to yourself, to your own comfort. If you could do without her, you would not wish to keep her at home?" "To be sure not, but I _cannot_ do without her." "You can, if I stay at home with you, as I mean to do." There was a general cry out at this. "Yes," he continued, "there is no necessity for my going, and I mean to stay at home. Fanny has a great desire to see Sotherton. I know she wishes it very much. She has not often a gratification of the kind, and I am sure, ma'am, you would be glad to give her the pleasure now?" "Oh yes! very glad, if your aunt sees no objection." Mrs. Norris was very ready with the only objection which could remain-their having positively assured Mrs. Rushworth that Fanny could not go, and the very strange appearance there would consequently be in taking her, which seemed to her a difficulty quite impossible to be got over. It must have the strangest appearance! It would be something so very unceremonious, so bordering on disrespect for Mrs. Rushworth, whose own manners were such a pattern of good-breeding and attention, that she really did not feel equal to it. Mrs. Norris had no affection for Fanny, and no wish of procuring her pleasure at any time; but her opposition to Edmund _now_, arose more from partiality for her own scheme, because it _was_ her own, than from anything else. She felt that she had arranged everything extremely well, and that any alteration must be for the worse. When Edmund, therefore, told her in reply, as he did when she would give him the hearing, that she need not distress herself on Mrs. Rushworth's account, because he had taken the opportunity, as he walked with her through the hall, of mentioning Miss Price as one who would probably be of the party, and had directly received a very sufficient invitation for his cousin, Mrs. Norris was too much vexed to submit with a very good grace, and would only say, "Very well, very well, just as you chuse, settle it your own way, I am sure I do not care about it." "It seems very odd," said Maria, "that you should be staying at home instead of Fanny." "I am sure she ought to be very much obliged to you," added Julia, hastily leaving the room as she spoke, from a consciousness that she ought to offer to stay at home herself. "Fanny will feel quite as grateful as the occasion requires," was Edmund's only reply, and the subject dropt. Fanny's gratitude, when she heard the plan, was, in fact, much greater than her pleasure. She felt Edmund's kindness with all, and more than all, the sensibility which he, unsuspicious of her fond attachment, could be aware of; but that he should forego any enjoyment on her account gave her pain, and her own satisfaction in seeing Sotherton would be nothing without him. The next meeting of the two Mansfield families produced another alteration in the plan, and one that was admitted with general approbation. Mrs. Grant offered herself as companion for the day to Lady Bertram in lieu of her son, and Dr. Grant was to join them at dinner. Lady Bertram was very well pleased to have it so, and the young ladies were in spirits again. Even Edmund was very thankful for an arrangement which restored him to his share of the party; and Mrs. Norris thought it an excellent plan, and had it at her tongue's end, and was on the point of proposing it, when Mrs. Grant spoke. Wednesday was fine, and soon after breakfast the barouche arrived, Mr. Crawford driving his sisters; and as everybody was ready, there was nothing to be done but for Mrs. Grant to alight and the others to take their places. The place of all places, the envied seat, the post of honour, was unappropriated. To whose happy lot was it to fall? While each of the Miss Bertrams were meditating how best, and with the most appearance of obliging the others, to secure it, the matter was settled by Mrs. Grant's saying, as she stepped from the carriage, "As there are five of you, it will be better that one should sit with Henry; and as you were saying lately that you wished you could drive, Julia, I think this will be a good opportunity for you to take a lesson." Happy Julia! Unhappy Maria! The former was on the barouche-box in a moment, the latter took her seat within, in gloom and mortification; and the carriage drove off amid the good wishes of the two remaining ladies, and the barking of Pug in his mistress's arms. Their road was through a pleasant country; and Fanny, whose rides had never been extensive, was soon beyond her knowledge, and was very happy in observing all that was new, and admiring all that was pretty. She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions; and, in observing the appearance of the country, the bearings of the roads, the difference of soil, the state of the harvest, the cottages, the cattle, the children, she found entertainment that could only have been heightened by having Edmund to speak to of what she felt. That was the only point of resemblance between her and the lady who sat by her: in everything but a value for Edmund, Miss Crawford was very unlike her. She had none of Fanny's delicacy of taste, of mind, of feeling; she saw Nature, inanimate Nature, with little observation; her attention was all for men and women, her talents for the light and lively. In looking back after Edmund, however, when there was any stretch of road behind them, or when he gained on them in ascending a considerable hill, they were united, and a "there he is" broke at the same moment from them both, more than once. For the first seven miles Miss Bertram had very little real comfort: her prospect always ended in Mr. Crawford and her sister sitting side by side, full of conversation and merriment; and to see only his expressive profile as he turned with a smile to Julia, or to catch the laugh of the other, was a perpetual source of irritation, which her own sense of propriety could but just smooth over. When Julia looked back, it was with a countenance of delight, and whenever she spoke to them, it was in the highest spirits: "her view of the country was charming, she wished they could all see it," etc.; but her only offer of exchange was addressed to Miss Crawford, as they gained the summit of a long hill, and was not more inviting than this: "Here is a fine burst of country. I wish you had my seat, but I dare say you will not take it, let me press you ever so much;" and Miss Crawford could hardly answer before they were moving again at a good pace. When they came within the influence of Sotherton associations, it was better for Miss Bertram, who might be said to have two strings to her bow. She had Rushworth feelings, and Crawford feelings, and in the vicinity of Sotherton the former had considerable effect. Mr. Rushworth's consequence was hers. She could not tell Miss Crawford that "those woods belonged to Sotherton," she could not carelessly observe that "she believed that it was now all Mr. Rushworth's property on each side of the road," without elation of heart; and it was a pleasure to increase with their approach to the capital freehold mansion, and ancient manorial residence of the family, with all its rights of court-leet and court-baron. "Now we shall have no more rough road, Miss Crawford; our difficulties are over. The rest of the way is such as it ought to be. Mr. Rushworth has made it since he succeeded to the estate. Here begins the village. Those cottages are really a disgrace. The church spire is reckoned remarkably handsome. I am glad the church is not so close to the great house as often happens in old places. The annoyance of the bells must be terrible. There is the parsonage: a tidy-looking house, and I understand the clergyman and his wife are very decent people. Those are almshouses, built by some of the family. To the right is the steward's house; he is a very respectable man. Now we are coming to the lodge-gates; but we have nearly a mile through the park still. It is not ugly, you see, at this end; there is some fine timber, but the situation of the house is dreadful. We go down hill to it for half a mile, and it is a pity, for it would not be an ill-looking place if it had a better approach." Miss Crawford was not slow to admire; she pretty well guessed Miss Bertram's feelings, and made it a point of honour to promote her enjoyment to the utmost. Mrs. Norris was all delight and volubility; and even Fanny had something to say in admiration, and might be heard with complacency. Her eye was eagerly taking in everything within her reach; and after being at some pains to get a view of the house, and observing that "it was a sort of building which she could not look at but with respect," she added, "Now, where is the avenue? The house fronts the east, I perceive. The avenue, therefore, must be at the back of it. Mr. Rushworth talked of the west front." "Yes, it is exactly behind the house; begins at a little distance, and ascends for half a mile to the extremity of the grounds. You may see something of it here-something of the more distant trees. It is oak entirely." Miss Bertram could now speak with decided information of what she had known nothing about when Mr. Rushworth had asked her opinion; and her spirits were in as happy a flutter as vanity and pride could furnish, when they drove up to the spacious stone steps before the principal entrance.

Fanny's rides recommenced the very next day; and as it was cooler, Edmund trusted that her loss of health would be soon made good. While she was gone Mr. Rushworth arrived, escorting his mother, who came to urge them to visit Sotherton, as planned. Mrs. Norris and her nieces were well pleased, and an early day was agreed, provided Mr. Crawford should be free: and on a hint from Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth decided to walk down to the Parsonage directly, and call on Mr. Crawford, and inquire whether Wednesday would suit him. Before his return Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford came in. Having taken a different route to the house, they had not met him; but they hoped that he would find Mr. Crawford at home. The Sotherton scheme was mentioned of course. Mrs. Norris was in high spirits about it; and Mrs. Rushworth, a well-meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, was still pressing Lady Bertram to join the group. Lady Bertram constantly declined; but her placid manner of refusal made Mrs. Rushworth still think she wished to come, till Mrs. Norris convinced her of the truth. "The fatigue would be too much for my sister, my dear Mrs. Rushworth. Ten miles there, and ten back, you know. You must accept our two dear girls and myself without her. She will have a companion in Fanny Price; and as for Edmund, I will answer for his being most happy to join the party. He can go on horseback, you know." Mrs. Rushworth was sorry. "She should have been extremely happy to have seen her Ladyship, and Miss Price, who had never been at Sotherton yet." "You are all kindness, my dear madam," cried Mrs. Norris; "but Fanny will have opportunities in plenty of seeing Sotherton. Her going now is out of the question. Lady Bertram could not possibly spare her." "Oh no! I cannot do without Fanny." Mrs. Rushworth proceeded next to invite Miss Crawford; and Mary was swift to accept. Mr. Rushworth came back from the Parsonage successful; and Edmund made his appearance just in time to learn what had been settled for Wednesday, to attend Mrs. Rushworth to her carriage, and walk half-way down the park with the two other ladies. On his return to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs. Norris trying to decide whether Miss Crawford's being of the party were desirable, or whether her brother's barouche would not be full without her. The Miss Bertrams laughed, assuring her that the barouche would hold four perfectly well, independent of the box, on which one might go with him. "But why should only Crawford's carriage be employed?" said Edmund. "Why is no use to be made of my mother's chaise?" "What!" cried Julia: "go boxed up in a postchaise in this weather, when we may have seats in a barouche!" "Besides," said Maria, "I know that Mr. Crawford depends upon taking us." "And, my dear Edmund," added Mrs. Norris, "to take two carriages when one will do, would be trouble for nothing; and coachman always complains of the narrow lanes to Sotherton scratching his carriage, and one should not like to have dear Sir Thomas, when he comes home, find all the varnish scratched off." "That would not be a very handsome reason for using Mr. Crawford's," said Maria; "but the truth is, that Wilcox is a stupid old fellow, and does not know how to drive. I will answer for it that we shall find no inconvenience from narrow roads on Wednesday." "There will be nothing unpleasant, I suppose," said Edmund, "in going on the barouche box." "Unpleasant!" cried Maria: "It would be generally thought the favourite seat, for one's view of the country. Probably Miss Crawford will choose the barouche-box herself." "There can be no objection, then, to Fanny's going with you; there can be no doubt of your having room." "Fanny!" repeated Mrs. Norris; "my dear Edmund, there is no idea of her going with us. She stays with her aunt. I told Mrs. Rushworth so. She is not expected." "If you could do without her, madam," said he, addressing his mother, "you would not wish to keep her at home?" "To be sure not, but I cannot do without her." "You can, if I stay at home with you." There was a general cry out at this. "Yes," he continued, "there is no necessity for my going. Fanny has a great desire to see Sotherton. She has not often a gratification of the kind, and I am sure, ma'am, you would be glad to give her the pleasure now?" "Oh yes! very glad, if your aunt sees no objection." Mrs. Norris was very ready with her objection-their having positively assured Mrs. Rushworth that Fanny could not go, and the very strange appearance there would be in taking her, which seemed to her a difficulty quite impossible to be got over. It would show such disrespect for Mrs. Rushworth, that she really did not feel equal to it. Her opposition to Edmund arose more from partiality for her own scheme, because it was her own, than from anything else. When Edmund, therefore, told her that he had mentioned Miss Price to Mrs Rushworth, and had received an invitation for her, Mrs. Norris was too much vexed to submit with grace, and would only say, "Very well, settle it your own way." "It seems very odd," said Maria, "that you should be staying at home instead of Fanny." "I am sure she ought to be very much obliged to you," added Julia, conscious that she ought to offer to stay at home herself. "Fanny will feel quite as grateful as the occasion requires," was Edmund's only reply. Fanny's gratitude, when she heard the plan, was, in fact, much greater than her pleasure. She felt Edmund's kindness more than he, unsuspicious of her fond attachment, could be aware of; but that he should forego any enjoyment gave her pain, and her own satisfaction in seeing Sotherton would be nothing without him. The next meeting of the Mansfield families produced another alteration in the plan. Mrs. Grant offered herself as companion for the day to Lady Bertram. Lady Bertram was very well pleased, and even Edmund was thankful for an arrangement which restored him to the party; while Mrs. Norris thought it an excellent plan, and had been on the point of proposing it herself. Wednesday was fine, and soon after breakfast the barouche arrived, Mr. Crawford driving his sisters. When Mrs Grant alighted, everybody was ready to take their places. The place of all places, the envied seat, was vacant. To whose happy lot was it to fall? While each of the Miss Bertrams were meditating how to secure it, the matter was settled by Mrs. Grant's saying, "One of you should sit with Henry; and as you were saying lately that you wished you could drive, Julia, this will be a good opportunity for you to take a lesson." Happy Julia! Unhappy Maria! The former was on the barouche-box in a moment, the latter took her seat within, in gloom and mortification; and the carriage drove off. Their road was through a pleasant country; and Fanny, whose rides had never been extensive, was very happy in observing all that was new and pretty. She was not often invited to join in the conversation, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts were habitually her best companions; and, in observing the appearance of the country, the state of the harvest, the cottages, the cattle and the children, she found entertainment that could only have been heightened by having Edmund to discuss it with. That was the only point of resemblance between her and the lady who sat by her: in everything but a value for Edmund, Miss Crawford was very unlike her. She had none of Fanny's delicacy of feeling; she saw Nature with little observation; her attention was all for men and women, her talents for the light and lively. In looking back after Edmund, however, when there was any stretch of road behind them, they were united, and a "there he is" broke at the same moment from them both. For the first seven miles Miss Bertram had very little comfort: her prospect always ended in Mr. Crawford and her sister sitting side by side, full of conversation and merriment; a perpetual source of irritation, which her sense of propriety could only just smooth over. Julia looked back, smiling, and spoke in the highest spirits: "her view of the country was charming, she wished they could all see it," etc.; but her only offer of exchange was addressed to Miss Crawford: "I wish you had my seat, but I dare say you will not take it, let me press you ever so much." Miss Crawford could hardly answer before they were moving again. When they came nearer to Sotherton, it was better for Miss Bertram, who might be said to have two strings to her bow. She had Rushworth feelings, and Crawford feelings, and in the vicinity of Sotherton the former had considerable effect. She could not tell Miss Crawford that "those woods belonged to Sotherton," she could not carelessly observe that "she believed that it was now all Mr. Rushworth's property on each side of the road," without elation of heart; and it was a pleasure to increase with their approach to the mansion. "Now we shall have no more rough road, Miss Crawford; the rest of the way is as it ought to be. Mr. Rushworth has improved it since he succeeded to the estate. Here begins the village. Those cottages are really a disgrace. The church spire is reckoned remarkably handsome. There is the parsonage: a tidy-looking house, and I understand the clergyman and his wife are very decent people. To the right is the steward's house; he is a very respectable man. Now we are coming to the lodge-gates; but we have nearly a mile through the park still. There is some fine timber, but the situation of the house is dreadful. We go down hill to it for half a mile; it would not be an ill-looking place if it had a better approach." Miss Crawford was not slow to admire; she guessed Miss Bertram's feelings, and made it a point of honour to promote her enjoyment to the utmost. Mrs. Norris was all delight; and even Fanny had something to say in admiration. Her eye was eagerly taking in everything; and she asked, "Where is the avenue? It must be at the back of the house." "Yes, it is behind the house, and ascends for half a mile. It is oak entirely." Miss Bertram could now speak with decided information of what she had known nothing about when Mr. Rushworth had asked her opinion; and her spirits were in as happy a flutter as pride could furnish, when they drove up to the spacious stone steps before the principal entrance.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 8

The novelty of travelling, and the happiness of being with William, soon produced their natural effect on Fanny's spirits, when Mansfield Park was fairly left behind; and by the time their first stage was ended, and they were to quit Sir Thomas's carriage, she was able to take leave of the old coachman, and send back proper messages, with cheerful looks. Of pleasant talk between the brother and sister there was no end. Everything supplied an amusement to the high glee of William's mind, and he was full of frolic and joke in the intervals of their higher-toned subjects, all of which ended, if they did not begin, in praise of the Thrush, conjectures how she would be employed, schemes for an action with some superior force, which (supposing the first lieutenant out of the way, and William was not very merciful to the first lieutenant) was to give himself the next step as soon as possible, or speculations upon prize-money, which was to be generously distributed at home, with only the reservation of enough to make the little cottage comfortable, in which he and Fanny were to pass all their middle and later life together. Fanny's immediate concerns, as far as they involved Mr. Crawford, made no part of their conversation. William knew what had passed, and from his heart lamented that his sister's feelings should be so cold towards a man whom he must consider as the first of human characters; but he was of an age to be all for love, and therefore unable to blame; and knowing her wish on the subject, he would not distress her by the slightest allusion. She had reason to suppose herself not yet forgotten by Mr. Crawford. She had heard repeatedly from his sister within the three weeks which had passed since their leaving Mansfield, and in each letter there had been a few lines from himself, warm and determined like his speeches. It was a correspondence which Fanny found quite as unpleasant as she had feared. Miss Crawford's style of writing, lively and affectionate, was itself an evil, independent of what she was thus forced into reading from the brother's pen, for Edmund would never rest till she had read the chief of the letter to him; and then she had to listen to his admiration of her language, and the warmth of her attachments. There had, in fact, been so much of message, of allusion, of recollection, so much of Mansfield in every letter, that Fanny could not but suppose it meant for him to hear; and to find herself forced into a purpose of that kind, compelled into a correspondence which was bringing her the addresses of the man she did not love, and obliging her to administer to the adverse passion of the man she did, was cruelly mortifying. Here, too, her present removal promised advantage. When no longer under the same roof with Edmund, she trusted that Miss Crawford would have no motive for writing strong enough to overcome the trouble, and that at Portsmouth their correspondence would dwindle into nothing. With such thoughts as these, among ten hundred others, Fanny proceeded in her journey safely and cheerfully, and as expeditiously as could rationally be hoped in the dirty month of February. They entered Oxford, but she could take only a hasty glimpse of Edmund's college as they passed along, and made no stop anywhere till they reached Newbury, where a comfortable meal, uniting dinner and supper, wound up the enjoyments and fatigues of the day. The next morning saw them off again at an early hour; and with no events, and no delays, they regularly advanced, and were in the environs of Portsmouth while there was yet daylight for Fanny to look around her, and wonder at the new buildings. They passed the drawbridge, and entered the town; and the light was only beginning to fail as, guided by William's powerful voice, they were rattled into a narrow street, leading from the High Street, and drawn up before the door of a small house now inhabited by Mr. Price. Fanny was all agitation and flutter; all hope and apprehension. The moment they stopped, a trollopy-looking maidservant, seemingly in waiting for them at the door, stepped forward, and more intent on telling the news than giving them any help, immediately began with, "The Thrush is gone out of harbour, please sir, and one of the officers has been here to-" She was interrupted by a fine tall boy of eleven years old, who, rushing out of the house, pushed the maid aside, and while William was opening the chaise-door himself, called out, "You are just in time. We have been looking for you this half-hour. The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. I saw her. It was a beautiful sight. And they think she will have her orders in a day or two. And Mr. Campbell was here at four o'clock to ask for you: he has got one of the Thrush's boats, and is going off to her at six, and hoped you would be here in time to go with him." A stare or two at Fanny, as William helped her out of the carriage, was all the voluntary notice which this brother bestowed; but he made no objection to her kissing him, though still entirely engaged in detailing farther particulars of the Thrush's going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of interest, being to commence his career of seamanship in her at this very time. Another moment and Fanny was in the narrow entrance-passage of the house, and in her mother's arms, who met her there with looks of true kindness, and with features which Fanny loved the more, because they brought her aunt Bertram's before her, and there were her two sisters: Susan, a well-grown fine girl of fourteen, and Betsey, the youngest of the family, about five-both glad to see her in their way, though with no advantage of manner in receiving her. But manner Fanny did not want. Would they but love her, she should be satisfied. She was then taken into a parlour, so small that her first conviction was of its being only a passage-room to something better, and she stood for a moment expecting to be invited on; but when she saw there was no other door, and that there were signs of habitation before her, she called back her thoughts, reproved herself, and grieved lest they should have been suspected. Her mother, however, could not stay long enough to suspect anything. She was gone again to the street-door, to welcome William. "Oh! my dear William, how glad I am to see you. But have you heard about the Thrush? She is gone out of harbour already; three days before we had any thought of it; and I do not know what I am to do about Sam's things, they will never be ready in time; for she may have her orders to-morrow, perhaps. It takes me quite unawares. And now you must be off for Spithead too. Campbell has been here, quite in a worry about you; and now what shall we do? I thought to have had such a comfortable evening with you, and here everything comes upon me at once." Her son answered cheerfully, telling her that everything was always for the best; and making light of his own inconvenience in being obliged to hurry away so soon. "To be sure, I had much rather she had stayed in harbour, that I might have sat a few hours with you in comfort; but as there is a boat ashore, I had better go off at once, and there is no help for it. Whereabouts does the Thrush lay at Spithead? Near the Canopus? But no matter; here's Fanny in the parlour, and why should we stay in the passage? Come, mother, you have hardly looked at your own dear Fanny yet." In they both came, and Mrs. Price having kindly kissed her daughter again, and commented a little on her growth, began with very natural solicitude to feel for their fatigues and wants as travellers. "Poor dears! how tired you must both be! and now, what will you have? I began to think you would never come. Betsey and I have been watching for you this half-hour. And when did you get anything to eat? And what would you like to have now? I could not tell whether you would be for some meat, or only a dish of tea, after your journey, or else I would have got something ready. And now I am afraid Campbell will be here before there is time to dress a steak, and we have no butcher at hand. It is very inconvenient to have no butcher in the street. We were better off in our last house. Perhaps you would like some tea as soon as it can be got." They both declared they should prefer it to anything. "Then, Betsey, my dear, run into the kitchen and see if Rebecca has put the water on; and tell her to bring in the tea-things as soon as she can. I wish we could get the bell mended; but Betsey is a very handy little messenger." Betsey went with alacrity, proud to shew her abilities before her fine new sister. "Dear me!" continued the anxious mother, "what a sad fire we have got, and I dare say you are both starved with cold. Draw your chair nearer, my dear. I cannot think what Rebecca has been about. I am sure I told her to bring some coals half an hour ago. Susan, you should have taken care of the fire." "I was upstairs, mama, moving my things," said Susan, in a fearless, self-defending tone, which startled Fanny. "You know you had but just settled that my sister Fanny and I should have the other room; and I could not get Rebecca to give me any help." Farther discussion was prevented by various bustles: first, the driver came to be paid; then there was a squabble between Sam and Rebecca about the manner of carrying up his sister's trunk, which he would manage all his own way; and lastly, in walked Mr. Price himself, his own loud voice preceding him, as with something of the oath kind he kicked away his son's portmanteau and his daughter's bandbox in the passage, and called out for a candle; no candle was brought, however, and he walked into the room. Fanny with doubting feelings had risen to meet him, but sank down again on finding herself undistinguished in the dusk, and unthought of. With a friendly shake of his son's hand, and an eager voice, he instantly began-"Ha! welcome back, my boy. Glad to see you. Have you heard the news? The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. Sharp is the word, you see! By G-, you are just in time! The doctor has been here inquiring for you: he has got one of the boats, and is to be off for Spithead by six, so you had better go with him. I have been to Turner's about your mess; it is all in a way to be done. I should not wonder if you had your orders to-morrow: but you cannot sail with this wind, if you are to cruise to the westward; and Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to the westward, with the Elephant. By G-, I wish you may! But old Scholey was saying, just now, that he thought you would be sent first to the Texel. Well, well, we are ready, whatever happens. But by G-, you lost a fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the Thrush go out of harbour! I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast-time, to say she had slipped her moorings and was coming out, I jumped up, and made but two steps to the platform. If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat, she is one; and there she lays at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform two hours this afternoon looking at her. She lays close to the Endymion, between her and the Cleopatra, just to the eastward of the sheer hulk." "Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself. It's the best berth at Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is Fanny," turning and leading her forward; "it is so dark you do not see her." With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now received his daughter; and having given her a cordial hug, and observed that she was grown into a woman, and he supposed would be wanting a husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again. Fanny shrunk back to her seat, with feelings sadly pained by his language and his smell of spirits; and he talked on only to his son, and only of the Thrush, though William, warmly interested as he was in that subject, more than once tried to make his father think of Fanny, and her long absence and long journey. After sitting some time longer, a candle was obtained; but as there was still no appearance of tea, nor, from Betsey's reports from the kitchen, much hope of any under a considerable period, William determined to go and change his dress, and make the necessary preparations for his removal on board directly, that he might have his tea in comfort afterwards. As he left the room, two rosy-faced boys, ragged and dirty, about eight and nine years old, rushed into it just released from school, and coming eagerly to see their sister, and tell that the Thrush was gone out of harbour; Tom and Charles. Charles had been born since Fanny's going away, but Tom she had often helped to nurse, and now felt a particular pleasure in seeing again. Both were kissed very tenderly, but Tom she wanted to keep by her, to try to trace the features of the baby she had loved, and talked to, of his infant preference of herself. Tom, however, had no mind for such treatment: he came home not to stand and be talked to, but to run about and make a noise; and both boys had soon burst from her, and slammed the parlour-door till her temples ached. She had now seen all that were at home; there remained only two brothers between herself and Susan, one of whom was a clerk in a public office in London, and the other midshipman on board an Indiaman. But though she had _seen_ all the members of the family, she had not yet _heard_ all the noise they could make. Another quarter of an hour brought her a great deal more. William was soon calling out from the landing-place of the second story for his mother and for Rebecca. He was in distress for something that he had left there, and did not find again. A key was mislaid, Betsey accused of having got at his new hat, and some slight, but essential alteration of his uniform waistcoat, which he had been promised to have done for him, entirely neglected. Mrs. Price, Rebecca, and Betsey all went up to defend themselves, all talking together, but Rebecca loudest, and the job was to be done as well as it could in a great hurry; William trying in vain to send Betsey down again, or keep her from being troublesome where she was; the whole of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could be plainly distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned at intervals by the superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each other up and down stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing. Fanny was almost stunned. The smallness of the house and thinness of the walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew how to bear it. _Within_ the room all was tranquil enough, for Susan having disappeared with the others, there were soon only her father and herself remaining; and he, taking out a newspaper, the accustomary loan of a neighbour, applied himself to studying it, without seeming to recollect her existence. The solitary candle was held between himself and the paper, without any reference to her possible convenience; but she had nothing to do, and was glad to have the light screened from her aching head, as she sat in bewildered, broken, sorrowful contemplation. She was at home. But, alas! it was not such a home, she had not such a welcome, as-she checked herself; she was unreasonable. What right had she to be of importance to her family? She could have none, so long lost sight of! William's concerns must be dearest, they always had been, and he had every right. Yet to have so little said or asked about herself, to have scarcely an inquiry made after Mansfield! It did pain her to have Mansfield forgotten; the friends who had done so much-the dear, dear friends! But here, one subject swallowed up all the rest. Perhaps it must be so. The destination of the Thrush must be now preeminently interesting. A day or two might shew the difference. _She_ only was to blame. Yet she thought it would not have been so at Mansfield. No, in her uncle's house there would have been a consideration of times and seasons, a regulation of subject, a propriety, an attention towards everybody which there was not here. The only interruption which thoughts like these received for nearly half an hour was from a sudden burst of her father's, not at all calculated to compose them. At a more than ordinary pitch of thumping and hallooing in the passage, he exclaimed, "Devil take those young dogs! How they are singing out! Ay, Sam's voice louder than all the rest! That boy is fit for a boatswain. Holla, you there! Sam, stop your confounded pipe, or I shall be after you." This threat was so palpably disregarded, that though within five minutes afterwards the three boys all burst into the room together and sat down, Fanny could not consider it as a proof of anything more than their being for the time thoroughly fagged, which their hot faces and panting breaths seemed to prove, especially as they were still kicking each other's shins, and hallooing out at sudden starts immediately under their father's eye. The next opening of the door brought something more welcome: it was for the tea-things, which she had begun almost to despair of seeing that evening. Susan and an attendant girl, whose inferior appearance informed Fanny, to her great surprise, that she had previously seen the upper servant, brought in everything necessary for the meal; Susan looking, as she put the kettle on the fire and glanced at her sister, as if divided between the agreeable triumph of shewing her activity and usefulness, and the dread of being thought to demean herself by such an office. "She had been into the kitchen," she said, "to hurry Sally and help make the toast, and spread the bread and butter, or she did not know when they should have got tea, and she was sure her sister must want something after her journey." Fanny was very thankful. She could not but own that she should be very glad of a little tea, and Susan immediately set about making it, as if pleased to have the employment all to herself; and with only a little unnecessary bustle, and some few injudicious attempts at keeping her brothers in better order than she could, acquitted herself very well. Fanny's spirit was as much refreshed as her body; her head and heart were soon the better for such well-timed kindness. Susan had an open, sensible countenance; she was like William, and Fanny hoped to find her like him in disposition and goodwill towards herself. In this more placid state of things William reentered, followed not far behind by his mother and Betsey. He, complete in his lieutenant's uniform, looking and moving all the taller, firmer, and more graceful for it, and with the happiest smile over his face, walked up directly to Fanny, who, rising from her seat, looked at him for a moment in speechless admiration, and then threw her arms round his neck to sob out her various emotions of pain and pleasure. Anxious not to appear unhappy, she soon recovered herself; and wiping away her tears, was able to notice and admire all the striking parts of his dress; listening with reviving spirits to his cheerful hopes of being on shore some part of every day before they sailed, and even of getting her to Spithead to see the sloop. The next bustle brought in Mr. Campbell, the surgeon of the Thrush, a very well-behaved young man, who came to call for his friend, and for whom there was with some contrivance found a chair, and with some hasty washing of the young tea-maker's, a cup and saucer; and after another quarter of an hour of earnest talk between the gentlemen, noise rising upon noise, and bustle upon bustle, men and boys at last all in motion together, the moment came for setting off; everything was ready, William took leave, and all of them were gone; for the three boys, in spite of their mother's entreaty, determined to see their brother and Mr. Campbell to the sally-port; and Mr. Price walked off at the same time to carry back his neighbour's newspaper. Something like tranquillity might now be hoped for; and accordingly, when Rebecca had been prevailed on to carry away the tea-things, and Mrs. Price had walked about the room some time looking for a shirt-sleeve, which Betsey at last hunted out from a drawer in the kitchen, the small party of females were pretty well composed, and the mother having lamented again over the impossibility of getting Sam ready in time, was at leisure to think of her eldest daughter and the friends she had come from. A few inquiries began: but one of the earliest-"How did sister Bertram manage about her servants?" "Was she as much plagued as herself to get tolerable servants?"-soon led her mind away from Northamptonshire, and fixed it on her own domestic grievances, and the shocking character of all the Portsmouth servants, of whom she believed her own two were the very worst, engrossed her completely. The Bertrams were all forgotten in detailing the faults of Rebecca, against whom Susan had also much to depose, and little Betsey a great deal more, and who did seem so thoroughly without a single recommendation, that Fanny could not help modestly presuming that her mother meant to part with her when her year was up. "Her year!" cried Mrs. Price; "I am sure I hope I shall be rid of her before she has staid a year, for that will not be up till November. Servants are come to such a pass, my dear, in Portsmouth, that it is quite a miracle if one keeps them more than half a year. I have no hope of ever being settled; and if I was to part with Rebecca, I should only get something worse. And yet I do not think I am a very difficult mistress to please; and I am sure the place is easy enough, for there is always a girl under her, and I often do half the work myself." Fanny was silent; but not from being convinced that there might not be a remedy found for some of these evils. As she now sat looking at Betsey, she could not but think particularly of another sister, a very pretty little girl, whom she had left there not much younger when she went into Northamptonshire, who had died a few years afterwards. There had been something remarkably amiable about her. Fanny in those early days had preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had at last reached Mansfield, had for a short time been quite afflicted. The sight of Betsey brought the image of little Mary back again, but she would not have pained her mother by alluding to her for the world. While considering her with these ideas, Betsey, at a small distance, was holding out something to catch her eyes, meaning to screen it at the same time from Susan's. "What have you got there, my love?" said Fanny; "come and shew it to me." It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and trying to get it away; but the child ran to her mother's protection, and Susan could only reproach, which she did very warmly, and evidently hoping to interest Fanny on her side. "It was very hard that she was not to have her _own_ knife; it was her own knife; little sister Mary had left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to keep herself long ago. But mama kept it from her, and was always letting Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey would spoil it, and get it for her own, though mama had _promised_ her that Betsey should not have it in her own hands." Fanny was quite shocked. Every feeling of duty, honour, and tenderness was wounded by her sister's speech and her mother's reply. "Now, Susan," cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, "now, how can you be so cross? You are always quarrelling about that knife. I wish you would not be so quarrelsome. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is to you! But you should not have taken it out, my dear, when I sent you to the drawer. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to keep, only two hours before she died. Poor little soul! she could but just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, 'Let sister Susan have my knife, mama, when I am dead and buried.' Poor little dear! she was so fond of it, Fanny, that she would have it lay by her in bed, all through her illness. It was the gift of her good godmother, old Mrs. Admiral Maxwell, only six weeks before she was taken for death. Poor little sweet creature! Well, she was taken away from evil to come. My own Betsey" (fondling her), "_you_ have not the luck of such a good godmother. Aunt Norris lives too far off to think of such little people as you." Fanny had indeed nothing to convey from aunt Norris, but a message to say she hoped that her god-daughter was a good girl, and learnt her book. There had been at one moment a slight murmur in the drawing-room at Mansfield Park about sending her a prayer-book; but no second sound had been heard of such a purpose. Mrs. Norris, however, had gone home and taken down two old prayer-books of her husband with that idea; but, upon examination, the ardour of generosity went off. One was found to have too small a print for a child's eyes, and the other to be too cumbersome for her to carry about. Fanny, fatigued and fatigued again, was thankful to accept the first invitation of going to bed; and before Betsey had finished her cry at being allowed to sit up only one hour extraordinary in honour of sister, she was off, leaving all below in confusion and noise again; the boys begging for toasted cheese, her father calling out for his rum and water, and Rebecca never where she ought to be. There was nothing to raise her spirits in the confined and scantily furnished chamber that she was to share with Susan. The smallness of the rooms above and below, indeed, and the narrowness of the passage and staircase, struck her beyond her imagination. She soon learned to think with respect of her own little attic at Mansfield Park, in _that_ house reckoned too small for anybody's comfort.

The novelty of travelling, and the happiness of being with William, soon raised Fanny's spirits; and by the time their first stage was ended, and they quit Sir Thomas's carriage, she was able to take leave of the old coachman, and send back proper messages, with cheerful looks. Of pleasant talk between the brother and sister there was no end. Everything supplied amusement to the high glee of William's mind, and he was full of frolic and joke. All his talk ended in praise of the Thrush, schemes for battle, or speculations upon prize-money, which was to be generously distributed at home, keeping back only enough to make the little cottage comfortable, in which he and Fanny were to pass their later life together. Fanny's immediate concerns involving Mr. Crawford made no part of their conversation. William knew what had passed, and lamented that his sister's feelings should be so cold towards a man whom he must consider as the first of human characters; but knowing her wish on the subject, he would not distress her by the slightest allusion to it. She knew herself to be not yet forgotten by Mr. Crawford. She had heard repeatedly from his sister since their leaving Mansfield, and in each letter there had been a few lines from himself, warm and determined like his speeches. It was a correspondence which Fanny found quite as unpleasant as she had feared. Miss Crawford's lively style of writing was itself an evil, for Edmund would never rest till she had read the letter to him; and then she had to listen to his admiration of her language and her warm attachments. There was, in fact, so much of message and allusion in every letter, that Fanny could only suppose it was meant for him to hear; and to find herself compelled into a correspondence which was bringing her the addresses of the man she did not love, and obliging her to administer to the passion of the man she did, was cruelly mortifying. Once she was no longer under the same roof as Edmund, she trusted that Miss Crawford would have less motive for writing, and that at Portsmouth their correspondence would dwindle into nothing. With such thoughts as these, Fanny proceeded in her journey cheerfully. They made no stop till they reached Newbury, where a comfortable meal wound up the enjoyments and fatigues of the day. The next morning saw them off again at an early hour; and they neared Portsmouth while there was yet daylight for Fanny to look around her, and wonder at the new buildings. They passed the drawbridge, and entered the town; and as the light was beginning to fail, they were rattled into a narrow street, and drawn up before the door of a small house now inhabited by Mr. Price. Fanny was all fluttering hope and apprehension. A trollopy-looking maidservant stepped forward, and more intent on telling the news than giving them any help, immediately began with, "The Thrush is gone out of harbour, please sir, and one of the officers has been here to-" She was interrupted by a fine tall boy of eleven years old, who, rushing out of the house, pushed the maid aside, and called out, "You are just in time, William. We have been looking for you this half-hour. The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. They think she will have her orders in a day or two. And Mr. Campbell was here at four o'clock to ask for you: he is going to her at six, and hoped you would be here in time to go with him." A stare at Fanny, as William helped her out of the carriage, was all the notice which this brother gave her; but he made no objection to her kissing him, though still entirely engaged in detailing farther particulars of the Thrush's going out of harbour, in which he had a strong interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship in her at this very time. Another moment and Fanny was in the narrow entrance-passage of the house, and in the arms of her mother, who met her with looks of true kindness, and with features which Fanny loved the more, because they were like her aunt Bertram's. There also were her two sisters: Susan, a well-grown fine girl of fourteen, and Betsey, the youngest of the family, about five-both glad to see her in their way, though without any polish to their manners in receiving her. But manner Fanny did not want. Would they but love her, she should be satisfied. She was taken into a parlour, so small that she thought at first it was only a passage, and stood for a moment expecting to be invited on; but when she saw there was no other door, and that there were signs of habitation before her, she reproved herself, and grieved lest her thoughts should have been suspected. Her mother, however, could not stay long enough to suspect anything. She was gone again to welcome William. "Oh! my dear William, how glad I am to see you. But have you heard about the Thrush? She is gone out of harbour already; and I do not know what I am to do about Sam's things, they will never be ready in time. And now you must be off for Spithead too. Campbell has been here, and now what shall we do? I thought to have had such a comfortable evening with you, and here everything comes upon me at once." Her son answered cheerfully, making light of his own inconvenience in being obliged to hurry away so soon. "To be sure, I had much rather she had stayed in harbour, that I might have sat a few hours with you in comfort; but as there is a boat ashore, I had better go off. Whereabouts does the Thrush lay at Spithead? But no matter; here's Fanny. Come, mother, you have hardly looked at your own dear Fanny yet." Mrs. Price, having kindly kissed her daughter again, and commented on her growth, said with solicitude, "Poor dears! how tired you must both be! and now, what will you have? I began to think you would never come. Betsey and I have been watching for you this half-hour. And when did you get anything to eat? And what would you like to have now? I did not know what you would like, or else I would have got something ready. I am afraid Campbell will be here before there is time to dress a steak, and we have no butcher at hand. It is very inconvenient to have no butcher in the street. Perhaps you would like some tea." They both declared they should prefer it to anything. "Then, Betsey, my dear, run into the kitchen and see if Rebecca has put the water on; and tell her to bring in the tea-things. I wish we could get the bell mended; but Betsey is a very handy little messenger." Betsey went with alacrity, proud to show her abilities before her fine new sister. "Dear me!" continued the anxious mother, "what a sad fire we have got, and I dare say you are both cold. Draw your chair nearer, my dear. I cannot think what Rebecca has been about. I am sure I told her to bring some coals half an hour ago. Susan, you should have taken care of the fire." "I was upstairs, mama, moving my things," said Susan, in a fearless, self-defending tone, which startled Fanny. "You know you had settled that Fanny and I should have the other room; and I could not get Rebecca to give me any help." Farther discussion was prevented by various bustles: first, the driver came to be paid; then there was a squabble between Sam and Rebecca about the manner of carrying up his sister's trunk, which he would manage all his own way; and lastly, in walked Mr. Price himself, his own loud voice preceding him, as with something of the oath kind he kicked away his son's bag and his daughter's hatbox in the passage, called out for a candle, and walked into the room. Fanny had risen to meet him, but sank down again on finding herself undistinguished in the dusk, and unthought of. With a friendly shake of his son's hand, he instantly began- "Ha! welcome back, my boy. Glad to see you. Have you heard the news? The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. By G-, you are just in time! The doctor has been here inquiring for you: he has got one of the boats, and is to be off for Spithead by six, so you had better go with him. I should not wonder if you had your orders to-morrow: but you cannot sail with this wind, if you are to cruise to the westward; and Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to the westward, with the Elephant. By G-, I wish you may! Well, we are ready, whatever happens. But by G-, you lost a fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the Thrush go out of harbour! If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat, she is one; and there she lays at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an eight-and-twenty. She lays close to the Endymion, between her and the Cleopatra." "Ha!" cried William, "that's just where I should have put her myself. It's the best berth at Spithead. But here is Fanny, sir; it is so dark you do not see her." With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now received his daughter; and having given her a cordial hug, and observed that she was grown into a woman, seemed inclined to forget her again. Fanny shrunk back to her seat, sadly pained by his language and his smell of spirits; and he talked on only to his son, and only of the Thrush, though William, warmly interested as he was in that subject, more than once tried to make his father think of Fanny, and her long absence and long journey. After some time, a candle was obtained; but as there was still no appearance of tea, William decided to go and change his dress, and prepare for his removal on board, so that he might have his tea in comfort afterwards. As he left the room, two rosy-faced boys, ragged and dirty, about eight and nine years old, rushed into it, just released from school, and coming eagerly to see their sister and tell that the Thrush was gone out of harbour; Tom and Charles. Charles had been born since Fanny's going away, but Tom she had often helped to nurse, and now felt a particular pleasure in seeing again. Both were kissed very tenderly, but Tom she wanted to keep by her, to try to trace the features of the baby she had loved. Tom, however, had no mind for such treatment: he came home not to stand and be talked to, but to run about and make a noise; and both boys had soon burst from her, and slammed the parlour-door till her temples ached. She had now seen all that were at home; there remained only two brothers between herself and Susan, one of whom was a clerk in London, and the other a midshipman on board an Indiaman. But though she had seen all the members of the family, she had not yet heard all the noise they could make. Another quarter of an hour brought her a great deal more. William was soon calling out from the landing for his mother and Rebecca. A key was mislaid, Betsey was accused of having got at his new hat, and some slight, but essential alteration of his uniform waistcoat, which he had been promised to have done for him, had been entirely neglected. Mrs. Price, Rebecca, and Betsey all went up to defend themselves, all talking together, but Rebecca loudest; William trying in vain to send Betsey down again; the whole of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could be plainly distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned by the superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each other up and down stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing. Fanny was almost stunned. The smallness of the house and thinness of the walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of her journey, she hardly knew how to bear it. Within the room all was tranquil enough, for there were only her father and herself remaining; and he, taking out a newspaper, applied himself to studying it, without seeming to recollect her existence. The solitary candle was held between himself and the paper; but she was glad to have the light screened from her aching head, as she sat in bewildered, broken contemplation. She was at home. But, alas! it was not such a home, she had not such a welcome, as-she checked herself; she was unreasonable. What right had she to be of importance to her family? William's concerns must be dearest, and he had every right. Yet to have so little asked about herself, to have scarcely an inquiry made after Mansfield! It did pain her to have Mansfield forgotten; the friends who had done so much-the dear, dear friends! Perhaps it must be so. The destination of the Thrush must be now pre-eminently interesting. A day or two might show the difference. She only was to blame. Yet she thought it would not have been so at Mansfield. No, in her uncle's house there would have been a propriety, an attention towards everybody which there was not here. The only interruption which her thoughts received for half an hour was from a sudden burst of her father's. At a more than ordinary pitch of thumping and hallooing in the passage, he exclaimed, "Devil take those young dogs! How they are singing out! Holla, you there! Sam, stop your confounded pipe, or I shall be after you." This threat was so palpably disregarded, that though five minutes afterwards the three boys all burst into the room together and sat down, Fanny could not consider it as a proof of anything more than their being for the time thoroughly fagged, which their panting breaths seemed to prove, especially as they were still kicking each other's shins, and hallooing out at sudden starts immediately under their father's eye. The next opening of the door brought something more welcome: the tea-things, which she had begun almost to despair of seeing that evening. Susan and an attendant girl, whose inferior appearance informed Fanny, to her great surprise, that she had previously seen the upper servant, brought in everything necessary for the meal. Susan, putting the kettle on the fire and glancing at her sister, looked as if divided between the triumph of showing her usefulness, and the dread of being thought to demean herself by such a task. "She had been into the kitchen," she said, "to hurry Sally and help make the toast, and spread the bread and butter, or she did not know when they should have got tea, and she was sure her sister must want something after her journey." Fanny was very thankful. Susan immediately set about making the tea; and with only a little unnecessary bustle, and some injudicious attempts at keeping her brothers in order, acquitted herself very well. Fanny's spirit was as much refreshed as her body; her head and heart were soon the better for such well-timed kindness. Susan had an open, sensible countenance; she was like William, and Fanny hoped to find her like him in disposition and goodwill. William re-entered, followed by his mother and Betsey. He, complete in his lieutenant's uniform, looking all the taller, firmer, and more graceful for it, and with the happiest smile over his face, walked up directly to Fanny, who, rising from her seat in speechless admiration, threw her arms round his neck to sob out her pleasure. Anxious not to appear unhappy, she soon recovered, and was able to admire his dress; listening with reviving spirits to his cheerful hopes of being on shore some part of every day before they sailed, and even of getting her to Spithead to see the ship. The next bustle brought in Mr. Campbell, the surgeon of the Thrush, a very well-behaved young man, who came to call for his friend, and for whom there was with some contrivance found a chair, and with some hasty washing of the young tea-maker's, a cup and saucer; and after earnest talk between the gentlemen, noise rising upon noise, and bustle upon bustle, the moment came for setting off; everything was ready, William took leave, and all of them were gone; for the three boys were determined to see their brother and Mr. Campbell to the sally-port; and Mr. Price walked off at the same time. Something like tranquillity might now be hoped for. Accordingly, when Rebecca had been prevailed on to carry away the tea-things, the small party of females was pretty well composed, and the mother was at leisure to think of her eldest daughter and the friends she had come from. A few inquiries began: but one of the earliest-"How did sister Bertram manage about her servants?"-soon led her mind away from Northamptonshire, and fixed it on her own domestic grievances; and the shocking character of all the Portsmouth servants, of whom she believed her own two were the very worst, engrossed her completely. Fanny was silent. As she sat looking at Betsey, she could not help thinking of another sister, a very pretty little girl, whom she had left when she went into Northamptonshire, and who had died a few years afterwards. Fanny in those days had preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had reached Mansfield, had been quite afflicted. The sight of Betsey brought the image of little Mary back again, but she would not have pained her mother by alluding to her for the world. Meanwhile Betsey was holding out something to catch her eyes, meaning to screen it at the same time from Susan's. "What have you got there, my love?" said Fanny; "come and show it to me." It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and trying to get it away; but the child ran to her mother's protection, and Susan could only reproach. "It was very hard that she was not to have her own knife; little sister Mary had left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to keep. But mama kept it from her, and was always letting Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey would spoil it, and get it for her own." Fanny was quite shocked. Every feeling of duty, honour, and tenderness was wounded by her sister's speech and her mother's reply. "Now, Susan," cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, "how can you be so cross? You are always quarrelling about that knife. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is to you! But you should not have taken it out of the drawer, my dear. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to keep. Poor little soul! She said, 'Let sister Susan have my knife, mama, when I am dead.' She was so fond of it, Fanny, that she would have it lay by her in bed, all through her illness. It was the gift of her godmother. Poor little sweet creature! Well, she was taken away from evil to come. My own Betsey, you have not the luck of such a good godmother. Aunt Norris lives too far off to think of such little people as you." Indeed, Fanny had nothing to convey from aunt Norris, but a message to say she hoped that her god-daughter was a good girl, and learnt her book. Mrs. Norris had thought of sending her a prayer-book; had taken down two old prayer-books of her husband with that idea; but, upon examination, the ardour of generosity went off. One was found to have too small a print for a child's eyes, and the other to be too cumbersome. Fanny, fatigued, was thankful to accept the first invitation of going to bed, leaving all below in confusion and noise again; the boys begging for toasted cheese, her father calling out for his rum and water, and Rebecca never where she ought to be. There was nothing to raise her spirits in the confined and scantily furnished chamber that she was to share with Susan. The smallness of the rooms, and the narrowness of the passage and staircase, struck her. She thought with respect of her own little attic at Mansfield Park, which in that house was reckoned too small for anybody's comfort.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 38

Sir Thomas was to return in November, and his eldest son had duties to call him earlier home. The approach of September brought tidings of Mr. Bertram, first in a letter to the gamekeeper and then in a letter to Edmund; and by the end of August he arrived himself, to be gay, agreeable, and gallant again as occasion served, or Miss Crawford demanded; to tell of races and Weymouth, and parties and friends, to which she might have listened six weeks before with some interest, and altogether to give her the fullest conviction, by the power of actual comparison, of her preferring his younger brother. It was very vexatious, and she was heartily sorry for it; but so it was; and so far from now meaning to marry the elder, she did not even want to attract him beyond what the simplest claims of conscious beauty required: his lengthened absence from Mansfield, without anything but pleasure in view, and his own will to consult, made it perfectly clear that he did not care about her; and his indifference was so much more than equalled by her own, that were he now to step forth the owner of Mansfield Park, the Sir Thomas complete, which he was to be in time, she did not believe she could accept him. The season and duties which brought Mr. Bertram back to Mansfield took Mr. Crawford into Norfolk. Everingham could not do without him in the beginning of September. He went for a fortnight-a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss Bertrams as ought to have put them both on their guard, and made even Julia admit, in her jealousy of her sister, the absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions, and wishing him not to return; and a fortnight of sufficient leisure, in the intervals of shooting and sleeping, to have convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away, had he been more in the habit of examining his own motives, and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity was tending; but, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example, he would not look beyond the present moment. The sisters, handsome, clever, and encouraging, were an amusement to his sated mind; and finding nothing in Norfolk to equal the social pleasures of Mansfield, he gladly returned to it at the time appointed, and was welcomed thither quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with further. Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, and doomed to the repeated details of his day's sport, good or bad, his boast of his dogs, his jealousy of his neighbours, his doubts of their qualifications, and his zeal after poachers, subjects which will not find their way to female feelings without some talent on one side or some attachment on the other, had missed Mr. Crawford grievously; and Julia, unengaged and unemployed, felt all the right of missing him much more. Each sister believed herself the favourite. Julia might be justified in so doing by the hints of Mrs. Grant, inclined to credit what she wished, and Maria by the hints of Mr. Crawford himself. Everything returned into the same channel as before his absence; his manners being to each so animated and agreeable as to lose no ground with either, and just stopping short of the consistence, the steadiness, the solicitude, and the warmth which might excite general notice. Fanny was the only one of the party who found anything to dislike; but since the day at Sotherton, she could never see Mr. Crawford with either sister without observation, and seldom without wonder or censure; and had her confidence in her own judgment been equal to her exercise of it in every other respect, had she been sure that she was seeing clearly, and judging candidly, she would probably have made some important communications to her usual confidant. As it was, however, she only hazarded a hint, and the hint was lost. "I am rather surprised," said she, "that Mr. Crawford should come back again so soon, after being here so long before, full seven weeks; for I had understood he was so very fond of change and moving about, that I thought something would certainly occur, when he was once gone, to take him elsewhere. He is used to much gayer places than Mansfield." "It is to his credit," was Edmund's answer; "and I dare say it gives his sister pleasure. She does not like his unsettled habits." "What a favourite he is with my cousins!" "Yes, his manners to women are such as must please. Mrs. Grant, I believe, suspects him of a preference for Julia; I have never seen much symptom of it, but I wish it may be so. He has no faults but what a serious attachment would remove." "If Miss Bertram were not engaged," said Fanny cautiously, "I could sometimes almost think that he admired her more than Julia." "Which is, perhaps, more in favour of his liking Julia best, than you, Fanny, may be aware; for I believe it often happens that a man, before he has quite made up his own mind, will distinguish the sister or intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of more than the woman herself. Crawford has too much sense to stay here if he found himself in any danger from Maria; and I am not at all afraid for her, after such a proof as she has given that her feelings are not strong." Fanny supposed she must have been mistaken, and meant to think differently in future; but with all that submission to Edmund could do, and all the help of the coinciding looks and hints which she occasionally noticed in some of the others, and which seemed to say that Julia was Mr. Crawford's choice, she knew not always what to think. She was privy, one evening, to the hopes of her aunt Norris on the subject, as well as to her feelings, and the feelings of Mrs. Rushworth, on a point of some similarity, and could not help wondering as she listened; and glad would she have been not to be obliged to listen, for it was while all the other young people were dancing, and she sitting, most unwillingly, among the chaperons at the fire, longing for the re-entrance of her elder cousin, on whom all her own hopes of a partner then depended. It was Fanny's first ball, though without the preparation or splendour of many a young lady's first ball, being the thought only of the afternoon, built on the late acquisition of a violin player in the servants' hall, and the possibility of raising five couple with the help of Mrs. Grant and a new intimate friend of Mr. Bertram's just arrived on a visit. It had, however, been a very happy one to Fanny through four dances, and she was quite grieved to be losing even a quarter of an hour. While waiting and wishing, looking now at the dancers and now at the door, this dialogue between the two above-mentioned ladies was forced on her- "I think, ma'am," said Mrs. Norris, her eyes directed towards Mr. Rushworth and Maria, who were partners for the second time, "we shall see some happy faces again now." "Yes, ma'am, indeed," replied the other, with a stately simper, "there will be some satisfaction in looking on _now_, and I think it was rather a pity they should have been obliged to part. Young folks in their situation should be excused complying with the common forms. I wonder my son did not propose it." "I dare say he did, ma'am. Mr. Rushworth is never remiss. But dear Maria has such a strict sense of propriety, so much of that true delicacy which one seldom meets with nowadays, Mrs. Rushworth-that wish of avoiding particularity! Dear ma'am, only look at her face at this moment; how different from what it was the two last dances!" Miss Bertram did indeed look happy, her eyes were sparkling with pleasure, and she was speaking with great animation, for Julia and her partner, Mr. Crawford, were close to her; they were all in a cluster together. How she had looked before, Fanny could not recollect, for she had been dancing with Edmund herself, and had not thought about her. Mrs. Norris continued, "It is quite delightful, ma'am, to see young people so properly happy, so well suited, and so much the thing! I cannot but think of dear Sir Thomas's delight. And what do you say, ma'am, to the chance of another match? Mr. Rushworth has set a good example, and such things are very catching." Mrs. Rushworth, who saw nothing but her son, was quite at a loss. "The couple above, ma'am. Do you see no symptoms there?" "Oh dear! Miss Julia and Mr. Crawford. Yes, indeed, a very pretty match. What is his property?" "Four thousand a year." "Very well. Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have. Four thousand a year is a pretty estate, and he seems a very genteel, steady young man, so I hope Miss Julia will be very happy." "It is not a settled thing, ma'am, yet. We only speak of it among friends. But I have very little doubt it _will_ be. He is growing extremely particular in his attentions." Fanny could listen no farther. Listening and wondering were all suspended for a time, for Mr. Bertram was in the room again; and though feeling it would be a great honour to be asked by him, she thought it must happen. He came towards their little circle; but instead of asking her to dance, drew a chair near her, and gave her an account of the present state of a sick horse, and the opinion of the groom, from whom he had just parted. Fanny found that it was not to be, and in the modesty of her nature immediately felt that she had been unreasonable in expecting it. When he had told of his horse, he took a newspaper from the table, and looking over it, said in a languid way, "If you want to dance, Fanny, I will stand up with you." With more than equal civility the offer was declined; she did not wish to dance. "I am glad of it," said he, in a much brisker tone, and throwing down the newspaper again, "for I am tired to death. I only wonder how the good people can keep it up so long. They had need be _all_ in love, to find any amusement in such folly; and so they are, I fancy. If you look at them you may see they are so many couple of lovers-all but Yates and Mrs. Grant-and, between ourselves, she, poor woman, must want a lover as much as any one of them. A desperate dull life hers must be with the doctor," making a sly face as he spoke towards the chair of the latter, who proving, however, to be close at his elbow, made so instantaneous a change of expression and subject necessary, as Fanny, in spite of everything, could hardly help laughing at. "A strange business this in America, Dr. Grant! What is your opinion? I always come to you to know what I am to think of public matters." "My dear Tom," cried his aunt soon afterwards, "as you are not dancing, I dare say you will have no objection to join us in a rubber; shall you?" Then leaving her seat, and coming to him to enforce the proposal, added in a whisper, "We want to make a table for Mrs. Rushworth, you know. Your mother is quite anxious about it, but cannot very well spare time to sit down herself, because of her fringe. Now, you and I and Dr. Grant will just do; and though _we_ play but half-crowns, you know, you may bet half-guineas with _him_." "I should be most happy," replied he aloud, and jumping up with alacrity, "it would give me the greatest pleasure; but that I am this moment going to dance. Come, Fanny," taking her hand, "do not be dawdling any longer, or the dance will be over." Fanny was led off very willingly, though it was impossible for her to feel much gratitude towards her cousin, or distinguish, as he certainly did, between the selfishness of another person and his own. "A pretty modest request upon my word," he indignantly exclaimed as they walked away. "To want to nail me to a card-table for the next two hours with herself and Dr. Grant, who are always quarrelling, and that poking old woman, who knows no more of whist than of algebra. I wish my good aunt would be a little less busy! And to ask me in such a way too! without ceremony, before them all, so as to leave me no possibility of refusing. _That_ is what I dislike most particularly. It raises my spleen more than anything, to have the pretence of being asked, of being given a choice, and at the same time addressed in such a way as to oblige one to do the very thing, whatever it be! If I had not luckily thought of standing up with you I could not have got out of it. It is a great deal too bad. But when my aunt has got a fancy in her head, nothing can stop her."

At the end of August Mr Tom Bertram arrived, to be gay, agreeable, and gallant as Miss Crawford demanded; to tell of races and parties and friends, to which she might have listened six weeks before with some interest, and altogether to convince her that she preferred his younger brother. It was very vexatious, and she was heartily sorry for it; but so it was; and far from now meaning to marry the elder, she did not even want to attract him beyond what the simplest claims of conscious beauty required. His long absence from Mansfield made it clear that he did not care about her; and were he now the owner of Mansfield Park, she did not believe she could accept him. The season which brought Mr. Bertram back to Mansfield took Mr. Crawford into Norfolk. He went for a fortnight-a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss Bertrams as ought to have put them on their guard, and made even Julia see the need to distrust his attentions; and a fortnight of sufficient leisure, between shooting and sleeping, to have convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away; but, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example, he would not look beyond the present. The sisters, handsome, clever, and encouraging, were an amusement to his sated mind; and he gladly returned to Mansfield, to be welcomed quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with. Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, and doomed to hear repeated details of his day's sport, his dogs, his neighbours' jealousy, and his zeal after poachers, had missed Mr. Crawford grievously; and Julia felt all the right of missing him much more. Each sister believed herself the favourite. Julia might be justified in so doing by the hints of Mrs. Grant, and Maria by the hints of Mr. Crawford himself. Everything returned into the same channel as before his absence. His manners to each were so agreeable as to lose no ground with either, and just stopped short of the warmth which might excite general notice. Only Fanny found anything to dislike; but since the day at Sotherton, she could never see Mr. Crawford with either sister without wonder or censure. Had her confidence in her own judgment been greater, she would probably have spoken of it to Edmund. As it was, she only hazarded a hint, and the hint was lost. "I am surprised," said she, "that Mr. Crawford should come back again so soon; for I had understood he was so very fond of change that he would go elsewhere. He is used to much gayer places than Mansfield." "It is to his credit," was Edmund's answer; "His sister does not like his unsettled habits." "What a favourite he is with my cousins!" "Yes, his manners to women are such as must please. Mrs. Grant, I believe, suspects him of a preference for Julia; I wish it may be so." "If Miss Bertram were not engaged," said Fanny cautiously, "I could sometimes almost think that he admired her more than Julia." "Which is, perhaps, in favour of his liking Julia best; for I believe it often happens that a man, before he has quite made up his own mind, will distinguish the sister or friend of the woman he is thinking of more than the woman herself. Crawford has too much sense to stay here if he found himself in any danger from Maria; and she has given proof by her engagement that her feelings are not strong." Fanny supposed she must have been mistaken; but she knew not always what to think. Hearing the hopes of her aunt Norris on the subject, she could not help wondering. It was while all the other young people were dancing, and she was sitting unwillingly among the chaperons, longing for the re-entrance of her elder cousin, on whom all her own hopes of a partner depended. It was Fanny's first ball, though without the preparation or splendour of many a young lady's first ball. It had been thought of only that afternoon, on the strength of a violin player in the servants' hall; and five couples were found with the help of a new intimate friend of Mr. Bertram's just arrived on a visit. Fanny, however, had been very happy through four dances, and was grieved to be losing even a quarter of an hour. While waiting and wishing, she heard this dialogue between Mrs Norris and Mrs Rushworth- "I think, ma'am," said Mrs. Norris, watching Mr. Rushworth and Maria, "we shall see some happy faces again now." "Yes, indeed," replied the other, with a stately simper, "I think it was a pity they should have had to part. Young folks in their situation should be excused complying with custom." "Dear Maria has such a strict sense of propriety, so much of that true delicacy which one seldom meets with nowadays, Mrs. Rushworth. Only look at her face; how different from what it was the two last dances!" Miss Bertram did indeed look happy; her eyes were sparkling with pleasure, for Julia and her partner, Mr. Crawford, were close to her. How she had looked before, Fanny could not recollect, for she had been dancing with Edmund. Mrs. Norris continued, "It is quite delightful, ma'am, to see young people so well suited! And what do you say, ma'am, to the chance of another match? Such things are very catching." Mrs. Rushworth, who saw nothing but her son, was at a loss. "The couple above, ma'am." "Oh! Miss Julia and Mr. Crawford. Yes, a very pretty match. What is his property?" "Four thousand a year." "Very well. He seems a genteel, steady young man, so I hope Miss Julia will be very happy." "It is not a settled thing, ma'am, yet. But I have very little doubt it will be. He is growing extremely particular in his attentions." Fanny could listen no farther. Mr. Bertram was in the room; and though feeling it would be a great honour to be asked to dance by him, she thought it must happen. He came towards their little circle; but instead of asking her to dance, drew up a chair, and gave her an account of the present state of a sick horse. Fanny found that it was not to be, and immediately felt that she had been unreasonable in expecting it. Next, he took a newspaper from the table, and said in a languid way, "If you want to dance, Fanny, I will stand up with you." With equal civility the offer was declined; she did not wish to dance. "I am glad," said he, more briskly, "for I am tired to death. I only wonder how people can keep it up so long. They must be all in love, to find any amusement in such folly." "My dear Tom," cried his aunt, "as you are not dancing, you will have no objection to join us at cards; shall you?" She added in a whisper, "We want to make a table for Mrs. Rushworth, you know. You and I and Dr. Grant; and you know, you may bet half-guineas with him." "I should be most happy," replied he, jumping up with alacrity, "but I am this moment going to dance. Come, Fanny," taking her hand, "do not be dawdling any longer, or the dance will be over." Fanny was led off very willingly, though it was impossible for her to feel much gratitude towards her cousin. "Upon my word," he exclaimed as they walked away. "To want to nail me to a card-table for the next two hours with that poking old woman. And to ask me in such a way too! so as to leave me no possibility of refusing! I hate the pretence of being given a choice, and at the same time obliged to do the very thing! If I had not luckily thought of standing up with you I could not have got out of it. But when my aunt has got a fancy in her head, nothing can stop her."

Mansfield Park

Chapter 12

The conference was neither so short nor so conclusive as the lady had designed. The gentleman was not so easily satisfied. He had all the disposition to persevere that Sir Thomas could wish him. He had vanity, which strongly inclined him in the first place to think she did love him, though she might not know it herself; and which, secondly, when constrained at last to admit that she did know her own present feelings, convinced him that he should be able in time to make those feelings what he wished. He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him. He would not despair: he would not desist. He had every well-grounded reason for solid attachment; he knew her to have all the worth that could justify the warmest hopes of lasting happiness with her; her conduct at this very time, by speaking the disinterestedness and delicacy of her character (qualities which he believed most rare indeed), was of a sort to heighten all his wishes, and confirm all his resolutions. He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack. Of _that_ he had no suspicion. He considered her rather as one who had never thought on the subject enough to be in danger; who had been guarded by youth, a youth of mind as lovely as of person; whose modesty had prevented her from understanding his attentions, and who was still overpowered by the suddenness of addresses so wholly unexpected, and the novelty of a situation which her fancy had never taken into account. Must it not follow of course, that, when he was understood, he should succeed? He believed it fully. Love such as his, in a man like himself, must with perseverance secure a return, and at no great distance; and he had so much delight in the idea of obliging her to love him in a very short time, that her not loving him now was scarcely regretted. A little difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Henry Crawford. He rather derived spirits from it. He had been apt to gain hearts too easily. His situation was new and animating. To Fanny, however, who had known too much opposition all her life to find any charm in it, all this was unintelligible. She found that he did mean to persevere; but how he could, after such language from her as she felt herself obliged to use, was not to be understood. She told him that she did not love him, could not love him, was sure she never should love him; that such a change was quite impossible; that the subject was most painful to her; that she must entreat him never to mention it again, to allow her to leave him at once, and let it be considered as concluded for ever. And when farther pressed, had added, that in her opinion their dispositions were so totally dissimilar as to make mutual affection incompatible; and that they were unfitted for each other by nature, education, and habit. All this she had said, and with the earnestness of sincerity; yet this was not enough, for he immediately denied there being anything uncongenial in their characters, or anything unfriendly in their situations; and positively declared, that he would still love, and still hope! Fanny knew her own meaning, but was no judge of her own manner. Her manner was incurably gentle; and she was not aware how much it concealed the sternness of her purpose. Her diffidence, gratitude, and softness made every expression of indifference seem almost an effort of self-denial; seem, at least, to be giving nearly as much pain to herself as to him. Mr. Crawford was no longer the Mr. Crawford who, as the clandestine, insidious, treacherous admirer of Maria Bertram, had been her abhorrence, whom she had hated to see or to speak to, in whom she could believe no good quality to exist, and whose power, even of being agreeable, she had barely acknowledged. He was now the Mr. Crawford who was addressing herself with ardent, disinterested love; whose feelings were apparently become all that was honourable and upright, whose views of happiness were all fixed on a marriage of attachment; who was pouring out his sense of her merits, describing and describing again his affection, proving as far as words could prove it, and in the language, tone, and spirit of a man of talent too, that he sought her for her gentleness and her goodness; and to complete the whole, he was now the Mr. Crawford who had procured William's promotion! Here was a change, and here were claims which could not but operate! She might have disdained him in all the dignity of angry virtue, in the grounds of Sotherton, or the theatre at Mansfield Park; but he approached her now with rights that demanded different treatment. She must be courteous, and she must be compassionate. She must have a sensation of being honoured, and whether thinking of herself or her brother, she must have a strong feeling of gratitude. The effect of the whole was a manner so pitying and agitated, and words intermingled with her refusal so expressive of obligation and concern, that to a temper of vanity and hope like Crawford's, the truth, or at least the strength of her indifference, might well be questionable; and he was not so irrational as Fanny considered him, in the professions of persevering, assiduous, and not desponding attachment which closed the interview. It was with reluctance that he suffered her to go; but there was no look of despair in parting to belie his words, or give her hopes of his being less unreasonable than he professed himself. Now she was angry. Some resentment did arise at a perseverance so selfish and ungenerous. Here was again a want of delicacy and regard for others which had formerly so struck and disgusted her. Here was again a something of the same Mr. Crawford whom she had so reprobated before. How evidently was there a gross want of feeling and humanity where his own pleasure was concerned-And, alas! how always known no principle to supply as a duty what the heart was deficient in. Had her own affections been as free-as perhaps they ought to have been-he never could have engaged them. So thought Fanny, in good truth and sober sadness, as she sat musing over that too great indulgence and luxury of a fire upstairs: wondering at the past and present; wondering at what was yet to come, and in a nervous agitation which made nothing clear to her but the persuasion of her being never under any circumstances able to love Mr. Crawford, and the felicity of having a fire to sit over and think of it. Sir Thomas was obliged, or obliged himself, to wait till the morrow for a knowledge of what had passed between the young people. He then saw Mr. Crawford, and received his account. The first feeling was disappointment: he had hoped better things; he had thought that an hour's entreaty from a young man like Crawford could not have worked so little change on a gentle-tempered girl like Fanny; but there was speedy comfort in the determined views and sanguine perseverance of the lover; and when seeing such confidence of success in the principal, Sir Thomas was soon able to depend on it himself. Nothing was omitted, on his side, of civility, compliment, or kindness, that might assist the plan. Mr. Crawford's steadiness was honoured, and Fanny was praised, and the connexion was still the most desirable in the world. At Mansfield Park Mr. Crawford would always be welcome; he had only to consult his own judgment and feelings as to the frequency of his visits, at present or in future. In all his niece's family and friends, there could be but one opinion, one wish on the subject; the influence of all who loved her must incline one way. Everything was said that could encourage, every encouragement received with grateful joy, and the gentlemen parted the best of friends. Satisfied that the cause was now on a footing the most proper and hopeful, Sir Thomas resolved to abstain from all farther importunity with his niece, and to shew no open interference. Upon her disposition he believed kindness might be the best way of working. Entreaty should be from one quarter only. The forbearance of her family on a point, respecting which she could be in no doubt of their wishes, might be their surest means of forwarding it. Accordingly, on this principle, Sir Thomas took the first opportunity of saying to her, with a mild gravity, intended to be overcoming, "Well, Fanny, I have seen Mr. Crawford again, and learn from him exactly how matters stand between you. He is a most extraordinary young man, and whatever be the event, you must feel that you have created an attachment of no common character; though, young as you are, and little acquainted with the transient, varying, unsteady nature of love, as it generally exists, you cannot be struck as I am with all that is wonderful in a perseverance of this sort against discouragement. With him it is entirely a matter of feeling: he claims no merit in it; perhaps is entitled to none. Yet, having chosen so well, his constancy has a respectable stamp. Had his choice been less unexceptionable, I should have condemned his persevering." "Indeed, sir," said Fanny, "I am very sorry that Mr. Crawford should continue to-I know that it is paying me a very great compliment, and I feel most undeservedly honoured; but I am so perfectly convinced, and I have told him so, that it never will be in my power-" "My dear," interrupted Sir Thomas, "there is no occasion for this. Your feelings are as well known to me as my wishes and regrets must be to you. There is nothing more to be said or done. From this hour the subject is never to be revived between us. You will have nothing to fear, or to be agitated about. You cannot suppose me capable of trying to persuade you to marry against your inclinations. Your happiness and advantage are all that I have in view, and nothing is required of you but to bear with Mr. Crawford's endeavours to convince you that they may not be incompatible with his. He proceeds at his own risk. You are on safe ground. I have engaged for your seeing him whenever he calls, as you might have done had nothing of this sort occurred. You will see him with the rest of us, in the same manner, and, as much as you can, dismissing the recollection of everything unpleasant. He leaves Northamptonshire so soon, that even this slight sacrifice cannot be often demanded. The future must be very uncertain. And now, my dear Fanny, this subject is closed between us." The promised departure was all that Fanny could think of with much satisfaction. Her uncle's kind expressions, however, and forbearing manner, were sensibly felt; and when she considered how much of the truth was unknown to him, she believed she had no right to wonder at the line of conduct he pursued. He, who had married a daughter to Mr. Rushworth: romantic delicacy was certainly not to be expected from him. She must do her duty, and trust that time might make her duty easier than it now was. She could not, though only eighteen, suppose Mr. Crawford's attachment would hold out for ever; she could not but imagine that steady, unceasing discouragement from herself would put an end to it in time. How much time she might, in her own fancy, allot for its dominion, is another concern. It would not be fair to inquire into a young lady's exact estimate of her own perfections. In spite of his intended silence, Sir Thomas found himself once more obliged to mention the subject to his niece, to prepare her briefly for its being imparted to her aunts; a measure which he would still have avoided, if possible, but which became necessary from the totally opposite feelings of Mr. Crawford as to any secrecy of proceeding. He had no idea of concealment. It was all known at the Parsonage, where he loved to talk over the future with both his sisters, and it would be rather gratifying to him to have enlightened witnesses of the progress of his success. When Sir Thomas understood this, he felt the necessity of making his own wife and sister-in-law acquainted with the business without delay; though, on Fanny's account, he almost dreaded the effect of the communication to Mrs. Norris as much as Fanny herself. He deprecated her mistaken but well-meaning zeal. Sir Thomas, indeed, was, by this time, not very far from classing Mrs. Norris as one of those well-meaning people who are always doing mistaken and very disagreeable things. Mrs. Norris, however, relieved him. He pressed for the strictest forbearance and silence towards their niece; she not only promised, but did observe it. She only looked her increased ill-will. Angry she was: bitterly angry; but she was more angry with Fanny for having received such an offer than for refusing it. It was an injury and affront to Julia, who ought to have been Mr. Crawford's choice; and, independently of that, she disliked Fanny, because she had neglected her; and she would have grudged such an elevation to one whom she had been always trying to depress. Sir Thomas gave her more credit for discretion on the occasion than she deserved; and Fanny could have blessed her for allowing her only to see her displeasure, and not to hear it. Lady Bertram took it differently. She had been a beauty, and a prosperous beauty, all her life; and beauty and wealth were all that excited her respect. To know Fanny to be sought in marriage by a man of fortune, raised her, therefore, very much in her opinion. By convincing her that Fanny _was_ very pretty, which she had been doubting about before, and that she would be advantageously married, it made her feel a sort of credit in calling her niece. "Well, Fanny," said she, as soon as they were alone together afterwards, and she really had known something like impatience to be alone with her, and her countenance, as she spoke, had extraordinary animation; "Well, Fanny, I have had a very agreeable surprise this morning. I must just speak of it _once_, I told Sir Thomas I must _once_, and then I shall have done. I give you joy, my dear niece." And looking at her complacently, she added, "Humph, we certainly are a handsome family!" Fanny coloured, and doubted at first what to say; when, hoping to assail her on her vulnerable side, she presently answered- "My dear aunt, _you_ cannot wish me to do differently from what I have done, I am sure. _You_ cannot wish me to marry; for you would miss me, should not you? Yes, I am sure you would miss me too much for that." "No, my dear, I should not think of missing you, when such an offer as this comes in your way. I could do very well without you, if you were married to a man of such good estate as Mr. Crawford. And you must be aware, Fanny, that it is every young woman's duty to accept such a very unexceptionable offer as this." This was almost the only rule of conduct, the only piece of advice, which Fanny had ever received from her aunt in the course of eight years and a half. It silenced her. She felt how unprofitable contention would be. If her aunt's feelings were against her, nothing could be hoped from attacking her understanding. Lady Bertram was quite talkative. "I will tell you what, Fanny," said she, "I am sure he fell in love with you at the ball; I am sure the mischief was done that evening. You did look remarkably well. Everybody said so. Sir Thomas said so. And you know you had Chapman to help you to dress. I am very glad I sent Chapman to you. I shall tell Sir Thomas that I am sure it was done that evening." And still pursuing the same cheerful thoughts, she soon afterwards added, "And I will tell you what, Fanny, which is more than I did for Maria: the next time Pug has a litter you shall have a puppy."

The conference was neither so short nor so conclusive as the lady had designed. The gentleman was not so easily satisfied. He had vanity, which strongly inclined him to think she did love him, though she might not know it herself; and which, secondly, when forced at last to admit that she did know her own present feelings, convinced him that he should be able in time to make those feelings what he wished. He was very much in love; and it was a love which made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him. He would not despair: he would not desist. He knew her to have all the worth that could justify the warmest hopes of lasting happiness; her conduct at this time, by showing the delicacy of her character, heightened all his wishes, and confirmed his resolutions. He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack. Of that he had no suspicion. He considered her rather as one who had never thought on the subject; who had been guarded by youth; whose modesty had prevented her from understanding his attentions, and who was overpowered by the suddenness of a situation which she had never imagined. Must it not follow that, of course, he should succeed? He believed it fully. Love such as his, in a man like himself, must be returned; and he had so much delight in the idea of obliging her to love him in a very short time, that her not loving him now was scarcely regretted. A little difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Henry Crawford. He had been apt to gain hearts too easily. His situation was new and animating. To Fanny, however, who had known too much opposition all her life to find any charm in it, all this was unintelligible. She found that he did mean to persevere; but how he could was beyond her understanding. She told him that she did not love him, could not love him, was sure she never should love him; that a change was quite impossible; that the subject was most painful to her; that she must entreat him never to mention it again. She added that in her opinion they were totally unfitted for each other by nature, education, and habit. All this she had said; yet this was not enough, for he immediately denied there being anything uncongenial in their characters, and positively declared, that he would still love, and hope! Fanny knew her own meaning, but was no judge of her own manner. Her manner was incurably gentle; and she was not aware how much it concealed the sternness of her purpose. Her diffidence and softness made every expression of indifference seem to be giving nearly as much pain to herself as to him. Mr. Crawford was no longer the Mr. Crawford who, as the clandestine, insidious, treacherous admirer of Maria Bertram, had been her abhorrence. He was now the Mr. Crawford who was addressing herself with ardent, disinterested love; whose feelings were apparently honourable and upright; who was describing and describing again his affection, proving that he sought her for her gentleness and her goodness; and to complete the whole, he was now the Mr. Crawford who had procured William's promotion! Here were claims which must affect her! She might have disdained him in the grounds of Sotherton, or the theatre at Mansfield Park; but now she must be courteous and compassionate. She must feel gratitude. Her refusal was so expressive of obligation and concern, that Crawford might well question its truth; and he was not so irrational as Fanny considered him, in his professions of persevering attachment which closed the interview. Now she was angry. Some resentment did arise at a perseverance so selfish and ungenerous. Here was again the want of delicacy and regard for others which had formerly so struck her; a gross want of feeling and humanity where his own pleasure was concerned. Had her own affections been free, he never could have engaged them. So thought Fanny, in sober sadness, as she sat musing over her luxury of a fire upstairs: wondering at what was yet to come, and with nothing clear but the certainty of her being never able to love Mr. Crawford. On the morrow, Sir Thomas received Mr. Crawford's account of what had passed. His first feeling was disappointment: he had thought that an hour's entreaty from Crawford could not have worked so little change on a gentle girl like Fanny; but there was comfort in the sanguine perseverance of the lover. Sir Thomas omitted no civility or kindness that might assist the plan. Mr. Crawford's steadiness was honoured, and Fanny was praised, and the connexion was still the most desirable in the world. At Mansfield Park Mr. Crawford would always be welcome. Everything was said that could encourage, and the gentlemen parted the best of friends. Satisfied that the cause was now on a hopeful footing, Sir Thomas resolved not to press his niece farther. He believed kindness might be the best way of working. The forbearance of her family on the point might be their surest means of forwarding it. Accordingly, he took the first opportunity of saying to her, with gravity, "Well, Fanny, I have seen Mr. Crawford again, and learnt from him exactly how matters stand. He is a most extraordinary young man, and whatever happens, you must feel that you have created an attachment of no common character; though, young as you are, and little acquainted with the unsteady nature of love, as it generally exists, you cannot be struck as I am by a perseverance of this sort." "Indeed, sir," said Fanny, "I feel most undeservedly honoured; but I am so perfectly convinced, and I have told him so, that it never will be in my power-" "My dear," interrupted Sir Thomas, "there is no need for this. Your feelings are as well known to me as my wishes must be to you. There is nothing more to be said. From this hour the subject is never to be revived between us. You will have nothing to fear: you cannot suppose me capable of trying to persuade you to marry against your will. Your happiness and advantage are all that I have in view, and nothing is required of you but to bear with Mr. Crawford's endeavours to convince you. He proceeds at his own risk. You are on safe ground. I have engaged for your seeing him whenever he calls, as you might have done had nothing occurred. You will see him with the rest of us, in the same manner. He leaves Northamptonshire so soon, that even this slight sacrifice cannot be often demanded. And now, my dear Fanny, this subject is closed between us." The promised departure was all that Fanny could think of with much satisfaction. Her uncle, though kind, had married a daughter to Mr. Rushworth: romantic delicacy was certainly not to be expected from him. She must do her duty, and trust that time might make her duty easier. She could not, though only eighteen, suppose Mr. Crawford's attachment would hold out for ever. How much time she might, in her own fancy, allot for its dominion, is another concern. It would not be fair to inquire into a young lady's exact estimate of her own perfections. In spite of his intended silence, Sir Thomas found himself once more obliged to mention the subject to his niece, to prepare her for its being imparted to her aunts; a measure which he would have avoided, if possible, but which became necessary from Mr. Crawford's opposition to any secrecy. He had no idea of concealment. It was all known at the Parsonage, where he loved to talk over the future with his sisters: it would gratify him to have enlightened witnesses of the progress of his success. When Sir Thomas understood this, he felt he must tell his own wife and sister-in-law about the business without delay; though, on Fanny's account, he dreaded the effect of the communication to Mrs. Norris almost as much as Fanny herself. Mrs. Norris, however, relieved him. He pressed for the strictest forbearance and silence towards their niece; she did observe it. She only looked her increased ill-will. Angry she was: bitterly angry; but she was more angry with Fanny for having received such an offer than for refusing it. It was an affront to Julia, who ought to have been Mr. Crawford's choice; and, independently of that, she disliked Fanny, because she had neglected her; and she would have grudged such an elevation to one whom she had been always trying to depress. Lady Bertram took it differently. She had been a prosperous beauty all her life; and beauty and wealth were all that excited her respect. To know Fanny was sought in marriage by a man of fortune, raised her, therefore, very much in her opinion. By convincing her that Fanny was very pretty, which she had doubted before, and that she would be advantageously married, it made her feel a sort of credit in having her for a niece. "Well, Fanny," said she, with extraordinary animation, when they were alone together; "Well, Fanny, I have had a very agreeable surprise this morning. I must just speak of it once, and then I shall have done. I give you joy, my dear niece. Humph, we certainly are a handsome family!" Fanny coloured. "My dear aunt, you cannot wish me to marry, I am sure; for you would miss me, should not you?" "No, my dear, I should not think of missing you, when such an offer as this comes in your way. You must be aware, Fanny, that it is every young woman's duty to accept such a very unexceptionable offer as this." This was almost the only piece of advice which Fanny had ever received from her aunt. It silenced her. However, Lady Bertram was quite talkative. "I will tell you what, Fanny," said she, "I am sure he fell in love with you at the ball. You did look remarkably well. Everybody said so. And you know you had Chapman to help you to dress. I am very glad I sent Chapman to you. I shall tell Sir Thomas that I am sure it was done that evening." And still pursuing her cheerful thoughts, she added, "And I will tell you what, Fanny: the next time Pug has a litter, you shall have a puppy."

Mansfield Park

Chapter 33

Mr. Rushworth was at the door to receive his fair lady; and the whole party were welcomed by him with due attention. In the drawing-room they were met with equal cordiality by the mother, and Miss Bertram had all the distinction with each that she could wish. After the business of arriving was over, it was first necessary to eat, and the doors were thrown open to admit them through one or two intermediate rooms into the appointed dining-parlour, where a collation was prepared with abundance and elegance. Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well. The particular object of the day was then considered. How would Mr. Crawford like, in what manner would he chuse, to take a survey of the grounds? Mr. Rushworth mentioned his curricle. Mr. Crawford suggested the greater desirableness of some carriage which might convey more than two. "To be depriving themselves of the advantage of other eyes and other judgments, might be an evil even beyond the loss of present pleasure." Mrs. Rushworth proposed that the chaise should be taken also; but this was scarcely received as an amendment: the young ladies neither smiled nor spoke. Her next proposition, of shewing the house to such of them as had not been there before, was more acceptable, for Miss Bertram was pleased to have its size displayed, and all were glad to be doing something. The whole party rose accordingly, and under Mrs. Rushworth's guidance were shewn through a number of rooms, all lofty, and many large, and amply furnished in the taste of fifty years back, with shining floors, solid mahogany, rich damask, marble, gilding, and carving, each handsome in its way. Of pictures there were abundance, and some few good, but the larger part were family portraits, no longer anything to anybody but Mrs. Rushworth, who had been at great pains to learn all that the housekeeper could teach, and was now almost equally well qualified to shew the house. On the present occasion she addressed herself chiefly to Miss Crawford and Fanny, but there was no comparison in the willingness of their attention; for Miss Crawford, who had seen scores of great houses, and cared for none of them, had only the appearance of civilly listening, while Fanny, to whom everything was almost as interesting as it was new, attended with unaffected earnestness to all that Mrs. Rushworth could relate of the family in former times, its rise and grandeur, regal visits and loyal efforts, delighted to connect anything with history already known, or warm her imagination with scenes of the past. The situation of the house excluded the possibility of much prospect from any of the rooms; and while Fanny and some of the others were attending Mrs. Rushworth, Henry Crawford was looking grave and shaking his head at the windows. Every room on the west front looked across a lawn to the beginning of the avenue immediately beyond tall iron palisades and gates. Having visited many more rooms than could be supposed to be of any other use than to contribute to the window-tax, and find employment for housemaids, "Now," said Mrs. Rushworth, "we are coming to the chapel, which properly we ought to enter from above, and look down upon; but as we are quite among friends, I will take you in this way, if you will excuse me." They entered. Fanny's imagination had prepared her for something grander than a mere spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of devotion: with nothing more striking or more solemn than the profusion of mahogany, and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge of the family gallery above. "I am disappointed," said she, in a low voice, to Edmund. "This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles, no arches, no inscriptions, no banners. No banners, cousin, to be 'blown by the night wind of heaven.' No signs that a 'Scottish monarch sleeps below.'" "You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and monasteries. It was only for the private use of the family. They have been buried, I suppose, in the parish church. _There_ you must look for the banners and the achievements." "It was foolish of me not to think of all that; but I am disappointed." Mrs. Rushworth began her relation. "This chapel was fitted up as you see it, in James the Second's time. Before that period, as I understand, the pews were only wainscot; and there is some reason to think that the linings and cushions of the pulpit and family seat were only purple cloth; but this is not quite certain. It is a handsome chapel, and was formerly in constant use both morning and evening. Prayers were always read in it by the domestic chaplain, within the memory of many; but the late Mr. Rushworth left it off." "Every generation has its improvements," said Miss Crawford, with a smile, to Edmund. Mrs. Rushworth was gone to repeat her lesson to Mr. Crawford; and Edmund, Fanny, and Miss Crawford remained in a cluster together. "It is a pity," cried Fanny, "that the custom should have been discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one's ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!" "Very fine indeed," said Miss Crawford, laughing. "It must do the heads of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away." "_That_ is hardly Fanny's idea of a family assembling," said Edmund. "If the master and mistress do _not_ attend themselves, there must be more harm than good in the custom." "At any rate, it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such subjects. Everybody likes to go their own way-to chuse their own time and manner of devotion. The obligation of attendance, the formality, the restraint, the length of time-altogether it is a formidable thing, and what nobody likes; and if the good people who used to kneel and gape in that gallery could have foreseen that the time would ever come when men and women might lie another ten minutes in bed, when they woke with a headache, without danger of reprobation, because chapel was missed, they would have jumped with joy and envy. Cannot you imagine with what unwilling feelings the former belles of the house of Rushworth did many a time repair to this chapel? The young Mrs. Eleanors and Mrs. Bridgets-starched up into seeming piety, but with heads full of something very different-especially if the poor chaplain were not worth looking at-and, in those days, I fancy parsons were very inferior even to what they are now." For a few moments she was unanswered. Fanny coloured and looked at Edmund, but felt too angry for speech; and he needed a little recollection before he could say, "Your lively mind can hardly be serious even on serious subjects. You have given us an amusing sketch, and human nature cannot say it was not so. We must all feel _at_ _times_ the difficulty of fixing our thoughts as we could wish; but if you are supposing it a frequent thing, that is to say, a weakness grown into a habit from neglect, what could be expected from the _private_ devotions of such persons? Do you think the minds which are suffered, which are indulged in wanderings in a chapel, would be more collected in a closet?" "Yes, very likely. They would have two chances at least in their favour. There would be less to distract the attention from without, and it would not be tried so long." "The mind which does not struggle against itself under _one_ circumstance, would find objects to distract it in the _other_, I believe; and the influence of the place and of example may often rouse better feelings than are begun with. The greater length of the service, however, I admit to be sometimes too hard a stretch upon the mind. One wishes it were not so; but I have not yet left Oxford long enough to forget what chapel prayers are." While this was passing, the rest of the party being scattered about the chapel, Julia called Mr. Crawford's attention to her sister, by saying, "Do look at Mr. Rushworth and Maria, standing side by side, exactly as if the ceremony were going to be performed. Have not they completely the air of it?" Mr. Crawford smiled his acquiescence, and stepping forward to Maria, said, in a voice which she only could hear, "I do not like to see Miss Bertram so near the altar." Starting, the lady instinctively moved a step or two, but recovering herself in a moment, affected to laugh, and asked him, in a tone not much louder, "If he would give her away?" "I am afraid I should do it very awkwardly," was his reply, with a look of meaning. Julia, joining them at the moment, carried on the joke. "Upon my word, it is really a pity that it should not take place directly, if we had but a proper licence, for here we are altogether, and nothing in the world could be more snug and pleasant." And she talked and laughed about it with so little caution as to catch the comprehension of Mr. Rushworth and his mother, and expose her sister to the whispered gallantries of her lover, while Mrs. Rushworth spoke with proper smiles and dignity of its being a most happy event to her whenever it took place. "If Edmund were but in orders!" cried Julia, and running to where he stood with Miss Crawford and Fanny: "My dear Edmund, if you were but in orders now, you might perform the ceremony directly. How unlucky that you are not ordained; Mr. Rushworth and Maria are quite ready." Miss Crawford's countenance, as Julia spoke, might have amused a disinterested observer. She looked almost aghast under the new idea she was receiving. Fanny pitied her. "How distressed she will be at what she said just now," passed across her mind. "Ordained!" said Miss Crawford; "what, are you to be a clergyman?" "Yes; I shall take orders soon after my father's return-probably at Christmas." Miss Crawford, rallying her spirits, and recovering her complexion, replied only, "If I had known this before, I would have spoken of the cloth with more respect," and turned the subject. The chapel was soon afterwards left to the silence and stillness which reigned in it, with few interruptions, throughout the year. Miss Bertram, displeased with her sister, led the way, and all seemed to feel that they had been there long enough. The lower part of the house had been now entirely shewn, and Mrs. Rushworth, never weary in the cause, would have proceeded towards the principal staircase, and taken them through all the rooms above, if her son had not interposed with a doubt of there being time enough. "For if," said he, with the sort of self-evident proposition which many a clearer head does not always avoid, "we are _too_ long going over the house, we shall not have time for what is to be done out of doors. It is past two, and we are to dine at five." Mrs. Rushworth submitted; and the question of surveying the grounds, with the who and the how, was likely to be more fully agitated, and Mrs. Norris was beginning to arrange by what junction of carriages and horses most could be done, when the young people, meeting with an outward door, temptingly open on a flight of steps which led immediately to turf and shrubs, and all the sweets of pleasure-grounds, as by one impulse, one wish for air and liberty, all walked out. "Suppose we turn down here for the present," said Mrs. Rushworth, civilly taking the hint and following them. "Here are the greatest number of our plants, and here are the curious pheasants." "Query," said Mr. Crawford, looking round him, "whether we may not find something to employ us here before we go farther? I see walls of great promise. Mr. Rushworth, shall we summon a council on this lawn?" "James," said Mrs. Rushworth to her son, "I believe the wilderness will be new to all the party. The Miss Bertrams have never seen the wilderness yet." No objection was made, but for some time there seemed no inclination to move in any plan, or to any distance. All were attracted at first by the plants or the pheasants, and all dispersed about in happy independence. Mr. Crawford was the first to move forward to examine the capabilities of that end of the house. The lawn, bounded on each side by a high wall, contained beyond the first planted area a bowling-green, and beyond the bowling-green a long terrace walk, backed by iron palisades, and commanding a view over them into the tops of the trees of the wilderness immediately adjoining. It was a good spot for fault-finding. Mr. Crawford was soon followed by Miss Bertram and Mr. Rushworth; and when, after a little time, the others began to form into parties, these three were found in busy consultation on the terrace by Edmund, Miss Crawford, and Fanny, who seemed as naturally to unite, and who, after a short participation of their regrets and difficulties, left them and walked on. The remaining three, Mrs. Rushworth, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, were still far behind; for Julia, whose happy star no longer prevailed, was obliged to keep by the side of Mrs. Rushworth, and restrain her impatient feet to that lady's slow pace, while her aunt, having fallen in with the housekeeper, who was come out to feed the pheasants, was lingering behind in gossip with her. Poor Julia, the only one out of the nine not tolerably satisfied with their lot, was now in a state of complete penance, and as different from the Julia of the barouche-box as could well be imagined. The politeness which she had been brought up to practise as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of others, that knowledge of her own heart, that principle of right, which had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable under it. "This is insufferably hot," said Miss Crawford, when they had taken one turn on the terrace, and were drawing a second time to the door in the middle which opened to the wilderness. "Shall any of us object to being comfortable? Here is a nice little wood, if one can but get into it. What happiness if the door should not be locked! but of course it is; for in these great places the gardeners are the only people who can go where they like." The door, however, proved not to be locked, and they were all agreed in turning joyfully through it, and leaving the unmitigated glare of day behind. A considerable flight of steps landed them in the wilderness, which was a planted wood of about two acres, and though chiefly of larch and laurel, and beech cut down, and though laid out with too much regularity, was darkness and shade, and natural beauty, compared with the bowling-green and the terrace. They all felt the refreshment of it, and for some time could only walk and admire. At length, after a short pause, Miss Crawford began with, "So you are to be a clergyman, Mr. Bertram. This is rather a surprise to me." "Why should it surprise you? You must suppose me designed for some profession, and might perceive that I am neither a lawyer, nor a soldier, nor a sailor." "Very true; but, in short, it had not occurred to me. And you know there is generally an uncle or a grandfather to leave a fortune to the second son." "A very praiseworthy practice," said Edmund, "but not quite universal. I am one of the exceptions, and _being_ one, must do something for myself." "But why are you to be a clergyman? I thought _that_ was always the lot of the youngest, where there were many to chuse before him." "Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?" "_Never_ is a black word. But yes, in the _never_ of conversation, which means _not_ _very_ _often_, I do think it. For what is to be done in the church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A clergyman is nothing." "The _nothing_ of conversation has its gradations, I hope, as well as the _never_. A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must not head mobs, or set the ton in dress. But I cannot call that situation nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their influence. No one here can call the _office_ nothing. If the man who holds it is so, it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just importance, and stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not to appear." "_You_ assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair's to his own, do all that you speak of? govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit." "_You_ are speaking of London, _I_ am speaking of the nation at large." "The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest." "Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the kingdom. We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known to the largest part only as preachers. And with regard to their influencing public manners, Miss Crawford must not misunderstand me, or suppose I mean to call them the arbiters of good-breeding, the regulators of refinement and courtesy, the masters of the ceremonies of life. The _manners_ I speak of might rather be called _conduct_, perhaps, the result of good principles; the effect, in short, of those doctrines which it is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation." "Certainly," said Fanny, with gentle earnestness. "There," cried Miss Crawford, "you have quite convinced Miss Price already." "I wish I could convince Miss Crawford too." "I do not think you ever will," said she, with an arch smile; "I am just as much surprised now as I was at first that you should intend to take orders. You really are fit for something better. Come, do change your mind. It is not too late. Go into the law." "Go into the law! With as much ease as I was told to go into this wilderness." "Now you are going to say something about law being the worst wilderness of the two, but I forestall you; remember, I have forestalled you." "You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent my saying a _bon_ _mot_, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out." A general silence succeeded. Each was thoughtful. Fanny made the first interruption by saying, "I wonder that I should be tired with only walking in this sweet wood; but the next time we come to a seat, if it is not disagreeable to you, I should be glad to sit down for a little while." "My dear Fanny," cried Edmund, immediately drawing her arm within his, "how thoughtless I have been! I hope you are not very tired. Perhaps," turning to Miss Crawford, "my other companion may do me the honour of taking an arm." "Thank you, but I am not at all tired." She took it, however, as she spoke, and the gratification of having her do so, of feeling such a connexion for the first time, made him a little forgetful of Fanny. "You scarcely touch me," said he. "You do not make me of any use. What a difference in the weight of a woman's arm from that of a man! At Oxford I have been a good deal used to have a man lean on me for the length of a street, and you are only a fly in the comparison." "I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have?" "Not half a mile," was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet so much in love as to measure distance, or reckon time, with feminine lawlessness. "Oh! you do not consider how much we have wound about. We have taken such a very serpentine course, and the wood itself must be half a mile long in a straight line, for we have never seen the end of it yet since we left the first great path." "But if you remember, before we left that first great path, we saw directly to the end of it. We looked down the whole vista, and saw it closed by iron gates, and it could not have been more than a furlong in length." "Oh! I know nothing of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long wood, and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into it; and therefore, when I say that we have walked a mile in it, I must speak within compass." "We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here," said Edmund, taking out his watch. "Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?" "Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." A few steps farther brought them out at the bottom of the very walk they had been talking of; and standing back, well shaded and sheltered, and looking over a ha-ha into the park, was a comfortable-sized bench, on which they all sat down. "I am afraid you are very tired, Fanny," said Edmund, observing her; "why would not you speak sooner? This will be a bad day's amusement for you if you are to be knocked up. Every sort of exercise fatigues her so soon, Miss Crawford, except riding." "How abominable in you, then, to let me engross her horse as I did all last week! I am ashamed of you and of myself, but it shall never happen again." "_Your_ attentiveness and consideration makes me more sensible of my own neglect. Fanny's interest seems in safer hands with you than with me." "That she should be tired now, however, gives me no surprise; for there is nothing in the course of one's duties so fatiguing as what we have been doing this morning: seeing a great house, dawdling from one room to another, straining one's eyes and one's attention, hearing what one does not understand, admiring what one does not care for. It is generally allowed to be the greatest bore in the world, and Miss Price has found it so, though she did not know it." "I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment." After sitting a little while Miss Crawford was up again. "I must move," said she; "resting fatigues me. I have looked across the ha-ha till I am weary. I must go and look through that iron gate at the same view, without being able to see it so well." Edmund left the seat likewise. "Now, Miss Crawford, if you will look up the walk, you will convince yourself that it cannot be half a mile long, or half half a mile." "It is an immense distance," said she; "I see _that_ with a glance." He still reasoned with her, but in vain. She would not calculate, she would not compare. She would only smile and assert. The greatest degree of rational consistency could not have been more engaging, and they talked with mutual satisfaction. At last it was agreed that they should endeavour to determine the dimensions of the wood by walking a little more about it. They would go to one end of it, in the line they were then in-for there was a straight green walk along the bottom by the side of the ha-ha-and perhaps turn a little way in some other direction, if it seemed likely to assist them, and be back in a few minutes. Fanny said she was rested, and would have moved too, but this was not suffered. Edmund urged her remaining where she was with an earnestness which she could not resist, and she was left on the bench to think with pleasure of her cousin's care, but with great regret that she was not stronger. She watched them till they had turned the corner, and listened till all sound of them had ceased.

Mr. Rushworth was at the door to welcome the party with due attention. In the drawing-room they were met with equal cordiality by the mother, and Miss Bertram had all the distinction that she could wish. The doors were thrown open to admit them into the dining-parlour, where a luncheon was prepared with abundance and elegance. Much was said, and ate, and all went well. Mrs Rushworth then proposed showing the party round the house. They rose accordingly, and under Mrs. Rushworth's guidance were shown through a number of rooms, all lofty, large, and amply furnished in the taste of fifty years back, with shining floors, solid mahogany, rich damask, marble, gilding, and carving, each handsome in its way. There were many pictures, some good, but most were family portraits, no longer anything to anybody but Mrs. Rushworth. She addressed herself chiefly to Miss Crawford and Fanny. Miss Crawford, who had seen scores of great houses, and cared for none of them, had only the appearance of civilly listening, while Fanny, to whom everything was new, attended earnestly to all that Mrs. Rushworth could relate of the family in former times, delighted to connect anything with the history that she knew, or to warm her imagination with scenes of the past. There was not much prospect from any of the rooms; and Henry Crawford looked grave, shaking his head at the windows. Every room on the west front looked across a lawn to the beginning of the avenue beyond tall iron palisades. "Now," said Mrs. Rushworth, "we are coming to the chapel." They entered. Fanny expected something grander than a spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of devotion: with nothing more striking or solemn than the profusion of mahogany, and crimson velvet cushions. "I am disappointed," said she quietly to Edmund. "This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles, no arches, no inscriptions. No banners to be 'blown by the night wind of heaven.'" "You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and only for the private use of the family. You must look in the parish church for the banners." Mrs. Rushworth began, "This chapel was fitted up as you see it, in James the Second's time. Before then, the pews were only wainscot; and the cushions only purple cloth. It is a handsome chapel, and was formerly in constant use. Prayers were read in it by the domestic chaplain, within the memory of many; but the late Mr. Rushworth left it off." "Every generation has its improvements," said Miss Crawford, with a smile, to Edmund. "It is a pity," cried Fanny, "that the custom should have been discontinued. It is so much in character with a great house! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!" "Very fine indeed," said Miss Crawford, laughing. "It must do the heads of the family good to force all the poor housemaids to say their prayers here twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away." "That is hardly Fanny's idea of a family assembling," said Edmund. "It is safer to leave people to their own devices on such subjects. Everybody likes to choose their own time and manner of devotion. The obligation of attendance is a formidable thing. Cannot you imagine with what unwilling feelings the former belles of the house came to this chapel? Starched up into seeming piety, but with heads full of something very different-especially if the poor chaplain were not worth looking at-and, in those days, I fancy parsons were inferior even to what they are now." For a few moments she was unanswered. Fanny coloured and looked at Edmund, but felt too angry for speech; and he needed a little recollection before he could say, "Your lively mind can hardly be serious even on serious subjects. You have given us an amusing sketch, and human nature cannot say it was not so. We must all feel at times the difficulty of fixing our thoughts as we could wish; but do you think the minds which are indulged in wanderings in a chapel, would be more collected in a closet?" "Yes, for two reasons. There would be less to distract the attention, and it would not be taxed so long." "The mind would always find objects to distract it; and the influence of the place may often rouse better feelings than are begun with. The length of the service I admit to be sometimes too hard upon the mind. I have not yet left Oxford long enough to forget what chapel prayers are." Meanwhile, Julia called Mr. Crawford's attention to her sister, saying, "Do look at Mr. Rushworth and Maria, standing side by side, exactly as if the wedding ceremony were going to be performed." Mr. Crawford smiled, and stepping forward to Maria, said, in a voice which she only could hear, "I do not like to see Miss Bertram so near the altar." Starting, the lady instinctively moved a step or two, but recovering, affected to laugh, and asked him, in a tone not much louder, "If he would give her away?" "I am afraid I should do it very awkwardly," was his reply, with a look of meaning. Julia, joining them, carried on the joke. "It is really a pity that it should not take place directly, if we had a licence, for nothing in the world could be more pleasant." And she talked about it with so little caution as to catch the comprehension of Mr. Rushworth, who whispered gallantries to Maria. "If Edmund were but in orders!" cried Julia: "My dear Edmund, if you were in orders now, you might perform the ceremony directly. How unlucky that you are not ordained." Miss Crawford looked almost aghast under this new idea. Fanny pitied her. "How distressed she will be at what she said just now," passed across her mind. "Ordained!" said Miss Crawford; "are you to be a clergyman?" "Yes; I shall take orders after my father's return-probably at Christmas." Miss Crawford, rallying her spirits, replied only, "If I had known this before, I would have spoken of the cloth with more respect," and turned the subject. The chapel was soon afterwards left to the silence which reigned in it throughout the year. All seemed to feel that they had been there long enough. The lower part of the house had now been shown, and Mrs. Rushworth would have proceeded towards the staircase if her son had not interposed. "We shall not have time to survey the grounds," said he. "It is past two, and we are to dine at five." Mrs. Rushworth submitted; and Mrs. Norris was beginning to arrange by what combination of carriages and horses most could be done, when the young people, meeting with an outward door that opened temptingly on a flight of steps, as by one impulse, all walked out. "Suppose we turn down here for the present," said Mrs. Rushworth, civilly taking the hint and following them. "Here are the greatest number of our plants, and our pheasants." "I see walls of great promise," said Mr Crawford, looking round. He moved forward to examine the end of the house. The lawn, bounded by a high wall, contained a bowling-green, and beyond the bowling-green a long terrace walk, backed by iron palisades, with a view over them into the tree-tops of a wilderness. It was a good spot for fault-finding. Mr. Crawford was followed by Miss Bertram and Mr. Rushworth; and these three were found in busy consultation on the terrace by Edmund, Miss Crawford, and Fanny, who seemed as naturally to unite, and who, after a few words, left them and walked on. The remaining three, Mrs. Rushworth, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, were still far behind; for Julia, whose happy star no longer prevailed, was obliged to stay with Mrs. Rushworth, and restrain her impatient feet to that lady's slow pace, while her aunt was lingering behind in gossip with the housekeeper. Poor Julia was now as different from the Julia of the barouche-box as could be imagined. Politeness made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that self-command, that consideration of others, that principle of right, which had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable. "This is insufferably hot," said Miss Crawford, when her group of three had taken a turn on the terrace, and were near the door to the wilderness. "Shall any of us object to being comfortable? Here is a nice little wood, if one can but get into it. What happiness if the door should not be locked! in these great places the gardeners are the only people who can go where they like." The door, however, proved not to be locked, and they turned joyfully through it, leaving the glare of day behind. A flight of steps landed them in the wilderness, which was a planted wood of about two acres. Though it was chiefly of larch and laurel, laid out with too much regularity, it was shade and natural beauty compared with the terrace. They all felt refreshed as they walked. At length, Miss Crawford began, "So you are to be a clergyman, Mr. Bertram. This is a surprise to me." "Why? You must suppose me designed for some profession." "There is generally an uncle or a grandfather to leave a fortune to the second son." "A very praiseworthy practice," said Edmund, "but not quite universal. Being one of the exceptions, I must do something for myself." "But why be a clergyman? I thought that was always the lot of the youngest, where many chose before him." "Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?" "Never is a black word. But yes, in the never of conversation, which means not very often, I do think it. For what is to be done in the church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in other lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A clergyman is nothing." "The nothing of conversation has its gradations too, I hope. A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. But I cannot call it nothing to have the charge of all that is of the first importance to mankind, the guardianship of religion and of morals. No one can call the office nothing." "You give greater consequence to the clergyman than I can comprehend. One does not see much of this importance in society. How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, govern the conduct of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit." "You are speaking of London, I am speaking of the nation at large." "The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest." "We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful, where the parish and neighbourhood know his character, and can observe his conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known only as preachers. It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation." "Certainly," said Fanny, with gentle earnestness. "There," cried Miss Crawford, "you have convinced Miss Price already." "I wish I could convince Miss Crawford too." "I do not think you ever will," said she, with an arch smile; "I am still surprised now that you should intend to take orders. You really are fit for something better. Come, change your mind. It is not too late. Go into the law." "Go into the law! With as much ease as I was told to go into this wilderness." "Now you are going to say something about law being the worse wilderness of the two, but I forestall you." "You need not, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without getting it out." A silence followed. Each was thoughtful. Fanny made the first interruption by saying, "I wonder that I should be tired with only walking in this sweet wood; but the next time we come to a seat, I should be glad to sit down for a little while." "My dear Fanny," cried Edmund, immediately drawing her arm within his, "how thoughtless I have been! I hope you are not very tired. Perhaps," turning to Miss Crawford, "my other companion may do me the honour of taking an arm." "Thank you, but I am not at all tired." She took it, however, and the gratification of feeling such a connexion for the first time made him a little forgetful of Fanny. "You scarcely touch me," said he. "What a difference in the weight of a woman's arm from that of a man! At Oxford I have been used to have a man lean on me for the length of a street, and you are only a fly in comparison." "I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have?" "Not half a mile." "Oh! consider how much we have wound about. And we have not seen the end of the wood since we left the first path." "But if you remember, before we left that first path, we saw directly to the end of it. We looked down the whole vista, and saw it closed by iron gates, and it could not have been more than a furlong in length." "Oh! I know nothing of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long wood, and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into it; and therefore I say that we have walked a mile." "We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here," said Edmund, taking out his watch. "Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?" "Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow." A few steps brought them out at the bottom of the very walk they had been talking of; and well shaded and looking over a deep ditch, a ha-ha, into the park, was a bench, on which they all sat down. "I am afraid you are very tired, Fanny," said Edmund; "why would not you speak sooner? Every sort of exercise fatigues her so soon, Miss Crawford, except riding." "How abominable in you, then, to let me engross her horse as I did all last week! I am ashamed of you and of myself, but it shall never happen again." "Your consideration makes me more aware of my own neglect. Fanny's well-being seems in safer hands with you than with me." "I am not surprised that she is tired now; for there is nothing so fatiguing as seeing a great house, dawdling from one room to another, straining one's eyes and one's attention, hearing what one does not understand, admiring what one does not care for. It is the greatest bore in the world, and Miss Price has found it so, though she did not know it." "I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment." After sitting a little while Miss Crawford was up again. "I must move," said she; "resting fatigues me. I have looked across the ha-ha till I am weary. I must go and look through that iron gate at the same view, without being able to see it so well." Edmund left the seat likewise. "Now, Miss Crawford, if you look up the walk, you will see that it cannot be half a mile long." "It is an immense distance; I see that with a glance." He reasoned with her in vain. She would not calculate; she would only smile and assert in a way that was most engaging. At last they agreed to determine the dimensions of the wood by walking a little more about it. They would go to one end of it, and turn a little way in some other direction, and be back in a few minutes. Fanny said she was rested, and would have moved too, but this was not allowed. Edmund urged her to remain where she was. She was left on the bench to think with pleasure of her cousin's care, but with regret that she was not stronger. She watched them till they had turned the corner, and listened till all sound of them had ceased.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 9

Edmund had determined that it belonged entirely to Fanny to chuse whether her situation with regard to Crawford should be mentioned between them or not; and that if she did not lead the way, it should never be touched on by him; but after a day or two of mutual reserve, he was induced by his father to change his mind, and try what his influence might do for his friend. A day, and a very early day, was actually fixed for the Crawfords' departure; and Sir Thomas thought it might be as well to make one more effort for the young man before he left Mansfield, that all his professions and vows of unshaken attachment might have as much hope to sustain them as possible. Sir Thomas was most cordially anxious for the perfection of Mr. Crawford's character in that point. He wished him to be a model of constancy; and fancied the best means of effecting it would be by not trying him too long. Edmund was not unwilling to be persuaded to engage in the business; he wanted to know Fanny's feelings. She had been used to consult him in every difficulty, and he loved her too well to bear to be denied her confidence now; he hoped to be of service to her, he thought he must be of service to her; whom else had she to open her heart to? If she did not need counsel, she must need the comfort of communication. Fanny estranged from him, silent and reserved, was an unnatural state of things; a state which he must break through, and which he could easily learn to think she was wanting him to break through. "I will speak to her, sir: I will take the first opportunity of speaking to her alone," was the result of such thoughts as these; and upon Sir Thomas's information of her being at that very time walking alone in the shrubbery, he instantly joined her. "I am come to walk with you, Fanny," said he. "Shall I?" Drawing her arm within his. "It is a long while since we have had a comfortable walk together." She assented to it all rather by look than word. Her spirits were low. "But, Fanny," he presently added, "in order to have a comfortable walk, something more is necessary than merely pacing this gravel together. You must talk to me. I know you have something on your mind. I know what you are thinking of. You cannot suppose me uninformed. Am I to hear of it from everybody but Fanny herself?" Fanny, at once agitated and dejected, replied, "If you hear of it from everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell." "Not of facts, perhaps; but of feelings, Fanny. No one but you can tell me them. I do not mean to press you, however. If it is not what you wish yourself, I have done. I had thought it might be a relief." "I am afraid we think too differently for me to find any relief in talking of what I feel." "Do you suppose that we think differently? I have no idea of it. I dare say that, on a comparison of our opinions, they would be found as much alike as they have been used to be: to the point-I consider Crawford's proposals as most advantageous and desirable, if you could return his affection. I consider it as most natural that all your family should wish you could return it; but that, as you cannot, you have done exactly as you ought in refusing him. Can there be any disagreement between us here?" "Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me. This is such a comfort!" "This comfort you might have had sooner, Fanny, had you sought it. But how could you possibly suppose me against you? How could you imagine me an advocate for marriage without love? Were I even careless in general on such matters, how could you imagine me so where your happiness was at stake?" "My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you." "As far as you have gone, Fanny, I think you perfectly right. I may be sorry, I may be surprised-though hardly _that_, for you had not had time to attach yourself-but I think you perfectly right. Can it admit of a question? It is disgraceful to us if it does. You did not love him; nothing could have justified your accepting him." Fanny had not felt so comfortable for days and days. "So far your conduct has been faultless, and they were quite mistaken who wished you to do otherwise. But the matter does not end here. Crawford's is no common attachment; he perseveres, with the hope of creating that regard which had not been created before. This, we know, must be a work of time. But" (with an affectionate smile) "let him succeed at last, Fanny, let him succeed at last. You have proved yourself upright and disinterested, prove yourself grateful and tender-hearted; and then you will be the perfect model of a woman which I have always believed you born for." "Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me." And she spoke with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund, and which she blushed at the recollection of herself, when she saw his look, and heard him reply, "Never! Fanny!-so very determined and positive! This is not like yourself, your rational self." "I mean," she cried, sorrowfully correcting herself, "that I _think_ I never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never shall return his regard." "I must hope better things. I am aware, more aware than Crawford can be, that the man who means to make you love him (you having due notice of his intentions) must have very uphill work, for there are all your early attachments and habits in battle array; and before he can get your heart for his own use he has to unfasten it from all the holds upon things animate and inanimate, which so many years' growth have confirmed, and which are considerably tightened for the moment by the very idea of separation. I know that the apprehension of being forced to quit Mansfield will for a time be arming you against him. I wish he had not been obliged to tell you what he was trying for. I wish he had known you as well as I do, Fanny. Between us, I think we should have won you. My theoretical and his practical knowledge together could not have failed. He should have worked upon my plans. I must hope, however, that time, proving him (as I firmly believe it will) to deserve you by his steady affection, will give him his reward. I cannot suppose that you have not the _wish_ to love him-the natural wish of gratitude. You must have some feeling of that sort. You must be sorry for your own indifference." "We are so totally unlike," said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, "we are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I _could_ like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable." "You are mistaken, Fanny. The dissimilarity is not so strong. You are quite enough alike. You _have_ tastes in common. You have moral and literary tastes in common. You have both warm hearts and benevolent feelings; and, Fanny, who that heard him read, and saw you listen to Shakespeare the other night, will think you unfitted as companions? You forget yourself: there is a decided difference in your tempers, I allow. He is lively, you are serious; but so much the better: his spirits will support yours. It is your disposition to be easily dejected and to fancy difficulties greater than they are. His cheerfulness will counteract this. He sees difficulties nowhere: and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike, Fanny, does not in the smallest degree make against the probability of your happiness together: do not imagine it. I am myself convinced that it is rather a favourable circumstance. I am perfectly persuaded that the tempers had better be unlike: I mean unlike in the flow of the spirits, in the manners, in the inclination for much or little company, in the propensity to talk or to be silent, to be grave or to be gay. Some opposition here is, I am thoroughly convinced, friendly to matrimonial happiness. I exclude extremes, of course; and a very close resemblance in all those points would be the likeliest way to produce an extreme. A counteraction, gentle and continual, is the best safeguard of manners and conduct." Full well could Fanny guess where his thoughts were now: Miss Crawford's power was all returning. He had been speaking of her cheerfully from the hour of his coming home. His avoiding her was quite at an end. He had dined at the Parsonage only the preceding day. After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes, Fanny, feeling it due to herself, returned to Mr. Crawford, and said, "It is not merely in _temper_ that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; though, in _that_ respect, I think the difference between us too great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly-I may speak of it now because it is all over-so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which-in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will never be got over." "My dear Fanny," replied Edmund, scarcely hearing her to the end, "let us not, any of us, be judged by what we appeared at that period of general folly. The time of the play is a time which I hate to recollect. Maria was wrong, Crawford was wrong, we were all wrong together; but none so wrong as myself. Compared with me, all the rest were blameless. I was playing the fool with my eyes open." "As a bystander," said Fanny, "perhaps I saw more than you did; and I do think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous." "Very possibly. No wonder. Nothing could be more improper than the whole business. I am shocked whenever I think that Maria could be capable of it; but, if she could undertake the part, we must not be surprised at the rest." "Before the play, I am much mistaken if _Julia_ did not think he was paying her attentions." "Julia! I have heard before from some one of his being in love with Julia; but I could never see anything of it. And, Fanny, though I hope I do justice to my sisters' good qualities, I think it very possible that they might, one or both, be more desirous of being admired by Crawford, and might shew that desire rather more unguardedly than was perfectly prudent. I can remember that they were evidently fond of his society; and with such encouragement, a man like Crawford, lively, and it may be, a little unthinking, might be led on to-there could be nothing very striking, because it is clear that he had no pretensions: his heart was reserved for you. And I must say, that its being for you has raised him inconceivably in my opinion. It does him the highest honour; it shews his proper estimation of the blessing of domestic happiness and pure attachment. It proves him unspoilt by his uncle. It proves him, in short, everything that I had been used to wish to believe him, and feared he was not." "I am persuaded that he does not think, as he ought, on serious subjects." "Say, rather, that he has not thought at all upon serious subjects, which I believe to be a good deal the case. How could it be otherwise, with such an education and adviser? Under the disadvantages, indeed, which both have had, is it not wonderful that they should be what they are? Crawford's _feelings_, I am ready to acknowledge, have hitherto been too much his guides. Happily, those feelings have generally been good. You will supply the rest; and a most fortunate man he is to attach himself to such a creature-to a woman who, firm as a rock in her own principles, has a gentleness of character so well adapted to recommend them. He has chosen his partner, indeed, with rare felicity. He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything." "I would not engage in such a charge," cried Fanny, in a shrinking accent; "in such an office of high responsibility!" "As usual, believing yourself unequal to anything! fancying everything too much for you! Well, though I may not be able to persuade you into different feelings, you will be persuaded into them, I trust. I confess myself sincerely anxious that you may. I have no common interest in Crawford's well-doing. Next to your happiness, Fanny, his has the first claim on me. You are aware of my having no common interest in Crawford." Fanny was too well aware of it to have anything to say; and they walked on together some fifty yards in mutual silence and abstraction. Edmund first began again- "I was very much pleased by her manner of speaking of it yesterday, particularly pleased, because I had not depended upon her seeing everything in so just a light. I knew she was very fond of you; but yet I was afraid of her not estimating your worth to her brother quite as it deserved, and of her regretting that he had not rather fixed on some woman of distinction or fortune. I was afraid of the bias of those worldly maxims, which she has been too much used to hear. But it was very different. She spoke of you, Fanny, just as she ought. She desires the connexion as warmly as your uncle or myself. We had a long talk about it. I should not have mentioned the subject, though very anxious to know her sentiments; but I had not been in the room five minutes before she began introducing it with all that openness of heart, and sweet peculiarity of manner, that spirit and ingenuousness which are so much a part of herself. Mrs. Grant laughed at her for her rapidity." "Was Mrs. Grant in the room, then?" "Yes, when I reached the house I found the two sisters together by themselves; and when once we had begun, we had not done with you, Fanny, till Crawford and Dr. Grant came in." "It is above a week since I saw Miss Crawford." "Yes, she laments it; yet owns it may have been best. You will see her, however, before she goes. She is very angry with you, Fanny; you must be prepared for that. She calls herself very angry, but you can imagine her anger. It is the regret and disappointment of a sister, who thinks her brother has a right to everything he may wish for, at the first moment. She is hurt, as you would be for William; but she loves and esteems you with all her heart." "I knew she would be very angry with me." "My dearest Fanny," cried Edmund, pressing her arm closer to him, "do not let the idea of her anger distress you. It is anger to be talked of rather than felt. Her heart is made for love and kindness, not for resentment. I wish you could have overheard her tribute of praise; I wish you could have seen her countenance, when she said that you _should_ be Henry's wife. And I observed that she always spoke of you as 'Fanny,' which she was never used to do; and it had a sound of most sisterly cordiality." "And Mrs. Grant, did she say-did she speak; was she there all the time?" "Yes, she was agreeing exactly with her sister. The surprise of your refusal, Fanny, seems to have been unbounded. That you could refuse such a man as Henry Crawford seems more than they can understand. I said what I could for you; but in good truth, as they stated the case-you must prove yourself to be in your senses as soon as you can by a different conduct; nothing else will satisfy them. But this is teasing you. I have done. Do not turn away from me." "I _should_ have thought," said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and exertion, "that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's not being approved, not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself. But, even supposing it is so, allowing Mr. Crawford to have all the claims which his sisters think he has, how was I to be prepared to meet him with any feeling answerable to his own? He took me wholly by surprise. I had not an idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning; and surely I was not to be teaching myself to like him only because he was taking what seemed very idle notice of me. In my situation, it would have been the extreme of vanity to be forming expectations on Mr. Crawford. I am sure his sisters, rating him as they do, must have thought it so, supposing he had meant nothing. How, then, was I to be-to be in love with him the moment he said he was with me? How was I to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for? His sisters should consider me as well as him. The higher his deserts, the more improper for me ever to have thought of him. And, and-we think very differently of the nature of women, if they can imagine a woman so very soon capable of returning an affection as this seems to imply." "My dear, dear Fanny, now I have the truth. I know this to be the truth; and most worthy of you are such feelings. I had attributed them to you before. I thought I could understand you. You have now given exactly the explanation which I ventured to make for you to your friend and Mrs. Grant, and they were both better satisfied, though your warm-hearted friend was still run away with a little by the enthusiasm of her fondness for Henry. I told them that you were of all human creatures the one over whom habit had most power and novelty least; and that the very circumstance of the novelty of Crawford's addresses was against him. Their being so new and so recent was all in their disfavour; that you could tolerate nothing that you were not used to; and a great deal more to the same purpose, to give them a knowledge of your character. Miss Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother. She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time, and of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about ten years' happy marriage." Fanny could with difficulty give the smile that was here asked for. Her feelings were all in revolt. She feared she had been doing wrong: saying too much, overacting the caution which she had been fancying necessary; in guarding against one evil, laying herself open to another; and to have Miss Crawford's liveliness repeated to her at such a moment, and on such a subject, was a bitter aggravation. Edmund saw weariness and distress in her face, and immediately resolved to forbear all farther discussion; and not even to mention the name of Crawford again, except as it might be connected with what _must_ be agreeable to her. On this principle, he soon afterwards observed-"They go on Monday. You are sure, therefore, of seeing your friend either to-morrow or Sunday. They really go on Monday; and I was within a trifle of being persuaded to stay at Lessingby till that very day! I had almost promised it. What a difference it might have made! Those five or six days more at Lessingby might have been felt all my life." "You were near staying there?" "Very. I was most kindly pressed, and had nearly consented. Had I received any letter from Mansfield, to tell me how you were all going on, I believe I should certainly have staid; but I knew nothing that had happened here for a fortnight, and felt that I had been away long enough." "You spent your time pleasantly there?" "Yes; that is, it was the fault of my own mind if I did not. They were all very pleasant. I doubt their finding me so. I took uneasiness with me, and there was no getting rid of it till I was in Mansfield again." "The Miss Owens-you liked them, did not you?" "Yes, very well. Pleasant, good-humoured, unaffected girls. But I am spoilt, Fanny, for common female society. Good-humoured, unaffected girls will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being. You and Miss Crawford have made me too nice." Still, however, Fanny was oppressed and wearied; he saw it in her looks, it could not be talked away; and attempting it no more, he led her directly, with the kind authority of a privileged guardian, into the house.

Edmund had determined that if Fanny did not choose to speak of it, her situation should never be touched on by him; but after a day or two his father induced him to change his mind, and try what his influence might do for his friend. An early day was fixed for the Crawfords' departure; and Sir Thomas thought it might be as well to make one more effort for the young man before he left Mansfield, so that his vows of unshaken attachment might have as much hope to sustain them as possible. Sir Thomas was most anxious for the perfection of Mr. Crawford's character in that point. He wished him to be a model of constancy; and fancied the best means of ensuring it would be by not testing him too long. Edmund was willingly persuaded to talk to Fanny; he wanted to know her feelings. She used to consult him in every difficulty, and he loved her too well to bear to be denied her confidence now. Whom else had she to open her heart to? Fanny estranged from him, silent and reserved, was an unnatural state of things; a state which he must break through. When she was walking alone in the shrubbery, therefore, he joined her. "I am come to walk with you, Fanny," said he, drawing her arm within his. "It is a long while since we have had a comfortable walk together." She assented rather by look than word. Her spirits were low. "But, Fanny," he added, "in order to have a comfortable walk, you must talk to me. I know you have something on your mind. Am I to hear of it from everybody but Fanny herself?" Fanny, at once agitated and dejected, replied, "If you hear of it from everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell." "Not of facts, perhaps; but of feelings, Fanny. No one but you can tell me them. I do not mean to press you. I had thought it might be a relief." "I am afraid we think too differently for me to find any relief in talking of what I feel." "Do you suppose that we think differently? I have no idea of it. I dare say that our opinions are as much alike as ever: to the point-I consider Crawford's proposals as most desirable, if you could return his affection. It is natural that all your family should wish you could return it; but as you cannot, you have done exactly as you ought in refusing him. Can there be any disagreement between us here?" "Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me. This is such a comfort!" "How could you possibly suppose me against you? How could you imagine me an advocate for marriage without love? Were I careless in general on such matters, how could you imagine me so where your happiness was at stake?" "My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you." "As far as you have gone, Fanny, I think you perfectly right. I may be sorry, I may be surprised-but I think you perfectly right. You did not love him; nothing could have justified your accepting him." Fanny had not felt so comfortable for days and days. "So far your conduct has been faultless. But the matter does not end here. Crawford's is no common attachment; he perseveres, with the hope of winning your regard. This, we know, must be a work of time. But" (with an affectionate smile) "let him succeed at last, Fanny. You have proved yourself upright, prove yourself grateful and tender-hearted; and then you will be the perfect model of a woman." "Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me." She spoke with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund, and she blushed when she saw his look, and heard him reply, "Never! Fanny!-so very determined! This is not like your rational self." "I mean," she cried, sorrowfully correcting herself, "that I think I never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never shall return his regard." "I must hope better things. I am aware that the man who means to make you love him must have very uphill work, for there are all your early attachments in battle array; and before he can get your heart he has to unfasten it from all the holds which are tightened by the very idea of separation. I know that the apprehension of being forced to quit Mansfield will be arming you against him. I wish Crawford had known you as well as I do, Fanny. Between us, I think we should have won you. My theoretical and his practical knowledge together could not have failed. I must hope, however, that time will give him his reward. I cannot suppose that you have no wish to love him-the natural wish of gratitude. You must have some feeling of that sort. You must be sorry for your own indifference." "We are so totally unlike," said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, "we are so very, very different in all our inclinations, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be happy together, even if I could like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable." "You are mistaken, Fanny. The dissimilarity is not so strong. You have moral and literary tastes in common. You have both warm hearts and benevolent feelings; and, Fanny, who that heard him read, and saw you listen to Shakespeare the other night, will think you unfitted as companions? There is a difference in your temperaments, I allow. He is lively, you are serious; but so much the better: his spirits will support yours. It is your nature to be easily dejected. His cheerfulness will counteract this; and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike, Fanny, is rather a favourable circumstance. I am convinced that in marriage, the temperaments had better be unlike, for opposites bring happiness. I exclude extremes, of course; but a very close resemblance in all points is the likeliest way to produce an extreme. A gentle counteraction is the best safeguard of manners and conduct." Full well could Fanny guess where his thoughts were now: Miss Crawford's power was all returning. He had been speaking of her cheerfully ever since coming home. His avoiding her was quite at an end. He had dined at the Parsonage only the preceding day. After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes, she said, "It is not merely in temperament that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; but there is something which I object to still more. I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving so very improperly and unfeelingly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which-in short, I received an impression which will never be got over." "My dear Fanny," replied Edmund, scarcely hearing her to the end, "let us not, any of us, be judged by that period of general folly. That is a time which I hate to recollect. Maria was wrong, Crawford was wrong, we were all wrong together; but none so wrong as myself. Compared with me, all the rest were blameless. I was playing the fool with my eyes open." "I do think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous." "Very possibly. No wonder. Nothing could be more improper than the whole business. I am shocked whenever I think that Maria could be capable of it." "Before the play, I am much mistaken if Julia did not think he was paying her attentions." "Julia! I have heard before from some one of his being in love with Julia; but I could never see anything of it. And, Fanny, though I hope I do justice to my sisters' good qualities, I think it very possible that they might desire to be admired by Crawford, and might show that desire more unguardedly than was perfectly prudent. They were fond of his society; and with such encouragement, a man like Crawford, lively, and it may be, a little unthinking, might be led on to-there could be nothing very striking, because it is clear that his heart was reserved for you. And I must say, that its being for you has raised him in my opinion. It shows he understands the blessing of domestic happiness. It proves him unspoilt by his uncle. It proves him everything that I used to wish to believe him, and feared he was not." "I am persuaded that he does not think as he ought, on serious subjects." "Say, rather, that he has not thought at all upon serious subjects. How could it be otherwise, with such an adviser? Crawford's feelings, I acknowledge, have been too much his guides. Happily, those feelings have generally been good. You will supply the rest; and a most fortunate man he is to attach himself to such a woman, firm in her principles yet with gentleness of character. He will make you happy, Fanny; but you will make him everything." "I would not engage in such a charge," cried Fanny, shrinking; "in such high responsibility!" "As usual, believing yourself unequal to anything! Well, though I may not be able to persuade you to feel differently, I confess myself sincerely anxious that you may be persuaded. Next to your happiness, Fanny, his has the first claim on me. You are aware of my having no common interest in Crawford." Fanny was too well aware of it to say anything; and they walked on together in silence. Edmund first began again- "I was very much pleased by her manner of speaking of it yesterday, because I had not been certain of her seeing everything in so just a light. I knew she was very fond of you; but I was afraid of her not seeing your worth to her brother, and of her regretting that he had not fixed on some woman of fortune. But she spoke of you, Fanny, just as she ought. She desires the connexion as warmly as your uncle or myself. We had a long talk about it. I had not been in the room five minutes before she introduced the subject with all that openness of heart and spirit which are so much a part of herself. Mrs. Grant laughed at her for her rapidity." "Was Mrs. Grant in the room, then?" "Yes, I found the two sisters together." "It is above a week since I saw Miss Crawford." "Yes, she laments it; yet owns it may have been best. You will see her, however, before she goes. She is very angry with you, Fanny; you must be prepared for that. She calls herself very angry, but you can imagine her anger. It is the disappointment of a sister, who thinks her brother has a right to everything he may wish for. She is hurt, as you would be for William; but she loves and esteems you with all her heart." "I knew she would be very angry with me." "My dearest Fanny," cried Edmund, pressing her arm closer, "do not let the idea of her anger distress you. It is anger to be talked of rather than felt. Her heart is made for love and kindness, not for resentment. I wish you could have heard her praise you; I wish you could have seen her face, when she said that you should be Henry's wife." "And Mrs. Grant, did she speak; was she there all the time?" "Yes, she agreed with her sister. That you could refuse such a man as Henry Crawford seems more than they can understand. I said what I could for you; but in good truth, you must prove yourself to be in your senses as soon as you can by a different conduct; nothing else will satisfy them. But this is teasing you. I have done. Do not turn away." "I should have thought," said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and exertion, "that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself. But, even supposing it is so, how was I to be prepared to meet Mr Crawford with any feeling like his own? He took me wholly by surprise. I had no idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning. In my situation, it would have been vanity to be forming expectations of Mr. Crawford. How, then, was I to be-to be in love with him, the moment he said he was with me? How was I to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for?" "My dear Fanny, now I have the truth; and most worthy of you are such feelings. You have given exactly the explanation which I ventured to make for you to your friend and Mrs. Grant. I told them that you were, of all people, the one over whom habit had most power and novelty least; and that the very novelty of Crawford's addresses was against him: that you could tolerate nothing that you were not used to. Miss Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother. She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time, and of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about ten years' happy marriage." Fanny could with difficulty give the smile that was here asked for. Her feelings were all in revolt. She feared she had been saying too much, and overacting the caution which she had been fancying necessary; and in guarding against one evil, was laying herself open to another. To have Miss Crawford's liveliness repeated to her at such a moment, and on such a subject, was a bitter aggravation. Edmund saw weariness and distress in her face, and immediately resolved to not mention the name of Crawford again, unless in connexion with what must be agreeable to her. So he observed-"They go on Monday. You are sure, therefore, of seeing your friend either to-morrow or Sunday. They really go on Monday; and I was almost persuaded to stay at Lessingby till that very day! What a difference it might have made! Those five or six days more at Lessingby might have been felt all my life." "You spent your time pleasantly there?" "Yes; they were all very pleasant. I doubt their finding me so. I took uneasiness with me, and there was no getting rid of it till I was in Mansfield again." "The Miss Owens-you liked them, did not you?" "Yes, very well. Pleasant, good-humoured, unaffected girls. But I am spoilt, Fanny, for common female society. Good-humoured, unaffected girls will not do for a man who has been used to intelligent women. They are two distinct orders of being. You and Miss Crawford have made me too exacting." Still, however, Fanny was oppressed and wearied; he saw it in her looks, it could not be talked away; and attempting it no more, he led her, with the kind authority of a guardian, into the house.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 35

Fanny's consequence increased on the departure of her cousins. Becoming, as she then did, the only young woman in the drawing-room, the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she had hitherto held so humble a third, it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever been before; and "Where is Fanny?" became no uncommon question, even without her being wanted for any one's convenience. Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year since Mr. Norris's death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the gloom and dirt of a November day, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her visits there, beginning by chance, were continued by solicitation. Mrs. Grant, really eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls. Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her part, to come in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be done but to be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible; and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating the dismal rain in a very desponding state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all her plan of exercise for that morning, and of every chance of seeing a single creature beyond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping with wet in the vestibule, was delightful. The value of an event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her. She was all alive again directly, and among the most active in being useful to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at first allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being obliged to submit to all this attention, and to being assisted and waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning downstairs, to be fixed in their drawing-room for an hour while the rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to see and think of was thus extended to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits to the period of dressing and dinner. The two sisters were so kind to her, and so pleasant, that Fanny might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way, and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant's carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she was threatened. As to anxiety for any alarm that her absence in such weather might occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that score; for as her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly aware that none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage aunt Norris might chuse to establish her during the rain, her being in such cottage would be indubitable to aunt Bertram. It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp in the room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to an acknowledgment of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession, which could hardly be believed, of her having never yet heard it since its being in Mansfield. To Fanny herself it appeared a very simple and natural circumstance. She had scarcely ever been at the Parsonage since the instrument's arrival, there had been no reason that she should; but Miss Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed wish on the subject, was concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall I play to you now?" and "What will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest good-humour. She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener, and a listener who seemed so much obliged, so full of wonder at the performance, and who shewed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny's eyes, straying to the window on the weather's being evidently fair, spoke what she felt must be done. "Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford, "and we shall see how it will be. Do not run away the first moment of its holding up. Those clouds look alarming." "But they are passed over," said Fanny. "I have been watching them. This weather is all from the south." "South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play something more to you-a very pretty piece-and your cousin Edmund's prime favourite. You must stay and hear your cousin's favourite." Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that sentence to be thinking of Edmund, such a memento made her particularly awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that room again and again, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared to her, with superior tone and expression; and though pleased with it herself, and glad to like whatever was liked by him, she was more sincerely impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she had been before; and on this being evident, she was so kindly asked to call again, to take them in her walk whenever she could, to come and hear more of the harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no objection arose at home. Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy which took place between them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams' going away-an intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford's desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings. Fanny went to her every two or three days: it seemed a kind of fascination: she could not be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, without ever thinking like her, without any sense of obligation for being sought after now when nobody else was to be had; and deriving no higher pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and _that_ often at the expense of her judgment, when it was raised by pleasantry on people or subjects which she wished to be respected. She went, however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth. "This is pretty, very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were thus sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting-almost forgetting what it was before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!" And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: "If any one faculty of our nature may be called _more_ wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out." Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she thought must interest. "It may seem impertinent in _me_ to praise, but I must admire the taste Mrs. Grant has shewn in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in the plan of the walk! Not too much attempted!" "Yes," replied Miss Crawford carelessly, "it does very well for a place of this sort. One does not think of extent _here_; and between ourselves, till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind." "I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!" said Fanny, in reply. "My uncle's gardener always says the soil here is better than his own, and so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in general. The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy." "To say the truth," replied Miss Crawford, "I am something like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had told me a year ago that this place would be my home, that I should be spending month after month here, as I have done, I certainly should not have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; and, moreover, the quietest five months I ever passed." "_Too_ quiet for you, I believe." "I should have thought so _theoretically_ myself, but," and her eyes brightened as she spoke, "take it all and all, I never spent so happy a summer. But then," with a more thoughtful air and lowered voice, "there is no saying what it may lead to." Fanny's heart beat quick, and she felt quite unequal to surmising or soliciting anything more. Miss Crawford, however, with renewed animation, soon went on- "I am conscious of being far better reconciled to a country residence than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to spend _half_ the year in the country, under certain circumstances, very pleasant. An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family connexions; continual engagements among them; commanding the first society in the neighbourhood; looked up to, perhaps, as leading it even more than those of larger fortune, and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to nothing worse than a _tte--tte_ with the person one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing frightful in such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy the new Mrs. Rushworth with such a home as _that_." "Envy Mrs. Rushworth!" was all that Fanny attempted to say. "Come, come, it would be very un-handsome in us to be severe on Mrs. Rushworth, for I look forward to our owing her a great many gay, brilliant, happy hours. I expect we shall be all very much at Sotherton another year. Such a match as Miss Bertram has made is a public blessing; for the first pleasures of Mr. Rushworth's wife must be to fill her house, and give the best balls in the country." Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till suddenly looking up at the end of a few minutes, she exclaimed, "Ah! here he is." It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who then appeared walking towards them with Mrs. Grant. "My sister and Mr. Bertram. I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he may be Mr. Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr. _Edmund_ Bertram so formal, so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it." "How differently we feel!" cried Fanny. "To me, the sound of _Mr._ Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning, so entirely without warmth or character! It just stands for a gentleman, and that's all. But there is nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; of kings, princes, and knights; and seems to breathe the spirit of chivalry and warm affections." "I grant you the name is good in itself, and _Lord_ Edmund or _Sir_ Edmund sound delightfully; but sink it under the chill, the annihilation of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr. Thomas. Well, shall we join and disappoint them of half their lecture upon sitting down out of doors at this time of year, by being up before they can begin?" Edmund met them with particular pleasure. It was the first time of his seeing them together since the beginning of that better acquaintance which he had been hearing of with great satisfaction. A friendship between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished: and to the credit of the lover's understanding, be it stated, that he did not by any means consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater gainer by such a friendship. "Well," said Miss Crawford, "and do you not scold us for our imprudence? What do you think we have been sitting down for but to be talked to about it, and entreated and supplicated never to do so again?" "Perhaps I might have scolded," said Edmund, "if either of you had been sitting down alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a great deal." "They cannot have been sitting long," cried Mrs. Grant, "for when I went up for my shawl I saw them from the staircase window, and then they were walking." "And really," added Edmund, "the day is so mild, that your sitting down for a few minutes can be hardly thought imprudent. Our weather must not always be judged by the calendar. We may sometimes take greater liberties in November than in May." "Upon my word," cried Miss Crawford, "you are two of the most disappointing and unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no giving you a moment's uneasiness. You do not know how much we have been suffering, nor what chills we have felt! But I have long thought Mr. Bertram one of the worst subjects to work on, in any little manoeuvre against common sense, that a woman could be plagued with. I had very little hope of _him_ from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my sister, my own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little." "Do not flatter yourself, my dearest Mary. You have not the smallest chance of moving me. I have my alarms, but they are quite in a different quarter; and if I could have altered the weather, you would have had a good sharp east wind blowing on you the whole time-for here are some of my plants which Robert _will_ leave out because the nights are so mild, and I know the end of it will be, that we shall have a sudden change of weather, a hard frost setting in all at once, taking everybody (at least Robert) by surprise, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished not to be dressed till Sunday, because I know how much more Dr. Grant would enjoy it on Sunday after the fatigues of the day, will not keep beyond to-morrow. These are something like grievances, and make me think the weather most unseasonably close." "The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!" said Miss Crawford archly. "Commend me to the nurseryman and the poulterer." "My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St. Paul's, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you could be. But we have no such people in Mansfield. What would you have me do?" "Oh! you can do nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often, and never lose your temper." "Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, live where we may; and when you are settled in town and I come to see you, I dare say I shall find you with yours, in spite of the nurseryman and the poulterer, perhaps on their very account. Their remoteness and unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing forth bitter lamentations." "I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort. A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it." "You intend to be very rich?" said Edmund, with a look which, to Fanny's eye, had a great deal of serious meaning. "To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?" "I cannot intend anything which it must be so completely beyond my power to command. Miss Crawford may chuse her degree of wealth. She has only to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor." "By moderation and economy, and bringing down your wants to your income, and all that. I understand you-and a very proper plan it is for a person at your time of life, with such limited means and indifferent connexions. What can _you_ want but a decent maintenance? You have not much time before you; and your relations are in no situation to do anything for you, or to mortify you by the contrast of their own wealth and consequence. Be honest and poor, by all means-but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich." "Your degree of respect for honesty, rich or poor, is precisely what I have no manner of concern with. I do not mean to be poor. Poverty is exactly what I have determined against. Honesty, in the something between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on." "But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction." "But how may it rise? How may my honesty at least rise to any distinction?" This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an "Oh!" of some length from the fair lady before she could add, "You ought to be in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago." "_That_ is not much to the purpose now; and as to my being in parliament, I believe I must wait till there is an especial assembly for the representation of younger sons who have little to live on. No, Miss Crawford," he added, in a more serious tone, "there _are_ distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought myself without any chance-absolutely without chance or possibility of obtaining-but they are of a different character." A look of consciousness as he spoke, and what seemed a consciousness of manner on Miss Crawford's side as she made some laughing answer, was sorrowfull food for Fanny's observation; and finding herself quite unable to attend as she ought to Mrs. Grant, by whose side she was now following the others, she had nearly resolved on going home immediately, and only waited for courage to say so, when the sound of the great clock at Mansfield Park, striking three, made her feel that she had really been much longer absent than usual, and brought the previous self-inquiry of whether she should take leave or not just then, and how, to a very speedy issue. With undoubting decision she directly began her adieus; and Edmund began at the same time to recollect that his mother had been inquiring for her, and that he had walked down to the Parsonage on purpose to bring her back. Fanny's hurry increased; and without in the least expecting Edmund's attendance, she would have hastened away alone; but the general pace was quickened, and they all accompanied her into the house, through which it was necessary to pass. Dr. Grant was in the vestibule, and as they stopt to speak to him she found, from Edmund's manner, that he _did_ mean to go with her. He too was taking leave. She could not but be thankful. In the moment of parting, Edmund was invited by Dr. Grant to eat his mutton with him the next day; and Fanny had barely time for an unpleasant feeling on the occasion, when Mrs. Grant, with sudden recollection, turned to her and asked for the pleasure of her company too. This was so new an attention, so perfectly new a circumstance in the events of Fanny's life, that she was all surprise and embarrassment; and while stammering out her great obligation, and her "but she did not suppose it would be in her power," was looking at Edmund for his opinion and help. But Edmund, delighted with her having such an happiness offered, and ascertaining with half a look, and half a sentence, that she had no objection but on her aunt's account, could not imagine that his mother would make any difficulty of sparing her, and therefore gave his decided open advice that the invitation should be accepted; and though Fanny would not venture, even on his encouragement, to such a flight of audacious independence, it was soon settled, that if nothing were heard to the contrary, Mrs. Grant might expect her. "And you know what your dinner will be," said Mrs. Grant, smiling-"the turkey, and I assure you a very fine one; for, my dear," turning to her husband, "cook insists upon the turkey's being dressed to-morrow." "Very well, very well," cried Dr. Grant, "all the better; I am glad to hear you have anything so good in the house. But Miss Price and Mr. Edmund Bertram, I dare say, would take their chance. We none of us want to hear the bill of fare. A friendly meeting, and not a fine dinner, is all we have in view. A turkey, or a goose, or a leg of mutton, or whatever you and your cook chuse to give us." The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the immediate discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with the warmest satisfaction, as so particularly desirable for her in the intimacy which he saw with so much pleasure established, it was a silent walk; for having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for any other.

Fanny's consequence increased on her cousins' departure. As the only young woman in the drawing-room, she was more attended to than she had ever been before; and "Where is Fanny?" became a common question. Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. There she became a welcome guest, and in the gloom and dirt of November, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Mrs. Grant, eager to get any change for her sister, persuaded herself that she was doing the kindest thing for Fanny, and giving her opportunities of improvement in frequently inviting her. Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being seen from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under an oak, was forced, with modest reluctance on her part, to come in. Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella; and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating the dismal rain very despondently, the sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping in the vestibule, was delightful. The value of an event on a wet day in the country was forcibly brought before her. She was alive again directly, and most active in being useful to Fanny and providing her with dry clothes. Since Fanny was obliged to stay for an hour while the rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to think of was extended. The two sisters were so kind to her, that Fanny might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way, and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant's carriage out to take her home. As her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly aware that no alarm would be felt by anyone. It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp, asked some questions about it, and acknowledged that she wished very much to hear it, for she had never yet heard it since its being in Mansfield. To Fanny this appeared very natural. She had scarcely been at the Parsonage since the instrument's arrival; but Miss Crawford was concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall I play to you now?" and "What will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest good-humour. She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener who seemed so full of wonder at the performance, and who showed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny's eyes strayed to the window. "Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford. "Those clouds look alarming." "But they are passed over," said Fanny. "This weather is all from the south." "I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play you a very pretty piece-your cousin Edmund's favourite." Fanny felt that she must hear it; she fancied him sitting in that room, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with delight to the favourite air, played with superior tone and expression. Though glad to like whatever was liked by him, at the end she was more sincerely impatient to go away. She was so kindly asked to call again, and hear more of the harp, that she felt it must be done. Such was the origin of the intimacy between them-an intimacy resulting chiefly from Miss Crawford's desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings. Fanny went to her every two or three days: she could not be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, or thinking like her; and deriving no higher pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and that often at the expense of her judgment. She went, however, and they sauntered about together in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, venturing sometimes to sit down on one of the benches, and remaining there, perhaps, till in the midst of some tender remark of Fanny's on the sweets of autumn, they were forced to jump up and walk for warmth. "This is very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow, never thought of as capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting what it was before. How very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind! If any faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. It is sometimes so retentive, so obedient; at others, so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!" Miss Crawford, untouched, had nothing to say; and Fanny returned to what she thought must interest. "I must admire the taste Mrs. Grant has shown in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in the plan of the walk!" "Yes," replied Miss Crawford carelessly, "it does very well for a place of this sort. Till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery." "I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!" said Fanny. "My uncle's gardener says the soil here is better than his own, and so it appears from the growth of the evergreens. How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! How astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same soil and sun should nurture plants so widely differing. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural object without finding food for a rambling fancy." "To say the truth," replied Miss Crawford, "Like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV, I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had told me a year ago that this place would be my home, I should not have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; the quietest five months I ever passed." "Too quiet for you, I believe." "I should have thought so, but," and her eyes brightened, "all and all, I never spent so happy a summer. But then," more thoughtfully, "there is no saying what it may lead to." Fanny's heart beat quick, and she could not speak. Miss Crawford, however, soon went on- "I am better reconciled to a country residence than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to spend half the year in the country, under certain circumstances. An elegant house in the centre of family connexions; continual engagements; commanding the first society in the neighbourhood; and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to a tte--tte with the person one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing frightful in such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy the new Mrs. Rushworth with such a home as that." "Envy Mrs. Rushworth!" "I look forward to our owing her a great many brilliant, happy hours at Sotherton. The first pleasures of Mr. Rushworth's wife must be to fill her house, and give the best balls in the country." Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till suddenly looking up, she exclaimed, "Ah! here he is." It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who appeared with Mrs. Grant. "I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he may be Mr. Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr. Edmund Bertram so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it." "How differently we feel!" cried Fanny. "To me, the sound of Mr. Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning! It just stands for a gentleman, and that's all. But there is nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; and seems to breathe the spirit of chivalry and warm affections." "I grant you the name is good in itself, and Lord Edmund or Sir Edmund sound delightfully; but sink it under the annihilation of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr. Thomas. Well, shall we join them?" Edmund met them with pleasure. A friendship between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished: and to his credit, he did not consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater gainer by such a friendship. "Well," said Miss Crawford, "do you not scold us for our imprudence in sitting outside?" "Perhaps I might have scolded," said Edmund, "if either of you had been alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a great deal." "They cannot have been sitting long," cried Mrs. Grant, "for when I saw them from the staircase window, they were walking." "And really," added Edmund, "the day is so mild, that your sitting down can be hardly thought imprudent." "Upon my word," cried Miss Crawford, "you are two of the most unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no giving you a moment's uneasiness. You do not know what chills we have felt! I had very little hope of Mr Bertram from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little." "My dearest Mary, you have not the smallest chance of moving me. If I could have altered the weather, you would have had a good sharp east wind blowing on you-for here are some of my plants which Robert will leave out, and I know that we shall have a sudden hard frost setting in, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished not to be dressed till Sunday, will not keep beyond to-morrow. These are grievances, and make me think the weather most unseasonably warm." "The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!" said Miss Crawford archly. "My dear child, what would you have me do?" "Oh! nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often, and never lose your temper." "Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, wherever we live; and when you are settled in town, I dare say I shall find you with yours." "I mean to be too rich to feel anything of the sort. A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of." "You intend to be very rich?" said Edmund seriously. "To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?" "I cannot intend anything which it is so completely beyond my power to command. Miss Crawford may choose her degree of wealth. She has only to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor." "By moderation and economy, and all that. And a very proper plan it is for a person at your time of life, with such limited means and poor connexions, with relations in no situation to do anything for you. Be honest and poor, by all means-but I shall not envy you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich." "I do not mean to be poor. Honesty in the middle state, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on." "But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction." "But how may it rise? How may my honesty rise to any distinction?" This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an "Oh!" from the lady before she could add, "You ought to be in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago." "That is not much to the purpose now; and as to parliament, I must wait till there is an especial assembly for younger sons with little to live on. No, Miss Crawford," he added more seriously, "there are distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought I could never obtain-but they are of a different character." A look of consciousness as he spoke, and a consciousness of manner on Miss Crawford's side as she made some laughing answer, was sorrowful for Fanny to observe. She resolved on going home immediately, and began her adieus; on which Edmund recollected that his mother had been inquiring for her, and that he had walked down to the Parsonage to bring her back. Fanny would have hastened away alone; but she found that Edmund meant to go with her. He took his leave of Dr Grant, and was invited to eat with him the next day. Then Mrs. Grant turned to her and asked for the pleasure of her company too. This was so perfectly new a circumstance in Fanny's life, that she was all embarrassment; and while stammering out "but she did not suppose it would be in her power," was looking at Edmund for his help. But Edmund, delighted at the offer, could not imagine that his mother would make any difficulty, and therefore advised that the invitation should be accepted; and it was soon settled that Mrs. Grant might expect her. "And you know what your dinner will be," said Mrs. Grant, smiling-"the turkey, which cook insists upon being dressed to-morrow." "I am glad to hear it," cried Dr. Grant. "But a friendly meeting, and not a fine dinner, is all we have in view." The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with satisfaction, it was a silent walk; for having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for any other.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 22

It was not in Miss Crawford's power to talk Fanny into any real forgetfulness of what had passed. When the evening was over, she went to bed full of it, her nerves still agitated by the shock of such an attack from her cousin Tom, so public and so persevered in, and her spirits sinking under her aunt's unkind reflection and reproach. To be called into notice in such a manner, to hear that it was but the prelude to something so infinitely worse, to be told that she must do what was so impossible as to act; and then to have the charge of obstinacy and ingratitude follow it, enforced with such a hint at the dependence of her situation, had been too distressing at the time to make the remembrance when she was alone much less so, especially with the superadded dread of what the morrow might produce in continuation of the subject. Miss Crawford had protected her only for the time; and if she were applied to again among themselves with all the authoritative urgency that Tom and Maria were capable of, and Edmund perhaps away, what should she do? She fell asleep before she could answer the question, and found it quite as puzzling when she awoke the next morning. The little white attic, which had continued her sleeping-room ever since her first entering the family, proving incompetent to suggest any reply, she had recourse, as soon as she was dressed, to another apartment more spacious and more meet for walking about in and thinking, and of which she had now for some time been almost equally mistress. It had been their school-room; so called till the Miss Bertrams would not allow it to be called so any longer, and inhabited as such to a later period. There Miss Lee had lived, and there they had read and written, and talked and laughed, till within the last three years, when she had quitted them. The room had then become useless, and for some time was quite deserted, except by Fanny, when she visited her plants, or wanted one of the books, which she was still glad to keep there, from the deficiency of space and accommodation in her little chamber above: but gradually, as her value for the comforts of it increased, she had added to her possessions, and spent more of her time there; and having nothing to oppose her, had so naturally and so artlessly worked herself into it, that it was now generally admitted to be hers. The East room, as it had been called ever since Maria Bertram was sixteen, was now considered Fanny's, almost as decidedly as the white attic: the smallness of the one making the use of the other so evidently reasonable that the Miss Bertrams, with every superiority in their own apartments which their own sense of superiority could demand, were entirely approving it; and Mrs. Norris, having stipulated for there never being a fire in it on Fanny's account, was tolerably resigned to her having the use of what nobody else wanted, though the terms in which she sometimes spoke of the indulgence seemed to imply that it was the best room in the house. The aspect was so favourable that even without a fire it was habitable in many an early spring and late autumn morning to such a willing mind as Fanny's; and while there was a gleam of sunshine she hoped not to be driven from it entirely, even when winter came. The comfort of it in her hours of leisure was extreme. She could go there after anything unpleasant below, and find immediate consolation in some pursuit, or some train of thought at hand. Her plants, her books-of which she had been a collector from the first hour of her commanding a shilling-her writing-desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within her reach; or if indisposed for employment, if nothing but musing would do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm. The room was most dear to her, and she would not have changed its furniture for the handsomest in the house, though what had been originally plain had suffered all the ill-usage of children; and its greatest elegancies and ornaments were a faded footstool of Julia's work, too ill done for the drawing-room, three transparencies, made in a rage for transparencies, for the three lower panes of one window, where Tintern Abbey held its station between a cave in Italy and a moonlight lake in Cumberland, a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being anywhere else, over the mantelpiece, and by their side, and pinned against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters as tall as the mainmast. To this nest of comforts Fanny now walked down to try its influence on an agitated, doubting spirit, to see if by looking at Edmund's profile she could catch any of his counsel, or by giving air to her geraniums she might inhale a breeze of mental strength herself. But she had more than fears of her own perseverance to remove: she had begun to feel undecided as to what she _ought_ _to_ _do_; and as she walked round the room her doubts were increasing. Was she _right_ in refusing what was so warmly asked, so strongly wished for-what might be so essential to a scheme on which some of those to whom she owed the greatest complaisance had set their hearts? Was it not ill-nature, selfishness, and a fear of exposing herself? And would Edmund's judgment, would his persuasion of Sir Thomas's disapprobation of the whole, be enough to justify her in a determined denial in spite of all the rest? It would be so horrible to her to act that she was inclined to suspect the truth and purity of her own scruples; and as she looked around her, the claims of her cousins to being obliged were strengthened by the sight of present upon present that she had received from them. The table between the windows was covered with work-boxes and netting-boxes which had been given her at different times, principally by Tom; and she grew bewildered as to the amount of the debt which all these kind remembrances produced. A tap at the door roused her in the midst of this attempt to find her way to her duty, and her gentle "Come in" was answered by the appearance of one, before whom all her doubts were wont to be laid. Her eyes brightened at the sight of Edmund. "Can I speak with you, Fanny, for a few minutes?" said he. "Yes, certainly." "I want to consult. I want your opinion." "My opinion!" she cried, shrinking from such a compliment, highly as it gratified her. "Yes, your advice and opinion. I do not know what to do. This acting scheme gets worse and worse, you see. They have chosen almost as bad a play as they could, and now, to complete the business, are going to ask the help of a young man very slightly known to any of us. This is the end of all the privacy and propriety which was talked about at first. I know no harm of Charles Maddox; but the excessive intimacy which must spring from his being admitted among us in this manner is highly objectionable, the _more_ than intimacy-the familiarity. I cannot think of it with any patience; and it does appear to me an evil of such magnitude as must, _if_ _possible_, be prevented. Do not you see it in the same light?" "Yes; but what can be done? Your brother is so determined." "There is but _one_ thing to be done, Fanny. I must take Anhalt myself. I am well aware that nothing else will quiet Tom." Fanny could not answer him. "It is not at all what I like," he continued. "No man can like being driven into the _appearance_ of such inconsistency. After being known to oppose the scheme from the beginning, there is absurdity in the face of my joining them _now_, when they are exceeding their first plan in every respect; but I can think of no other alternative. Can you, Fanny?" "No," said Fanny slowly, "not immediately, but-" "But what? I see your judgment is not with me. Think it a little over. Perhaps you are not so much aware as I am of the mischief that _may_, of the unpleasantness that _must_ arise from a young man's being received in this manner: domesticated among us; authorised to come at all hours, and placed suddenly on a footing which must do away all restraints. To think only of the licence which every rehearsal must tend to create. It is all very bad! Put yourself in Miss Crawford's place, Fanny. Consider what it would be to act Amelia with a stranger. She has a right to be felt for, because she evidently feels for herself. I heard enough of what she said to you last night to understand her unwillingness to be acting with a stranger; and as she probably engaged in the part with different expectations-perhaps without considering the subject enough to know what was likely to be-it would be ungenerous, it would be really wrong to expose her to it. Her feelings ought to be respected. Does it not strike you so, Fanny? You hesitate." "I am sorry for Miss Crawford; but I am more sorry to see you drawn in to do what you had resolved against, and what you are known to think will be disagreeable to my uncle. It will be such a triumph to the others!" "They will not have much cause of triumph when they see how infamously I act. But, however, triumph there certainly will be, and I must brave it. But if I can be the means of restraining the publicity of the business, of limiting the exhibition, of concentrating our folly, I shall be well repaid. As I am now, I have no influence, I can do nothing: I have offended them, and they will not hear me; but when I have put them in good-humour by this concession, I am not without hopes of persuading them to confine the representation within a much smaller circle than they are now in the high road for. This will be a material gain. My object is to confine it to Mrs. Rushworth and the Grants. Will not this be worth gaining?" "Yes, it will be a great point." "But still it has not your approbation. Can you mention any other measure by which I have a chance of doing equal good?" "No, I cannot think of anything else." "Give me your approbation, then, Fanny. I am not comfortable without it." "Oh, cousin!" "If you are against me, I ought to distrust myself, and yet-But it is absolutely impossible to let Tom go on in this way, riding about the country in quest of anybody who can be persuaded to act-no matter whom: the look of a gentleman is to be enough. I thought _you_ would have entered more into Miss Crawford's feelings." "No doubt she will be very glad. It must be a great relief to her," said Fanny, trying for greater warmth of manner. "She never appeared more amiable than in her behaviour to you last night. It gave her a very strong claim on my goodwill." "She _was_ very kind, indeed, and I am glad to have her spared"... She could not finish the generous effusion. Her conscience stopt her in the middle, but Edmund was satisfied. "I shall walk down immediately after breakfast," said he, "and am sure of giving pleasure there. And now, dear Fanny, I will not interrupt you any longer. You want to be reading. But I could not be easy till I had spoken to you, and come to a decision. Sleeping or waking, my head has been full of this matter all night. It is an evil, but I am certainly making it less than it might be. If Tom is up, I shall go to him directly and get it over, and when we meet at breakfast we shall be all in high good-humour at the prospect of acting the fool together with such unanimity. _You_, in the meanwhile, will be taking a trip into China, I suppose. How does Lord Macartney go on?"-opening a volume on the table and then taking up some others. "And here are Crabbe's Tales, and the Idler, at hand to relieve you, if you tire of your great book. I admire your little establishment exceedingly; and as soon as I am gone, you will empty your head of all this nonsense of acting, and sit comfortably down to your table. But do not stay here to be cold." He went; but there was no reading, no China, no composure for Fanny. He had told her the most extraordinary, the most inconceivable, the most unwelcome news; and she could think of nothing else. To be acting! After all his objections-objections so just and so public! After all that she had heard him say, and seen him look, and known him to be feeling. Could it be possible? Edmund so inconsistent! Was he not deceiving himself? Was he not wrong? Alas! it was all Miss Crawford's doing. She had seen her influence in every speech, and was miserable. The doubts and alarms as to her own conduct, which had previously distressed her, and which had all slept while she listened to him, were become of little consequence now. This deeper anxiety swallowed them up. Things should take their course; she cared not how it ended. Her cousins might attack, but could hardly tease her. She was beyond their reach; and if at last obliged to yield-no matter-it was all misery now.

Miss Crawford could not make Fanny forget what had passed. She went to bed full of it, her nerves still agitated and her spirits sinking under her aunt's unkind reproach. To be told that she must do what was so impossible as to act; and then to have the charge of obstinacy and ingratitude follow, had been distressing, especially with the added dread of what the morrow might produce. Miss Crawford had protected her only for the time; and if she were applied to again, what should she do? She fell asleep before she could answer the question, and found it quite as puzzling when she awoke the next morning. The little white attic, where she had always slept, suggesting no reply, she went as soon as she was dressed to the old school-room. When Miss Lee had quitted them, the room had become quite deserted, except by Fanny, who still kept her books there: gradually, she had added to her possessions, and spent more of her time there, and the East room was now considered hers. The Miss Bertrams, with every superiority in their own apartments, were entirely approving it; and Mrs. Norris, having stipulated that there should never be a fire in it on Fanny's account, was resigned to her having what nobody else wanted, though she sometimes spoke as if it was the best room in the house. Even without a fire, Fanny found great comfort there in her hours of leisure. After anything unpleasant below, she could find immediate consolation in her plants, her books, her writing-desk, and her works of charity, all within her reach; or if nothing but musing would do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend; and held a memory of how her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or how Edmund had been her champion; he had supported her cause, he had told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful. The room was most dear to her, and she would not have changed its furniture for the handsomest in the house, though its greatest elegancies were a faded footstool of Julia's work, too ill done for the drawing-room, a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being anywhere else, and a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters as tall as the mainmast. But as Fanny walked round the room on this morning, her doubts were increasing. Was she right in refusing what was so strongly wished for? Was it not selfishness, and a fear of exposing herself? It would be so horrible to her to act that she was inclined to suspect the purity of her own scruples; and as she looked around, the claims of her cousins were strengthened by the sight of present upon present that she had received from them. The table was covered with work-boxes which had been given her at different times, principally by Tom; and she grew bewildered. A tap at the door roused her, and her gentle "Come in" was answered by the appearance of one, before whom all her doubts were wont to be laid. Her eyes brightened at the sight of Edmund. "Can I speak with you, Fanny?" said he. "Yes, certainly." "I want your opinion." "My opinion!" she cried, shrinking from such a compliment, highly as it gratified her. "Yes. I do not know what to do. This acting scheme gets worse and worse, you see. They have chosen almost as bad a play as they could, and now are going to ask the help of a young man very slightly known to us. This is the end of privacy and propriety. I know no harm of Charles Maddox; but the excessive intimacy which must spring from his joining us is highly objectionable. It appears to me an evil that must, if possible, be prevented." "Yes; but what can be done? Your brother is so determined." "I must take Anhalt myself, Fanny. Nothing else will quiet Tom." Fanny could not answer him. "It is not what I like," he continued, "but I can think of no other alternative. Can you, Fanny?" "No," said Fanny slowly, "not immediately, but-" "I see your judgment is not with me. Think it over. Perhaps you are not aware of the unpleasantness that must arise from a young man's being received in this manner. Think of the licence which every rehearsal must create. It is very bad! Put yourself in Miss Crawford's place, Fanny. I heard enough of what she said to you last night to understand her unwillingness to act with a stranger; and as she probably took the part with different expectations-it would be really wrong to expose her to it. Does it not strike you so, Fanny? You hesitate." "I am sorry for Miss Crawford; but I am more sorry to see you drawn in to do what you had resolved against, and what you think will be disagreeable to my uncle. It will be such a triumph to the others!" "They will not have much cause of triumph when they see how infamously I act. But if I can restrain the publicity of the business, and limit the exhibition, I shall be repaid. As I am now, I have no influence: but when I have put them in good-humour by this concession, I hope to persuade them to confine the play within a much smaller circle, to Mrs. Rushworth and the Grants. Will not this be worth gaining?" "Yes, it will be a great point." "But still it has not your approval. Give me your approbation, Fanny. I am not comfortable without it." "Oh, cousin!" "If you are against me, I ought to distrust myself, and yet I cannot let Tom go riding about the country in quest of anybody who can be persuaded to act. I thought you would have entered more into Miss Crawford's feelings." "It must be a great relief to her," said Fanny, trying for greater warmth of manner. "She never appeared more amiable than in her behaviour to you last night." "She was very kind, indeed, and I am glad to have her spared..." She could not finish, but Edmund was satisfied. "Now, dear Fanny, I will not interrupt you any longer," said he. "But I could not be easy till I had spoken to you. My head has been full of this matter all night. I shall go to Tom directly and get it over, and when we meet at breakfast we shall be all in high good-humour at the prospect of acting the fool together. You, in the meanwhile, will be taking a trip into China, I suppose."-opening a volume on the table. "And here are Crabbe's Tales, and the Idler, to relieve you, if you tire of your great book. I admire your little establishment exceedingly; and as soon as I am gone, you will empty your head of all this nonsense, and sit comfortably down to your table." He went; but there was no reading, no China, no composure for Fanny. He had told her the most extraordinary, the most unwelcome news; and she could think of nothing else. To be acting! After all his objections! Could it be possible? Edmund so inconsistent! Was he not deceiving himself? Was he not wrong? Alas! it was all Miss Crawford's doing. She had seen her influence in every speech, and was miserable. The doubts as to her own conduct, which had previously distressed her, were become of little consequence now. This deeper anxiety swallowed them up. She cared not how it ended. Her cousins might attack, but she was beyond their reach; and if at last obliged to yield-no matter-it was all misery now.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 16

Fanny seemed nearer being right than Edmund had supposed. The business of finding a play that would suit everybody proved to be no trifle; and the carpenter had received his orders and taken his measurements, had suggested and removed at least two sets of difficulties, and having made the necessity of an enlargement of plan and expense fully evident, was already at work, while a play was still to seek. Other preparations were also in hand. An enormous roll of green baize had arrived from Northampton, and been cut out by Mrs. Norris (with a saving by her good management of full three-quarters of a yard), and was actually forming into a curtain by the housemaids, and still the play was wanting; and as two or three days passed away in this manner, Edmund began almost to hope that none might ever be found. There were, in fact, so many things to be attended to, so many people to be pleased, so many best characters required, and, above all, such a need that the play should be at once both tragedy and comedy, that there did seem as little chance of a decision as anything pursued by youth and zeal could hold out. On the tragic side were the Miss Bertrams, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates; on the comic, Tom Bertram, not _quite_ alone, because it was evident that Mary Crawford's wishes, though politely kept back, inclined the same way: but his determinateness and his power seemed to make allies unnecessary; and, independent of this great irreconcilable difference, they wanted a piece containing very few characters in the whole, but every character first-rate, and three principal women. All the best plays were run over in vain. Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor Othello, nor Douglas, nor The Gamester, presented anything that could satisfy even the tragedians; and The Rivals, The School for Scandal, Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a long et cetera, were successively dismissed with yet warmer objections. No piece could be proposed that did not supply somebody with a difficulty, and on one side or the other it was a continual repetition of, "Oh no, _that_ will never do! Let us have no ranting tragedies. Too many characters. Not a tolerable woman's part in the play. Anything but _that_, my dear Tom. It would be impossible to fill it up. One could not expect anybody to take such a part. Nothing but buffoonery from beginning to end. _That_ might do, perhaps, but for the low parts. If I _must_ give my opinion, I have always thought it the most insipid play in the English language. _I_ do not wish to make objections; I shall be happy to be of any use, but I think we could not chuse worse." Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all, and wondering how it would end. For her own gratification she could have wished that something might be acted, for she had never seen even half a play, but everything of higher consequence was against it. "This will never do," said Tom Bertram at last. "We are wasting time most abominably. Something must be fixed on. No matter what, so that something is chosen. We must not be so nice. A few characters too many must not frighten us. We must _double_ them. We must descend a little. If a part is insignificant, the greater our credit in making anything of it. From this moment I make no difficulties. I take any part you chuse to give me, so as it be comic. Let it but be comic, I condition for nothing more." For about the fifth time he then proposed the Heir at Law, doubting only whether to prefer Lord Duberley or Dr. Pangloss for himself; and very earnestly, but very unsuccessfully, trying to persuade the others that there were some fine tragic parts in the rest of the Dramatis Person. The pause which followed this fruitless effort was ended by the same speaker, who, taking up one of the many volumes of plays that lay on the table, and turning it over, suddenly exclaimed-"Lovers' Vows! And why should not Lovers' Vows do for _us_ as well as for the Ravenshaws? How came it never to be thought of before? It strikes me as if it would do exactly. What say you all? Here are two capital tragic parts for Yates and Crawford, and here is the rhyming Butler for me, if nobody else wants it; a trifling part, but the sort of thing I should not dislike, and, as I said before, I am determined to take anything and do my best. And as for the rest, they may be filled up by anybody. It is only Count Cassel and Anhalt." The suggestion was generally welcome. Everybody was growing weary of indecision, and the first idea with everybody was, that nothing had been proposed before so likely to suit them all. Mr. Yates was particularly pleased: he had been sighing and longing to do the Baron at Ecclesford, had grudged every rant of Lord Ravenshaw's, and been forced to re-rant it all in his own room. The storm through Baron Wildenheim was the height of his theatrical ambition; and with the advantage of knowing half the scenes by heart already, he did now, with the greatest alacrity, offer his services for the part. To do him justice, however, he did not resolve to appropriate it; for remembering that there was some very good ranting-ground in Frederick, he professed an equal willingness for that. Henry Crawford was ready to take either. Whichever Mr. Yates did not chuse would perfectly satisfy him, and a short parley of compliment ensued. Miss Bertram, feeling all the interest of an Agatha in the question, took on her to decide it, by observing to Mr. Yates that this was a point in which height and figure ought to be considered, and that _his_ being the tallest, seemed to fit him peculiarly for the Baron. She was acknowledged to be quite right, and the two parts being accepted accordingly, she was certain of the proper Frederick. Three of the characters were now cast, besides Mr. Rushworth, who was always answered for by Maria as willing to do anything; when Julia, meaning, like her sister, to be Agatha, began to be scrupulous on Miss Crawford's account. "This is not behaving well by the absent," said she. "Here are not women enough. Amelia and Agatha may do for Maria and me, but here is nothing for your sister, Mr. Crawford." Mr. Crawford desired _that_ might not be thought of: he was very sure his sister had no wish of acting but as she might be useful, and that she would not allow herself to be considered in the present case. But this was immediately opposed by Tom Bertram, who asserted the part of Amelia to be in every respect the property of Miss Crawford, if she would accept it. "It falls as naturally, as necessarily to her," said he, "as Agatha does to one or other of my sisters. It can be no sacrifice on their side, for it is highly comic." A short silence followed. Each sister looked anxious; for each felt the best claim to Agatha, and was hoping to have it pressed on her by the rest. Henry Crawford, who meanwhile had taken up the play, and with seeming carelessness was turning over the first act, soon settled the business. "I must entreat Miss _Julia_ Bertram," said he, "not to engage in the part of Agatha, or it will be the ruin of all my solemnity. You must not, indeed you must not" (turning to her). "I could not stand your countenance dressed up in woe and paleness. The many laughs we have had together would infallibly come across me, and Frederick and his knapsack would be obliged to run away." Pleasantly, courteously, it was spoken; but the manner was lost in the matter to Julia's feelings. She saw a glance at Maria which confirmed the injury to herself: it was a scheme, a trick; she was slighted, Maria was preferred; the smile of triumph which Maria was trying to suppress shewed how well it was understood; and before Julia could command herself enough to speak, her brother gave his weight against her too, by saying, "Oh yes! Maria must be Agatha. Maria will be the best Agatha. Though Julia fancies she prefers tragedy, I would not trust her in it. There is nothing of tragedy about her. She has not the look of it. Her features are not tragic features, and she walks too quick, and speaks too quick, and would not keep her countenance. She had better do the old countrywoman: the Cottager's wife; you had, indeed, Julia. Cottager's wife is a very pretty part, I assure you. The old lady relieves the high-flown benevolence of her husband with a good deal of spirit. You shall be Cottager's wife." "Cottager's wife!" cried Mr. Yates. "What are you talking of? The most trivial, paltry, insignificant part; the merest commonplace; not a tolerable speech in the whole. Your sister do that! It is an insult to propose it. At Ecclesford the governess was to have done it. We all agreed that it could not be offered to anybody else. A little more justice, Mr. Manager, if you please. You do not deserve the office, if you cannot appreciate the talents of your company a little better." "Why, as to _that_, my good friend, till I and my company have really acted there must be some guesswork; but I mean no disparagement to Julia. We cannot have two Agathas, and we must have one Cottager's wife; and I am sure I set her the example of moderation myself in being satisfied with the old Butler. If the part is trifling she will have more credit in making something of it; and if she is so desperately bent against everything humorous, let her take Cottager's speeches instead of Cottager's wife's, and so change the parts all through; _he_ is solemn and pathetic enough, I am sure. It could make no difference in the play, and as for Cottager himself, when he has got his wife's speeches, _I_ would undertake him with all my heart." "With all your partiality for Cottager's wife," said Henry Crawford, "it will be impossible to make anything of it fit for your sister, and we must not suffer her good-nature to be imposed on. We must not _allow_ her to accept the part. She must not be left to her own complaisance. Her talents will be wanted in Amelia. Amelia is a character more difficult to be well represented than even Agatha. I consider Amelia is the most difficult character in the whole piece. It requires great powers, great nicety, to give her playfulness and simplicity without extravagance. I have seen good actresses fail in the part. Simplicity, indeed, is beyond the reach of almost every actress by profession. It requires a delicacy of feeling which they have not. It requires a gentlewoman-a Julia Bertram. You _will_ undertake it, I hope?" turning to her with a look of anxious entreaty, which softened her a little; but while she hesitated what to say, her brother again interposed with Miss Crawford's better claim. "No, no, Julia must not be Amelia. It is not at all the part for her. She would not like it. She would not do well. She is too tall and robust. Amelia should be a small, light, girlish, skipping figure. It is fit for Miss Crawford, and Miss Crawford only. She looks the part, and I am persuaded will do it admirably." Without attending to this, Henry Crawford continued his supplication. "You must oblige us," said he, "indeed you must. When you have studied the character, I am sure you will feel it suit you. Tragedy may be your choice, but it will certainly appear that comedy chuses _you_. You will be to visit me in prison with a basket of provisions; you will not refuse to visit me in prison? I think I see you coming in with your basket." The influence of his voice was felt. Julia wavered; but was he only trying to soothe and pacify her, and make her overlook the previous affront? She distrusted him. The slight had been most determined. He was, perhaps, but at treacherous play with her. She looked suspiciously at her sister; Maria's countenance was to decide it: if she were vexed and alarmed-but Maria looked all serenity and satisfaction, and Julia well knew that on this ground Maria could not be happy but at her expense. With hasty indignation, therefore, and a tremulous voice, she said to him, "You do not seem afraid of not keeping your countenance when I come in with a basket of provisions-though one might have supposed-but it is only as Agatha that I was to be so overpowering!" She stopped-Henry Crawford looked rather foolish, and as if he did not know what to say. Tom Bertram began again- "Miss Crawford must be Amelia. She will be an excellent Amelia." "Do not be afraid of _my_ wanting the character," cried Julia, with angry quickness: "I am _not_ to be Agatha, and I am sure I will do nothing else; and as to Amelia, it is of all parts in the world the most disgusting to me. I quite detest her. An odious, little, pert, unnatural, impudent girl. I have always protested against comedy, and this is comedy in its worst form." And so saying, she walked hastily out of the room, leaving awkward feelings to more than one, but exciting small compassion in any except Fanny, who had been a quiet auditor of the whole, and who could not think of her as under the agitations of _jealousy_ without great pity. A short silence succeeded her leaving them; but her brother soon returned to business and Lovers' Vows, and was eagerly looking over the play, with Mr. Yates's help, to ascertain what scenery would be necessary-while Maria and Henry Crawford conversed together in an under-voice, and the declaration with which she began of, "I am sure I would give up the part to Julia most willingly, but that though I shall probably do it very ill, I feel persuaded _she_ would do it worse," was doubtless receiving all the compliments it called for. When this had lasted some time, the division of the party was completed by Tom Bertram and Mr. Yates walking off together to consult farther in the room now beginning to be called _the_ _Theatre_, and Miss Bertram's resolving to go down to the Parsonage herself with the offer of Amelia to Miss Crawford; and Fanny remained alone. The first use she made of her solitude was to take up the volume which had been left on the table, and begin to acquaint herself with the play of which she had heard so much. Her curiosity was all awake, and she ran through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of astonishment, that it could be chosen in the present instance, that it could be proposed and accepted in a private theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home representation-the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in; and longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which Edmund would certainly make.

Fanny seemed nearer being right than Edmund had supposed. Finding a play that would suit everybody proved to be no trifle; and the carpenter had taken his measurements, and, with an enlargement of plan, was already at work, while a play was still to seek. Other preparations were in hand. An enormous roll of green baize had arrived from Northampton, and had been cut out by Mrs. Norris (with a saving by her good management of full three-quarters of a yard), and was being made into a curtain, and still the play was wanting. Edmund began almost to hope that none might ever be found. There were, in fact, so many people to be pleased, so many best characters required, and, above all, such a need that the play should be at once both tragedy and comedy, that there did seem little chance of a decision. On the tragic side were the Miss Bertrams, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates; on the comic, Tom Bertram, not quite alone, because Mary Crawford's wishes, though politely kept back, inclined the same way. They wanted a piece containing very few characters, but every character first-rate, and three principal women. All the best plays were run over in vain. Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor Othello presented anything that could satisfy even the tragedians; and The Rivals, The School for Scandal, and a long et cetera, were dismissed. No piece could be proposed that did not supply a difficulty. "Oh no, that will never do! Let us have no ranting tragedies. Too many characters. Not a tolerable woman's part in the play. Anything but that, my dear Tom." Fanny looked on, amused, and wondering how it would end. She could have wished that something might be acted, for she had never seen a play, but everything of higher consequence was against it. "This will never do," said Tom Bertram at last. "We are wasting time abominably. Something must be fixed on. No matter what, so that something is chosen. A few characters too many must not frighten us. We must double them. From this moment I make no difficulties. I take any part you choose to give me, so as it be comic. I condition for nothing more." For about the fifth time he then proposed the Heir at Law, trying unsuccessfully to persuade the others that there were some fine tragic parts in it. The pause which followed this fruitless effort was ended when Tom, taking up a volume from the table, suddenly exclaimed-"Lovers' Vows! Why should not Lovers' Vows do for us as well as for the Ravenshaws? What say you? Here are two capital tragic parts for Yates and Crawford, and here is the rhyming Butler for me, if nobody else wants it. And as for the rest, they may be filled up by anybody. It is only Count Cassel and Anhalt." The suggestion was welcome. Everybody was growing weary of indecision. Mr. Yates was particularly pleased: he had been longing to do the Baron at Ecclesford, had grudged every rant of Lord Ravenshaw's, and been forced to re-rant it all in his own room. With the advantage of knowing half the scenes by heart already, he now offered his services for the part. Then, remembering that there was some very good ranting-ground in Frederick, he professed an equal willingness for that. Henry Crawford was ready to take either. Miss Bertram, feeling the interest of an Agatha in the question, decided it by observing to Mr. Yates that his height seemed to fit him peculiarly for the Baron. She was acknowledged to be quite right, and was certain of the proper Frederick. Three of the characters were now cast, besides Mr. Rushworth, who was answered for by Maria as willing to do anything; when Julia, meaning, like her sister, to be Agatha, began to be scrupulous on Miss Crawford's account. "Here are not women enough," said she. "Amelia and Agatha may do for Maria and me, but here is nothing for your sister, Mr. Crawford." Mr. Crawford desired that might not be thought of: his sister wished only to be useful. But Tom Bertram asserted the part of Amelia to be the property of Miss Crawford. "It falls as naturally to her," said he, "as Agatha does to one or other of my sisters. It can be no sacrifice on their side, for it is highly comic." A short silence followed. Each sister looked anxious; for each felt the best claim to Agatha, and was hoping to have it pressed on her by the rest. Henry Crawford, who meanwhile had taken up the play, and with seeming carelessness was turning over the first act, settled the business. "I must entreat Miss Julia Bertram," said he, "not to engage in the part of Agatha, or it will be the ruin of all my solemnity. Indeed you must not" (turning to her). "I could not stand your countenance dressed up in woe. The many laughs we have had together would infallibly come across me, and Frederick would be obliged to run away." Pleasantly, courteously, it was spoken; but the manner was lost to Julia's feelings. She saw a glance at Maria which confirmed the injury to herself: it was a trick; she was slighted, Maria was preferred; the smile of triumph which Maria was trying to suppress showed how well it was understood; and before Julia could command herself enough to speak, her brother said, "Oh yes! Maria must be Agatha. Though Julia fancies she prefers tragedy, I would not trust her in it. There is nothing of tragedy about her. She had better do the old countrywoman: the Cottager's wife; you had, indeed, Julia." "Cottager's wife!" cried Mr. Yates. "What are you talking of? The most trivial, paltry part. Your sister do that! It is an insult to propose it. At Ecclesford the governess was to have done it. A little more justice, Mr. Manager, if you please." "Why, I mean no disparagement to Julia. We cannot have two Agathas, and we must have one Cottager's wife. If the part is trifling she will have credit in making something of it." "We must not let her good-nature be imposed on," said Henry Crawford. "We must not allow her to accept the part. Her talents will be wanted in Amelia. Amelia is a character more difficult to act well than even Agatha. I consider Amelia is the most difficult character in the whole piece. It requires great powers to give her playfulness and simplicity without extravagance. I have seen good actresses fail in the part. It requires a gentlewoman-a Julia Bertram. You will undertake it, I hope?" turning to her with a look of anxious entreaty, which softened her a little; but while she hesitated, her brother again interposed. "No, no, Julia must not be Amelia. She is too tall and robust. Amelia should be a small, light, girlish, skipping figure. It is fit for Miss Crawford, and Miss Crawford only." Without attending to this, Henry Crawford continued his supplication. "You must oblige us," said he. "When you have studied the character, I am sure you will feel it will suit you. Tragedy may be your choice, but it will certainly appear that comedy chooses you. You will be to visit me in prison with a basket of provisions; you will not refuse to visit me in prison? I think I see you coming in with your basket." Julia wavered; but was he only trying to pacify her, and make her overlook the previous affront? She distrusted him. He was, perhaps, at treacherous play with her. She looked suspiciously at her sister; Maria's face was to decide it: if she were vexed and alarmed-but Maria looked all serenity and satisfaction. With hasty indignation, therefore, she said to him, "You do not seem afraid of not keeping your countenance when I come in with a basket of provisions-though one might have supposed-but it is only as Agatha that I was to be so overpowering!" She stopped-Henry Crawford looked rather foolish. Tom Bertram began again- "Miss Crawford must be Amelia. She will be an excellent Amelia." "Do not be afraid of my wanting the character," cried Julia, with angry quickness: "I am not to be Agatha, and I will do nothing else; and as to Amelia, I quite detest her. An odious, little, pert, unnatural girl. I have always protested against comedy, and this is comedy in its worst form." So saying, she walked hastily out of the room, exciting small compassion in any except Fanny, who pitied her jealousy. A short silence followed; but her brother soon returned to business, and was eagerly looking over the play to ascertain what scenery would be necessary-while Maria and Henry Crawford conversed together in an under-voice. "I would give up the part to Julia most willingly," said Maria, "but though I shall probably do it very ill, I feel persuaded she would do it worse." Tom Bertram and Mr. Yates walked off to consult in the room now beginning to be called the Theatre; Miss Bertram resolved to go down to the Parsonage with the offer of Amelia to Miss Crawford; and Fanny remained alone. She took up the volume which had been left on the table, and begin to read the play. Her curiosity was awake, and she ran through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by astonishment that it could be proposed and accepted in a private theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to be so totally improper-the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit for any modest woman, that she could hardly suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in. She longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which Edmund would certainly make.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 14

Could Sir Thomas have seen all his niece's feelings, when she wrote her first letter to her aunt, he would not have despaired; for though a good night's rest, a pleasant morning, the hope of soon seeing William again, and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tom and Charles being gone to school, Sam on some project of his own, and her father on his usual lounges, enabled her to express herself cheerfully on the subject of home, there were still, to her own perfect consciousness, many drawbacks suppressed. Could he have seen only half that she felt before the end of a week, he would have thought Mr. Crawford sure of her, and been delighted with his own sagacity. Before the week ended, it was all disappointment. In the first place, William was gone. The Thrush had had her orders, the wind had changed, and he was sailed within four days from their reaching Portsmouth; and during those days she had seen him only twice, in a short and hurried way, when he had come ashore on duty. There had been no free conversation, no walk on the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, no acquaintance with the Thrush, nothing of all that they had planned and depended on. Everything in that quarter failed her, except William's affection. His last thought on leaving home was for her. He stepped back again to the door to say, "Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender, and not used to rough it like the rest of us. I charge you, take care of Fanny." William was gone: and the home he had left her in was, Fanny could not conceal it from herself, in almost every respect the very reverse of what she could have wished. It was the abode of noise, disorder, and impropriety. Nobody was in their right place, nothing was done as it ought to be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped. On her father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than she had been prepared for. He did not want abilities but he had no curiosity, and no information beyond his profession; he read only the newspaper and the navy-list; he talked only of the dockyard, the harbour, Spithead, and the Motherbank; he swore and he drank, he was dirty and gross. She had never been able to recall anything approaching to tenderness in his former treatment of herself. There had remained only a general impression of roughness and loudness; and now he scarcely ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke. Her disappointment in her mother was greater: _there_ she had hoped much, and found almost nothing. Every flattering scheme of being of consequence to her soon fell to the ground. Mrs. Price was not unkind; but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from her than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price's attachment had no other source. Her heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her. She was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comforts. These shared her heart: her time was given chiefly to her house and her servants. Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy without getting on, always behindhand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect. Of her two sisters, Mrs. Price very much more resembled Lady Bertram than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity, without any of Mrs. Norris's inclination for it, or any of her activity. Her disposition was naturally easy and indolent, like Lady Bertram's; and a situation of similar affluence and do-nothingness would have been much more suited to her capacity than the exertions and self-denials of the one which her imprudent marriage had placed her in. She might have made just as good a woman of consequence as Lady Bertram, but Mrs. Norris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children on a small income. Much of all this Fanny could not but be sensible of. She might scruple to make use of the words, but she must and did feel that her mother was a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement and discomfort from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company that could lessen her sense of such feelings. Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear above her home, or in any way disqualified or disinclined, by her foreign education, from contributing her help to its comforts, and therefore set about working for Sam immediately; and by working early and late, with perseverance and great despatch, did so much that the boy was shipped off at last, with more than half his linen ready. She had great pleasure in feeling her usefulness, but could not conceive how they would have managed without her. Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went, for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in any errand in the town; and though spurning the remonstrances of Susan, given as they were, though very reasonable in themselves, with ill-timed and powerless warmth, was beginning to be influenced by Fanny's services and gentle persuasions; and she found that the best of the three younger ones was gone in him: Tom and Charles being at least as many years as they were his juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason, which might suggest the expediency of making friends, and of endeavouring to be less disagreeable. Their sister soon despaired of making the smallest impression on _them_; they were quite untameable by any means of address which she had spirits or time to attempt. Every afternoon brought a return of their riotous games all over the house; and she very early learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday's constant half-holiday. Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think the alphabet her greatest enemy, left to be with the servants at her pleasure, and then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to despair of being able to love or assist; and of Susan's temper she had many doubts. Her continual disagreements with her mother, her rash squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were at least so distressing to Fanny that, though admitting they were by no means without provocation, she feared the disposition that could push them to such length must be far from amiable, and from affording any repose to herself. Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out of her head, and teach her to think of her cousin Edmund with moderated feelings. On the contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways. Everything where she now was in full contrast to it. The elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps, above all, the peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them _here_. The living in incessant noise was, to a frame and temper delicate and nervous like Fanny's, an evil which no superadded elegance or harmony could have entirely atoned for. It was the greatest misery of all. At Mansfield, no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts, no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody's feelings were consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting, good sense and good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little irritations sometimes introduced by aunt Norris, they were short, they were trifling, they were as a drop of water to the ocean, compared with the ceaseless tumult of her present abode. Here everybody was noisy, every voice was loud (excepting, perhaps, her mother's, which resembled the soft monotony of Lady Bertram's, only worn into fretfulness). Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out their excuses from the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging, the stairs were never at rest, nothing was done without a clatter, nobody sat still, and nobody could command attention when they spoke. In a review of the two houses, as they appeared to her before the end of a week, Fanny was tempted to apply to them Dr. Johnson's celebrated judgment as to matrimony and celibacy, and say, that though Mansfield Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.

Could Sir Thomas have seen his niece's feelings, he would not have despaired; for despite a good night's rest, the hope of soon seeing William again, and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tom and Charles being gone to school, home still held many drawbacks. Could he have seen only half that she felt before the end of a week, he would have been delighted with his own sagacity. Before the week ended, it was all disappointment. William was gone. The Thrush had had her orders, and sailed within four days; and during those days she had seen him only twice, in a hurried way. There had been no free conversation, no walk on the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, nothing of all that they had planned. Everything failed, except William's affection. His last words on leaving home were: "Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender, and not used to rough it like the rest of us." William was gone: and her home was the very reverse of what she could have wished. It was the abode of noise, disorder, and impropriety. Nobody was in their right place, nothing was done as it ought to be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped. Her father was more negligent of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than she had been prepared for. He did not lack abilities, but he had no curiosity; he read only the newspaper and the navy-list; he swore and he drank, he was dirty and gross. She had never been able to recall anything approaching to tenderness in his former treatment of herself; and now he scarcely ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke. Her disappointment in her mother was greater: there she had hoped much, and found almost nothing. Mrs. Price was not unkind; but her daughter never met with greater kindness from her than on the day of her arrival. Her heart and her time were already full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her. She was fond of her sons, especially William, but Betsey was the first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude. Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; she was busy without getting on; and dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, or any power of engaging their respect. Mrs. Price resembled Lady Bertram more than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity, without any of Mrs. Norris's inclination for it. She was naturally indolent, like Lady Bertram; and Mrs. Norris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children on a small income. Fanny could not but feel this. She might scruple to use the words, but she must feel that her mother was an ill-judging parent, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; and no curiosity to know her better. Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear above her home, and therefore set about working for Sam immediately; and by sewing early and late, did so much that the boy was shipped off at last with more than half his linen ready. Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went, for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in errands; and though spurning the ill-timed though reasonable remonstrances of Susan, he was beginning to be influenced by Fanny's gentle persuasions. She despaired of making the smallest impression on Tom or Charles; they were quite untameable. Every afternoon brought a return of their riotous games all over the house; and she learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday's constant half-holiday. Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think the alphabet her greatest enemy, left with the servants, and then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to despair of; and of Susan's temper she had many doubts. Susan's continual disagreements with her mother, her squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were so distressing to Fanny that she feared Susan's disposition must be far from amiable. Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out of her head. On the contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways. The elegance, propriety, harmony, and above all, the peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them here. The incessant noise was, to a delicate temper like Fanny's, the greatest misery of all. At Mansfield, no raised voice, no tread of violence, was ever heard; everybody's feelings were consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting, good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little irritations of aunt Norris, they were trifling, compared with the ceaseless tumult of her present home. Here everybody was noisy, every voice was loud (excepting, perhaps, her mother's). Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out their excuses from the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging, the stairs were never at rest, nothing was done without a clatter, nobody sat still, and nobody could command attention when they spoke. At the end of a week, Fanny was tempted to say, that though Mansfield Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 39

Miss Crawford accepted the part very readily; and soon after Miss Bertram's return from the Parsonage, Mr. Rushworth arrived, and another character was consequently cast. He had the offer of Count Cassel and Anhalt, and at first did not know which to chuse, and wanted Miss Bertram to direct him; but upon being made to understand the different style of the characters, and which was which, and recollecting that he had once seen the play in London, and had thought Anhalt a very stupid fellow, he soon decided for the Count. Miss Bertram approved the decision, for the less he had to learn the better; and though she could not sympathise in his wish that the Count and Agatha might be to act together, nor wait very patiently while he was slowly turning over the leaves with the hope of still discovering such a scene, she very kindly took his part in hand, and curtailed every speech that admitted being shortened; besides pointing out the necessity of his being very much dressed, and chusing his colours. Mr. Rushworth liked the idea of his finery very well, though affecting to despise it; and was too much engaged with what his own appearance would be to think of the others, or draw any of those conclusions, or feel any of that displeasure which Maria had been half prepared for. Thus much was settled before Edmund, who had been out all the morning, knew anything of the matter; but when he entered the drawing-room before dinner, the buzz of discussion was high between Tom, Maria, and Mr. Yates; and Mr. Rushworth stepped forward with great alacrity to tell him the agreeable news. "We have got a play," said he. "It is to be Lovers' Vows; and I am to be Count Cassel, and am to come in first with a blue dress and a pink satin cloak, and afterwards am to have another fine fancy suit, by way of a shooting-dress. I do not know how I shall like it." Fanny's eyes followed Edmund, and her heart beat for him as she heard this speech, and saw his look, and felt what his sensations must be. "Lovers' Vows!" in a tone of the greatest amazement, was his only reply to Mr. Rushworth, and he turned towards his brother and sisters as if hardly doubting a contradiction. "Yes," cried Mr. Yates. "After all our debatings and difficulties, we find there is nothing that will suit us altogether so well, nothing so unexceptionable, as Lovers' Vows. The wonder is that it should not have been thought of before. My stupidity was abominable, for here we have all the advantage of what I saw at Ecclesford; and it is so useful to have anything of a model! We have cast almost every part." "But what do you do for women?" said Edmund gravely, and looking at Maria. Maria blushed in spite of herself as she answered, "I take the part which Lady Ravenshaw was to have done, and" (with a bolder eye) "Miss Crawford is to be Amelia." "I should not have thought it the sort of play to be so easily filled up, with _us_," replied Edmund, turning away to the fire, where sat his mother, aunt, and Fanny, and seating himself with a look of great vexation. Mr. Rushworth followed him to say, "I come in three times, and have two-and-forty speeches. That's something, is not it? But I do not much like the idea of being so fine. I shall hardly know myself in a blue dress and a pink satin cloak." Edmund could not answer him. In a few minutes Mr. Bertram was called out of the room to satisfy some doubts of the carpenter; and being accompanied by Mr. Yates, and followed soon afterwards by Mr. Rushworth, Edmund almost immediately took the opportunity of saying, "I cannot, before Mr. Yates, speak what I feel as to this play, without reflecting on his friends at Ecclesford; but I must now, my dear Maria, tell _you_, that I think it exceedingly unfit for private representation, and that I hope you will give it up. I cannot but suppose you _will_ when you have read it carefully over. Read only the first act aloud to either your mother or aunt, and see how you can approve it. It will not be necessary to send you to your _father's_ judgment, I am convinced." "We see things very differently," cried Maria. "I am perfectly acquainted with the play, I assure you; and with a very few omissions, and so forth, which will be made, of course, I can see nothing objectionable in it; and _I_ am not the _only_ young woman you find who thinks it very fit for private representation." "I am sorry for it," was his answer; "but in this matter it is _you_ who are to lead. _You_ must set the example. If others have blundered, it is your place to put them right, and shew them what true delicacy is. In all points of decorum _your_ conduct must be law to the rest of the party." This picture of her consequence had some effect, for no one loved better to lead than Maria; and with far more good-humour she answered, "I am much obliged to you, Edmund; you mean very well, I am sure: but I still think you see things too strongly; and I really cannot undertake to harangue all the rest upon a subject of this kind. _There_ would be the greatest indecorum, I think." "Do you imagine that I could have such an idea in my head? No; let your conduct be the only harangue. Say that, on examining the part, you feel yourself unequal to it; that you find it requiring more exertion and confidence than you can be supposed to have. Say this with firmness, and it will be quite enough. All who can distinguish will understand your motive. The play will be given up, and your delicacy honoured as it ought." "Do not act anything improper, my dear," said Lady Bertram. "Sir Thomas would not like it.-Fanny, ring the bell; I must have my dinner.-To be sure, Julia is dressed by this time." "I am convinced, madam," said Edmund, preventing Fanny, "that Sir Thomas would not like it." "There, my dear, do you hear what Edmund says?" "If I were to decline the part," said Maria, with renewed zeal, "Julia would certainly take it." "What!" cried Edmund, "if she knew your reasons!" "Oh! she might think the difference between us-the difference in our situations-that _she_ need not be so scrupulous as _I_ might feel necessary. I am sure she would argue so. No; you must excuse me; I cannot retract my consent; it is too far settled, everybody would be so disappointed, Tom would be quite angry; and if we are so very nice, we shall never act anything." "I was just going to say the very same thing," said Mrs. Norris. "If every play is to be objected to, you will act nothing, and the preparations will be all so much money thrown away, and I am sure _that_ would be a discredit to us all. I do not know the play; but, as Maria says, if there is anything a little too warm (and it is so with most of them) it can be easily left out. We must not be over-precise, Edmund. As Mr. Rushworth is to act too, there can be no harm. I only wish Tom had known his own mind when the carpenters began, for there was the loss of half a day's work about those side-doors. The curtain will be a good job, however. The maids do their work very well, and I think we shall be able to send back some dozens of the rings. There is no occasion to put them so very close together. I _am_ of some use, I hope, in preventing waste and making the most of things. There should always be one steady head to superintend so many young ones. I forgot to tell Tom of something that happened to me this very day. I had been looking about me in the poultry-yard, and was just coming out, when who should I see but Dick Jackson making up to the servants' hall-door with two bits of deal board in his hand, bringing them to father, you may be sure; mother had chanced to send him of a message to father, and then father had bid him bring up them two bits of board, for he could not no how do without them. I knew what all this meant, for the servants' dinner-bell was ringing at the very moment over our heads; and as I hate such encroaching people (the Jacksons are very encroaching, I have always said so: just the sort of people to get all they can), I said to the boy directly (a great lubberly fellow of ten years old, you know, who ought to be ashamed of himself), '_I'll_ take the boards to your father, Dick, so get you home again as fast as you can.' The boy looked very silly, and turned away without offering a word, for I believe I might speak pretty sharp; and I dare say it will cure him of coming marauding about the house for one while. I hate such greediness-so good as your father is to the family, employing the man all the year round!" Nobody was at the trouble of an answer; the others soon returned; and Edmund found that to have endeavoured to set them right must be his only satisfaction. Dinner passed heavily. Mrs. Norris related again her triumph over Dick Jackson, but neither play nor preparation were otherwise much talked of, for Edmund's disapprobation was felt even by his brother, though he would not have owned it. Maria, wanting Henry Crawford's animating support, thought the subject better avoided. Mr. Yates, who was trying to make himself agreeable to Julia, found her gloom less impenetrable on any topic than that of his regret at her secession from their company; and Mr. Rushworth, having only his own part and his own dress in his head, had soon talked away all that could be said of either. But the concerns of the theatre were suspended only for an hour or two: there was still a great deal to be settled; and the spirits of evening giving fresh courage, Tom, Maria, and Mr. Yates, soon after their being reassembled in the drawing-room, seated themselves in committee at a separate table, with the play open before them, and were just getting deep in the subject when a most welcome interruption was given by the entrance of Mr. and Miss Crawford, who, late and dark and dirty as it was, could not help coming, and were received with the most grateful joy. "Well, how do you go on?" and "What have you settled?" and "Oh! we can do nothing without you," followed the first salutations; and Henry Crawford was soon seated with the other three at the table, while his sister made her way to Lady Bertram, and with pleasant attention was complimenting _her_. "I must really congratulate your ladyship," said she, "on the play being chosen; for though you have borne it with exemplary patience, I am sure you must be sick of all our noise and difficulties. The actors may be glad, but the bystanders must be infinitely more thankful for a decision; and I do sincerely give you joy, madam, as well as Mrs. Norris, and everybody else who is in the same predicament," glancing half fearfully, half slyly, beyond Fanny to Edmund. She was very civilly answered by Lady Bertram, but Edmund said nothing. His being only a bystander was not disclaimed. After continuing in chat with the party round the fire a few minutes, Miss Crawford returned to the party round the table; and standing by them, seemed to interest herself in their arrangements till, as if struck by a sudden recollection, she exclaimed, "My good friends, you are most composedly at work upon these cottages and alehouses, inside and out; but pray let me know my fate in the meanwhile. Who is to be Anhalt? What gentleman among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?" For a moment no one spoke; and then many spoke together to tell the same melancholy truth, that they had not yet got any Anhalt. "Mr. Rushworth was to be Count Cassel, but no one had yet undertaken Anhalt." "I had my choice of the parts," said Mr. Rushworth; "but I thought I should like the Count best, though I do not much relish the finery I am to have." "You chose very wisely, I am sure," replied Miss Crawford, with a brightened look; "Anhalt is a heavy part." "_The_ _Count_ has two-and-forty speeches," returned Mr. Rushworth, "which is no trifle." "I am not at all surprised," said Miss Crawford, after a short pause, "at this want of an Anhalt. Amelia deserves no better. Such a forward young lady may well frighten the men." "I should be but too happy in taking the part, if it were possible," cried Tom; "but, unluckily, the Butler and Anhalt are in together. I will not entirely give it up, however; I will try what can be done-I will look it over again." "Your _brother_ should take the part," said Mr. Yates, in a low voice. "Do not you think he would?" "_I_ shall not ask him," replied Tom, in a cold, determined manner. Miss Crawford talked of something else, and soon afterwards rejoined the party at the fire. "They do not want me at all," said she, seating herself. "I only puzzle them, and oblige them to make civil speeches. Mr. Edmund Bertram, as you do not act yourself, you will be a disinterested adviser; and, therefore, I apply to _you_. What shall we do for an Anhalt? Is it practicable for any of the others to double it? What is your advice?" "My advice," said he calmly, "is that you change the play." "_I_ should have no objection," she replied; "for though I should not particularly dislike the part of Amelia if well supported, that is, if everything went well, I shall be sorry to be an inconvenience; but as they do not chuse to hear your advice at _that_ _table_" (looking round), "it certainly will not be taken." Edmund said no more. "If _any_ part could tempt _you_ to act, I suppose it would be Anhalt," observed the lady archly, after a short pause; "for he is a clergyman, you know." "_That_ circumstance would by no means tempt me," he replied, "for I should be sorry to make the character ridiculous by bad acting. It must be very difficult to keep Anhalt from appearing a formal, solemn lecturer; and the man who chuses the profession itself is, perhaps, one of the last who would wish to represent it on the stage." Miss Crawford was silenced, and with some feelings of resentment and mortification, moved her chair considerably nearer the tea-table, and gave all her attention to Mrs. Norris, who was presiding there. "Fanny," cried Tom Bertram, from the other table, where the conference was eagerly carrying on, and the conversation incessant, "we want your services." Fanny was up in a moment, expecting some errand; for the habit of employing her in that way was not yet overcome, in spite of all that Edmund could do. "Oh! we do not want to disturb you from your seat. We do not want your _present_ services. We shall only want you in our play. You must be Cottager's wife." "Me!" cried Fanny, sitting down again with a most frightened look. "Indeed you must excuse me. I could not act anything if you were to give me the world. No, indeed, I cannot act." "Indeed, but you must, for we cannot excuse you. It need not frighten you: it is a nothing of a part, a mere nothing, not above half a dozen speeches altogether, and it will not much signify if nobody hears a word you say; so you may be as creep-mouse as you like, but we must have you to look at." "If you are afraid of half a dozen speeches," cried Mr. Rushworth, "what would you do with such a part as mine? I have forty-two to learn." "It is not that I am afraid of learning by heart," said Fanny, shocked to find herself at that moment the only speaker in the room, and to feel that almost every eye was upon her; "but I really cannot act." "Yes, yes, you can act well enough for _us_. Learn your part, and we will teach you all the rest. You have only two scenes, and as I shall be Cottager, I'll put you in and push you about, and you will do it very well, I'll answer for it." "No, indeed, Mr. Bertram, you must excuse me. You cannot have an idea. It would be absolutely impossible for me. If I were to undertake it, I should only disappoint you." "Phoo! Phoo! Do not be so shamefaced. You'll do it very well. Every allowance will be made for you. We do not expect perfection. You must get a brown gown, and a white apron, and a mob cap, and we must make you a few wrinkles, and a little of the crowsfoot at the corner of your eyes, and you will be a very proper, little old woman." "You must excuse me, indeed you must excuse me," cried Fanny, growing more and more red from excessive agitation, and looking distressfully at Edmund, who was kindly observing her; but unwilling to exasperate his brother by interference, gave her only an encouraging smile. Her entreaty had no effect on Tom: he only said again what he had said before; and it was not merely Tom, for the requisition was now backed by Maria, and Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Yates, with an urgency which differed from his but in being more gentle or more ceremonious, and which altogether was quite overpowering to Fanny; and before she could breathe after it, Mrs. Norris completed the whole by thus addressing her in a whisper at once angry and audible-"What a piece of work here is about nothing: I am quite ashamed of you, Fanny, to make such a difficulty of obliging your cousins in a trifle of this sort-so kind as they are to you! Take the part with a good grace, and let us hear no more of the matter, I entreat." "Do not urge her, madam," said Edmund. "It is not fair to urge her in this manner. You see she does not like to act. Let her chuse for herself, as well as the rest of us. Her judgment may be quite as safely trusted. Do not urge her any more." "I am not going to urge her," replied Mrs. Norris sharply; "but I shall think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her-very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and what she is." Edmund was too angry to speak; but Miss Crawford, looking for a moment with astonished eyes at Mrs. Norris, and then at Fanny, whose tears were beginning to shew themselves, immediately said, with some keenness, "I do not like my situation: this _place_ is too hot for me," and moved away her chair to the opposite side of the table, close to Fanny, saying to her, in a kind, low whisper, as she placed herself, "Never mind, my dear Miss Price, this is a cross evening: everybody is cross and teasing, but do not let us mind them"; and with pointed attention continued to talk to her and endeavour to raise her spirits, in spite of being out of spirits herself. By a look at her brother she prevented any farther entreaty from the theatrical board, and the really good feelings by which she was almost purely governed were rapidly restoring her to all the little she had lost in Edmund's favour. Fanny did not love Miss Crawford; but she felt very much obliged to her for her present kindness; and when, from taking notice of her work, and wishing _she_ could work as well, and begging for the pattern, and supposing Fanny was now preparing for her _appearance_, as of course she would come out when her cousin was married, Miss Crawford proceeded to inquire if she had heard lately from her brother at sea, and said that she had quite a curiosity to see him, and imagined him a very fine young man, and advised Fanny to get his picture drawn before he went to sea again-she could not help admitting it to be very agreeable flattery, or help listening, and answering with more animation than she had intended. The consultation upon the play still went on, and Miss Crawford's attention was first called from Fanny by Tom Bertram's telling her, with infinite regret, that he found it absolutely impossible for him to undertake the part of Anhalt in addition to the Butler: he had been most anxiously trying to make it out to be feasible, but it would not do; he must give it up. "But there will not be the smallest difficulty in filling it," he added. "We have but to speak the word; we may pick and chuse. I could name, at this moment, at least six young men within six miles of us, who are wild to be admitted into our company, and there are one or two that would not disgrace us: I should not be afraid to trust either of the Olivers or Charles Maddox. Tom Oliver is a very clever fellow, and Charles Maddox is as gentlemanlike a man as you will see anywhere, so I will take my horse early to-morrow morning and ride over to Stoke, and settle with one of them." While he spoke, Maria was looking apprehensively round at Edmund in full expectation that he must oppose such an enlargement of the plan as this: so contrary to all their first protestations; but Edmund said nothing. After a moment's thought, Miss Crawford calmly replied, "As far as I am concerned, I can have no objection to anything that you all think eligible. Have I ever seen either of the gentlemen? Yes, Mr. Charles Maddox dined at my sister's one day, did not he, Henry? A quiet-looking young man. I remember him. Let _him_ be applied to, if you please, for it will be less unpleasant to me than to have a perfect stranger." Charles Maddox was to be the man. Tom repeated his resolution of going to him early on the morrow; and though Julia, who had scarcely opened her lips before, observed, in a sarcastic manner, and with a glance first at Maria and then at Edmund, that "the Mansfield theatricals would enliven the whole neighbourhood exceedingly," Edmund still held his peace, and shewed his feelings only by a determined gravity. "I am not very sanguine as to our play," said Miss Crawford, in an undervoice to Fanny, after some consideration; "and I can tell Mr. Maddox that I shall shorten some of _his_ speeches, and a great many of _my_ _own_, before we rehearse together. It will be very disagreeable, and by no means what I expected."

Miss Crawford accepted the part readily; and when Mr. Rushworth arrived, another character was cast. He had the offer of Count Cassel and Anhalt, and at first did not know which to choose, but recollecting that he had once seen the play, and had thought Anhalt a very stupid fellow, he decided on the Count. Miss Bertram approved, for the less he had to learn the better. Though she could not sympathise in his wish that the Count and Agatha act together, nor wait very patiently while he was slowly turning over the leaves with the hope of discovering such a scene, she very kindly took his part in hand, and curtailed every speech that admitted being shortened; besides pointing out the necessity of his being finely dressed. Mr. Rushworth liked the idea of his finery very well, though pretending to despise it; and was too engaged with his own appearance to feel any of the displeasure which Maria had been prepared for. Thus much was settled before Edmund, who was out all morning, knew anything of it; but when he entered the drawing-room, the buzz of discussion was high, and Mr. Rushworth stepped forward with alacrity to tell him the agreeable news. "We have got a play," said he. "It is to be Lovers' Vows; and I am to be Count Cassel, and am to come in first with a pink satin cloak, and afterwards am to have another fancy suit, by way of a shooting-dress. I do not know how I shall like it." Fanny's eyes followed Edmund, and her heart beat for him as she felt what his sensations must be. "Lovers' Vows!" in a tone of the greatest amazement, was his reply, and he turned towards his brother and sisters. "Yes," cried Mr. Yates. "We find there is nothing that will suit us so well. We have cast almost every part." "But what do you do for women?" said Edmund gravely, looking at Maria. Maria blushed in spite of herself as she answered, "I take the part which Lady Ravenshaw was to have done, and" (with a bolder eye) "Miss Crawford is to be Amelia." "I should not have thought it the sort of play to be so easily filled up, with us," replied Edmund, turning away with a look of great vexation. Mr. Rushworth followed him. "I come in three times, and have two-and-forty speeches. That's something, is not it? But I do not like the idea of being so fine. I shall hardly know myself in a pink satin cloak." Edmund could not answer. Mr. Bertram was called out of the room by the carpenter, and was accompanied by Mr. Yates and Mr. Rushworth. Edmund then said, "My dear Maria, I must tell you that I think this play exceedingly unfit for private performance. I hope you will give it up. Read the first act aloud to your mother, and see how you can approve it." "I am perfectly acquainted with the play;" cried Maria, "and with a very few omissions, I see nothing objectionable in it; and I am not the only young woman who thinks it fit for private performance." "I am sorry for it," was his answer; "but in this matter you must set the example. If others have blundered, it is your place to put them right, and show them what true delicacy is." This picture of her consequence had some effect; and with far more good-humour she answered, "I am obliged to you, Edmund; you mean well, I am sure: but I still think you see things too strongly; and I cannot undertake to harangue all the rest upon the subject." "Do you imagine that I meant that? No; let your conduct be the only harangue. Say that, on examining the part, you feel yourself unequal to it. All will understand your motive. The play will be given up, and your delicacy honoured as it ought." "Do not act anything improper, my dear," said Lady Bertram. "Sir Thomas would not like it.-Fanny, ring the bell; I must have my dinner." "I am convinced, madam," said Edmund, preventing Fanny, "that Sir Thomas would not like it." "There, my dear, do you hear what Edmund says?" "If I were to decline the part," said Maria, with renewed zeal, "Julia would certainly take it. She might think that she need not be so scrupulous as me. I cannot retract my consent; it is too settled, everybody would be so disappointed; and if we are so fastidious, we shall never act anything." "I was just going to say the same thing," said Mrs. Norris. "The preparations will be so much money thrown away. I do not know the play; but if there is anything a little too warm it can be easily left out. As Mr. Rushworth is to act too, there can be no harm. I only wish Tom had known his own mind when the carpenters began, for there was the loss of half a day's work about those side-doors. The curtain will be a good job, however. I think we shall be able to send back some dozens of the rings. I am of some use, I hope, in preventing waste. There should always be one steady head to superintend so many young ones. I forgot to tell Tom of something that happened to me today. Who should I see but Dick Jackson making off with two bits of deal board in his hand, pilfered you may be sure; I hate such encroaching people as the Jacksons, who get all they can. I said to the boy directly, 'I'll take the boards, Dick, so get you home again.' The boy looked very silly, and turned away without a word; and I dare say it will cure him of marauding about the house for a while. I hate such greediness!" Nobody troubled to answer. Dinner passed heavily. Mrs. Norris related again her triumph over Dick Jackson, but neither play nor preparation were much talked of, for Edmund's disapprobation was felt even by his brother. Maria thought the subject better avoided. Mr. Yates, who was trying to make himself agreeable to Julia, found her gloom was less on other topics; and Mr. Rushworth, having only his own part and his own dress in his head, had soon talked away all that could be said of either. But after an hour or two, the spirits of the evening gave fresh courage. Tom, Maria, and Mr. Yates were seated at the table with the play open before them, when Mr. and Miss Crawford entered and were received with grateful joy. Henry Crawford was soon seated with the other three at the table, while his sister made her way to Lady Bertram, by the fire. "I congratulate your ladyship," said she, "on the play being chosen; for I am sure you must be sick of all our difficulties. The bystanders must be infinitely thankful for a decision; and I give you joy, madam, as well as everybody else who is in the same predicament," glancing at Edmund. Edmund said nothing. After chatting a few minutes, Miss Crawford returned to the party round the table; and seemed to interest herself in their arrangements till, as if struck by a sudden recollection, she exclaimed, "My good friends, pray let me know my fate. Who is to be Anhalt? What gentleman among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?" For a moment no one spoke; and then many spoke together to tell the melancholy truth, that they had not yet got any Anhalt. "I thought I should like the Count best," said Mr Rushworth, "though I do not much relish the finery I am to have." "You chose wisely, I am sure," replied Miss Crawford, with a brightened look; "Anhalt is a heavy part." "The Count has two-and-forty speeches," returned Mr. Rushworth, "which is no trifle." "I am not surprised," said Miss Crawford, "at this want of an Anhalt. Amelia deserves no better. Such a forward young lady may well frighten the men." "I should take the part, if it were possible," cried Tom; "but, unluckily, the Butler and Anhalt are in together. However; I will try what can be done." "Your brother should take the part," said Mr. Yates. "I shall not ask him," replied Tom coldly. Miss Crawford talked of something else, and soon afterwards rejoined the party at the fire. "They do not want me," said she. "Mr. Edmund Bertram, as you do not act yourself, you will be a disinterested adviser; and, therefore, I apply to you. What shall we do for an Anhalt? What is your advice?" "My advice," said he calmly, "is that you change the play." "I should have no objection," she replied; "though I should not particularly dislike the part of Amelia; but as they do not choose to hear your advice, it certainly will not be taken." Edmund said no more. "If any part could tempt you to act, I suppose it would be Anhalt," observed the lady archly, after a short pause; "for he is a clergyman, you know." "That would not tempt me," he replied, "for I should be sorry to make the character ridiculous by bad acting." Miss Crawford was silenced. Moving her chair nearer the tea-table, she gave her attention to Mrs. Norris. "Fanny," cried Tom Bertram, "we want your services." Fanny was up in a moment, expecting some errand. "Oh! we do not want to disturb you from your seat. We only want you in our play. You must be Cottager's wife." "Me!" cried Fanny, sitting down again with a frightened look. "Indeed you must excuse me. I cannot act." "But you must. It need not frighten you: it is a nothing of a part, not half a dozen speeches, and it will not signify if nobody hears a word you say; so you may be as creep-mouse as you like." "Why, I have forty-two speeches," cried Mr. Rushworth. "It is not that I am afraid of learning by heart," said Fanny, shocked to find that every eye was upon her; "but I really cannot act." "You can act well enough for us. You have only two scenes." "No, indeed, Mr. Bertram, you must excuse me. It would be absolutely impossible for me. I should only disappoint you." "Phoo! We do not expect perfection. You must get a brown gown, and a white apron, and a mob cap, and we must make you a few wrinkles, and you will be a very proper little old woman." "Indeed you must excuse me," cried Fanny, in agitation, and looking distressfully at Edmund, who was kindly observing her; but unwilling to exasperate his brother, gave her only an encouraging smile. Her entreaty had no effect on Tom: and it was not merely Tom. His request was now backed by Maria, and Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Yates, and Mrs. Norris addressed her in an angry whisper-"What a piece of work about nothing: I am quite ashamed of you, Fanny, to make such a difficulty of obliging your cousins in such a trifle-so kind as they are to you!" "Do not urge her, madam," said Edmund. "You see she does not like to act." "I am not going to urge her," replied Mrs. Norris sharply; "but I shall think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish-very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and what she is." Edmund was too angry to speak; but Miss Crawford, looking with astonished eyes at Mrs. Norris, and then at Fanny, whose tears were beginning to show, immediately said, "I do not like my situation: this place is too hot for me." She moved her chair close to Fanny, saying to her, in a kind, low whisper, "Never mind, my dear Miss Price, this is a cross evening: everybody is cross and teasing, but do not let us mind them"; and continued to talk to her and endeavour to raise her spirits, in spite of being out of spirits herself. The really good feelings by which she was almost purely governed were rapidly restoring her in Edmund's favour. Fanny did not love Miss Crawford; but she felt very grateful for her kindness; and when, after talking about her needlework, Miss Crawford proceeded to inquire if she had heard lately from her brother at sea, and said that she was curious to see him, and imagined him a very fine young man-she could not help admitting it to be very agreeable flattery, and answering with more animation than she had intended. Miss Crawford's attention was called from Fanny by Tom Bertram's telling her, with regret, that he found it impossible to take the part of Anhalt in addition to the Butler. "But there will no difficulty in filling it," he added. "We may pick and choose. I could name six young men who are wild to be admitted into our company, and there are one or two that would not disgrace us: Tom Oliver is a clever fellow, and Charles Maddox is a gentlemanlike man, so I will ride over tomorrow, and settle with one of them." Maria looked apprehensively at Edmund, expecting that he must oppose this enlargement of the plan: but Edmund said nothing. After a moment's thought, Miss Crawford calmly replied, "I can have no objection to anything that you all think eligible. Have I ever seen either of the gentlemen? Yes, Mr. Charles Maddox dined at my sister's, did not he, Henry? A quiet-looking young man. Let him be applied to, if you please, for it will be less unpleasant to me than a perfect stranger." Tom repeated his resolution of going to Charles Maddox on the morrow; and though Julia observed sarcastically that "the Mansfield theatricals would enliven the whole neighbourhood exceedingly," Edmund still held his peace, and showed his feelings only by a determined gravity. Miss Crawford said quietly to Fanny, "I can tell Mr. Maddox that I shall shorten some of his speeches, and a great many of my own, before we rehearse together. It will be very disagreeable, and by no means what I expected."

Mansfield Park

Chapter 15

The first event of any importance in the family was the death of Mr. Norris, which happened when Fanny was about fifteen, and necessarily introduced alterations and novelties. Mrs. Norris, on quitting the Parsonage, removed first to the Park, and afterwards to a small house of Sir Thomas's in the village, and consoled herself for the loss of her husband by considering that she could do very well without him; and for her reduction of income by the evident necessity of stricter economy. The living was hereafter for Edmund; and, had his uncle died a few years sooner, it would have been duly given to some friend to hold till he were old enough for orders. But Tom's extravagance had, previous to that event, been so great as to render a different disposal of the next presentation necessary, and the younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder. There was another family living actually held for Edmund; but though this circumstance had made the arrangement somewhat easier to Sir Thomas's conscience, he could not but feel it to be an act of injustice, and he earnestly tried to impress his eldest son with the same conviction, in the hope of its producing a better effect than anything he had yet been able to say or do. "I blush for you, Tom," said he, in his most dignified manner; "I blush for the expedient which I am driven on, and I trust I may pity your feelings as a brother on the occasion. You have robbed Edmund for ten, twenty, thirty years, perhaps for life, of more than half the income which ought to be his. It may hereafter be in my power, or in yours (I hope it will), to procure him better preferment; but it must not be forgotten that no benefit of that sort would have been beyond his natural claims on us, and that nothing can, in fact, be an equivalent for the certain advantage which he is now obliged to forego through the urgency of your debts." Tom listened with some shame and some sorrow; but escaping as quickly as possible, could soon with cheerful selfishness reflect, firstly, that he had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends; secondly, that his father had made a most tiresome piece of work of it; and, thirdly, that the future incumbent, whoever he might be, would, in all probability, die very soon. On Mr. Norris's death the presentation became the right of a Dr. Grant, who came consequently to reside at Mansfield; and on proving to be a hearty man of forty-five, seemed likely to disappoint Mr. Bertram's calculations. But "no, he was a short-necked, apoplectic sort of fellow, and, plied well with good things, would soon pop off." He had a wife about fifteen years his junior, but no children; and they entered the neighbourhood with the usual fair report of being very respectable, agreeable people. The time was now come when Sir Thomas expected his sister-in-law to claim her share in their niece, the change in Mrs. Norris's situation, and the improvement in Fanny's age, seeming not merely to do away any former objection to their living together, but even to give it the most decided eligibility; and as his own circumstances were rendered less fair than heretofore, by some recent losses on his West India estate, in addition to his eldest son's extravagance, it became not undesirable to himself to be relieved from the expense of her support, and the obligation of her future provision. In the fullness of his belief that such a thing must be, he mentioned its probability to his wife; and the first time of the subject's occurring to her again happening to be when Fanny was present, she calmly observed to her, "So, Fanny, you are going to leave us, and live with my sister. How shall you like it?" Fanny was too much surprised to do more than repeat her aunt's words, "Going to leave you?" "Yes, my dear; why should you be astonished? You have been five years with us, and my sister always meant to take you when Mr. Norris died. But you must come up and tack on my patterns all the same." The news was as disagreeable to Fanny as it had been unexpected. She had never received kindness from her aunt Norris, and could not love her. "I shall be very sorry to go away," said she, with a faltering voice. "Yes, I dare say you will; _that's_ natural enough. I suppose you have had as little to vex you since you came into this house as any creature in the world." "I hope I am not ungrateful, aunt," said Fanny modestly. "No, my dear; I hope not. I have always found you a very good girl." "And am I never to live here again?" "Never, my dear; but you are sure of a comfortable home. It can make very little difference to you, whether you are in one house or the other." Fanny left the room with a very sorrowful heart; she could not feel the difference to be so small, she could not think of living with her aunt with anything like satisfaction. As soon as she met with Edmund she told him her distress. "Cousin," said she, "something is going to happen which I do not like at all; and though you have often persuaded me into being reconciled to things that I disliked at first, you will not be able to do it now. I am going to live entirely with my aunt Norris." "Indeed!" "Yes; my aunt Bertram has just told me so. It is quite settled. I am to leave Mansfield Park, and go to the White House, I suppose, as soon as she is removed there." "Well, Fanny, and if the plan were not unpleasant to you, I should call it an excellent one." "Oh, cousin!" "It has everything else in its favour. My aunt is acting like a sensible woman in wishing for you. She is choosing a friend and companion exactly where she ought, and I am glad her love of money does not interfere. You will be what you ought to be to her. I hope it does not distress you very much, Fanny?" "Indeed it does: I cannot like it. I love this house and everything in it: I shall love nothing there. You know how uncomfortable I feel with her." "I can say nothing for her manner to you as a child; but it was the same with us all, or nearly so. She never knew how to be pleasant to children. But you are now of an age to be treated better; I think she is behaving better already; and when you are her only companion, you _must_ be important to her." "I can never be important to any one." "What is to prevent you?" "Everything. My situation, my foolishness and awkwardness." "As to your foolishness and awkwardness, my dear Fanny, believe me, you never have a shadow of either, but in using the words so improperly. There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without wishing to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion." "You are too kind," said Fanny, colouring at such praise; "how shall I ever thank you as I ought, for thinking so well of me. Oh! cousin, if I am to go away, I shall remember your goodness to the last moment of my life." "Why, indeed, Fanny, I should hope to be remembered at such a distance as the White House. You speak as if you were going two hundred miles off instead of only across the park; but you will belong to us almost as much as ever. The two families will be meeting every day in the year. The only difference will be that, living with your aunt, you will necessarily be brought forward as you ought to be. _Here_ there are too many whom you can hide behind; but with _her_ you will be forced to speak for yourself." "Oh! do not say so." "I must say it, and say it with pleasure. Mrs. Norris is much better fitted than my mother for having the charge of you now. She is of a temper to do a great deal for anybody she really interests herself about, and she will force you to do justice to your natural powers." Fanny sighed, and said, "I cannot see things as you do; but I ought to believe you to be right rather than myself, and I am very much obliged to you for trying to reconcile me to what must be. If I could suppose my aunt really to care for me, it would be delightful to feel myself of consequence to anybody. _Here_, I know, I am of none, and yet I love the place so well." "The place, Fanny, is what you will not quit, though you quit the house. You will have as free a command of the park and gardens as ever. Even _your_ constant little heart need not take fright at such a nominal change. You will have the same walks to frequent, the same library to choose from, the same people to look at, the same horse to ride." "Very true. Yes, dear old grey pony! Ah! cousin, when I remember how much I used to dread riding, what terrors it gave me to hear it talked of as likely to do me good (oh! how I have trembled at my uncle's opening his lips if horses were talked of), and then think of the kind pains you took to reason and persuade me out of my fears, and convince me that I should like it after a little while, and feel how right you proved to be, I am inclined to hope you may always prophesy as well." "And I am quite convinced that your being with Mrs. Norris will be as good for your mind as riding has been for your health, and as much for your ultimate happiness too." So ended their discourse, which, for any very appropriate service it could render Fanny, might as well have been spared, for Mrs. Norris had not the smallest intention of taking her. It had never occurred to her, on the present occasion, but as a thing to be carefully avoided. To prevent its being expected, she had fixed on the smallest habitation which could rank as genteel among the buildings of Mansfield parish, the White House being only just large enough to receive herself and her servants, and allow a spare room for a friend, of which she made a very particular point. The spare rooms at the Parsonage had never been wanted, but the absolute necessity of a spare room for a friend was now never forgotten. Not all her precautions, however, could save her from being suspected of something better; or, perhaps, her very display of the importance of a spare room might have misled Sir Thomas to suppose it really intended for Fanny. Lady Bertram soon brought the matter to a certainty by carelessly observing to Mrs. Norris- "I think, sister, we need not keep Miss Lee any longer, when Fanny goes to live with you." Mrs. Norris almost started. "Live with me, dear Lady Bertram! what do you mean?" "Is she not to live with you? I thought you had settled it with Sir Thomas." "Me! never. I never spoke a syllable about it to Sir Thomas, nor he to me. Fanny live with me! the last thing in the world for me to think of, or for anybody to wish that really knows us both. Good heaven! what could I do with Fanny? Me! a poor, helpless, forlorn widow, unfit for anything, my spirits quite broke down; what could I do with a girl at her time of life? A girl of fifteen! the very age of all others to need most attention and care, and put the cheerfullest spirits to the test! Sure Sir Thomas could not seriously expect such a thing! Sir Thomas is too much my friend. Nobody that wishes me well, I am sure, would propose it. How came Sir Thomas to speak to you about it?" "Indeed, I do not know. I suppose he thought it best." "But what did he say? He could not say he _wished_ me to take Fanny. I am sure in his heart he could not wish me to do it." "No; he only said he thought it very likely; and I thought so too. We both thought it would be a comfort to you. But if you do not like it, there is no more to be said. She is no encumbrance here." "Dear sister, if you consider my unhappy state, how can she be any comfort to me? Here am I, a poor desolate widow, deprived of the best of husbands, my health gone in attending and nursing him, my spirits still worse, all my peace in this world destroyed, with hardly enough to support me in the rank of a gentlewoman, and enable me to live so as not to disgrace the memory of the dear departed-what possible comfort could I have in taking such a charge upon me as Fanny? If I could wish it for my own sake, I would not do so unjust a thing by the poor girl. She is in good hands, and sure of doing well. I must struggle through my sorrows and difficulties as I can." "Then you will not mind living by yourself quite alone?" "Lady Bertram, I do not complain. I know I cannot live as I have done, but I must retrench where I can, and learn to be a better manager. I _have_ _been_ a liberal housekeeper enough, but I shall not be ashamed to practise economy now. My situation is as much altered as my income. A great many things were due from poor Mr. Norris, as clergyman of the parish, that cannot be expected from me. It is unknown how much was consumed in our kitchen by odd comers and goers. At the White House, matters must be better looked after. I _must_ live within my income, or I shall be miserable; and I own it would give me great satisfaction to be able to do rather more, to lay by a little at the end of the year." "I dare say you will. You always do, don't you?" "My object, Lady Bertram, is to be of use to those that come after me. It is for your children's good that I wish to be richer. I have nobody else to care for, but I should be very glad to think I could leave a little trifle among them worth their having." "You are very good, but do not trouble yourself about them. They are sure of being well provided for. Sir Thomas will take care of that." "Why, you know, Sir Thomas's means will be rather straitened if the Antigua estate is to make such poor returns." "Oh! _that_ will soon be settled. Sir Thomas has been writing about it, I know." "Well, Lady Bertram," said Mrs. Norris, moving to go, "I can only say that my sole desire is to be of use to your family: and so, if Sir Thomas should ever speak again about my taking Fanny, you will be able to say that my health and spirits put it quite out of the question; besides that, I really should not have a bed to give her, for I must keep a spare room for a friend." Lady Bertram repeated enough of this conversation to her husband to convince him how much he had mistaken his sister-in-law's views; and she was from that moment perfectly safe from all expectation, or the slightest allusion to it from him. He could not but wonder at her refusing to do anything for a niece whom she had been so forward to adopt; but, as she took early care to make him, as well as Lady Bertram, understand that whatever she possessed was designed for their family, he soon grew reconciled to a distinction which, at the same time that it was advantageous and complimentary to them, would enable him better to provide for Fanny himself. Fanny soon learnt how unnecessary had been her fears of a removal; and her spontaneous, untaught felicity on the discovery, conveyed some consolation to Edmund for his disappointment in what he had expected to be so essentially serviceable to her. Mrs. Norris took possession of the White House, the Grants arrived at the Parsonage, and these events over, everything at Mansfield went on for some time as usual. The Grants showing a disposition to be friendly and sociable, gave great satisfaction in the main among their new acquaintance. They had their faults, and Mrs. Norris soon found them out. The Doctor was very fond of eating, and would have a good dinner every day; and Mrs. Grant, instead of contriving to gratify him at little expense, gave her cook as high wages as they did at Mansfield Park, and was scarcely ever seen in her offices. Mrs. Norris could not speak with any temper of such grievances, nor of the quantity of butter and eggs that were regularly consumed in the house. "Nobody loved plenty and hospitality more than herself; nobody more hated pitiful doings; the Parsonage, she believed, had never been wanting in comforts of any sort, had never borne a bad character in _her_ _time_, but this was a way of going on that she could not understand. A fine lady in a country parsonage was quite out of place. _Her_ store-room, she thought, might have been good enough for Mrs. Grant to go into. Inquire where she would, she could not find out that Mrs. Grant had ever had more than five thousand pounds." Lady Bertram listened without much interest to this sort of invective. She could not enter into the wrongs of an economist, but she felt all the injuries of beauty in Mrs. Grant's being so well settled in life without being handsome, and expressed her astonishment on that point almost as often, though not so diffusely, as Mrs. Norris discussed the other. These opinions had been hardly canvassed a year before another event arose of such importance in the family, as might fairly claim some place in the thoughts and conversation of the ladies. Sir Thomas found it expedient to go to Antigua himself, for the better arrangement of his affairs, and he took his eldest son with him, in the hope of detaching him from some bad connexions at home. They left England with the probability of being nearly a twelvemonth absent. The necessity of the measure in a pecuniary light, and the hope of its utility to his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to the effort of quitting the rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of others at their present most interesting time of life. He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris's watchful attention, and in Edmund's judgment, he had sufficient confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct. Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, or solicitude for his comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous, or difficult, or fatiguing to anybody but themselves. The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all restraint; and without aiming at one gratification that would probably have been forbidden by Sir Thomas, they felt themselves immediately at their own disposal, and to have every indulgence within their reach. Fanny's relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her cousins'; but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were ungrateful, and she really grieved because she could not grieve. "Sir Thomas, who had done so much for her and her brothers, and who was gone perhaps never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it was a shameful insensibility." He had said to her, moreover, on the very last morning, that he hoped she might see William again in the course of the ensuing winter, and had charged her to write and invite him to Mansfield as soon as the squadron to which he belonged should be known to be in England. "This was so thoughtful and kind!" and would he only have smiled upon her, and called her "my dear Fanny," while he said it, every former frown or cold address might have been forgotten. But he had ended his speech in a way to sink her in sad mortification, by adding, "If William does come to Mansfield, I hope you may be able to convince him that the many years which have passed since you parted have not been spent on your side entirely without improvement; though, I fear, he must find his sister at sixteen in some respects too much like his sister at ten." She cried bitterly over this reflection when her uncle was gone; and her cousins, on seeing her with red eyes, set her down as a hypocrite.

The death of Mr. Norris, when Fanny was about fifteen, brought changes. Mrs. Norris removed to a small house in the village, and consoled herself for the loss of her husband by considering that she could do very well without him; and for her reduction of income by the necessity of stricter economy. The parson's living was for Edmund; and would have been given to some friend to hold till he were old enough for orders. But Tom's extravagance had been so great as to make a different disposal necessary; the younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder. There was another family living actually held for Edmund; but even so, Sir Thomas could not but feel it to be an injustice, and he earnestly tried to impress his eldest son with the same conviction. "I blush for you, Tom," said he, in his most dignified manner; "You have robbed Edmund for twenty, thirty years, perhaps for life, of more than half the income which ought to be his. It may hereafter be in my power, or in yours, to find him a better position; but nothing can equal the advantage which he must now forego through the urgency of your debts." Tom listened with some shame and sorrow; but escaping as quickly as possible, could soon with cheerful selfishness reflect, firstly, that he had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends; secondly, that his father had made a tiresome piece of work of it; and, thirdly, that the future incumbent, whoever he might be, would probably die very soon. On Mr. Norris's death the living went to a Dr. Grant, who came to reside at Mansfield; and proving to be a hearty man of forty-five, seemed likely to disappoint Mr. Bertram's calculations. But "no, he was a short-necked, apoplectic sort of fellow, and would soon pop off." He had a wife about fifteen years his junior, but no children; and they entered the neighbourhood with the usual fair report of being very respectable, agreeable people. The time was now come when Sir Thomas expected his sister-in-law to claim her share in their niece. Now that Mrs. Norris was a widow, to have Fanny living with her would be very suitable; and as he had borne some losses on his West India estate, in addition to his eldest son's extravagance, he wished to be relieved from the expense of her support. He mentioned this probability to his wife; and she later calmly observed to Fanny, "So, Fanny, you are going to leave us, and live with my sister. How shall you like it?" "Going to leave you?" "Yes, my dear; why should you be astonished? You have been five years with us, and my sister always meant to take you when Mr. Norris died." The news was as disagreeable to Fanny as it was unexpected. She had never received kindness from her aunt Norris, and could not love her. "I shall be very sorry to go away," said she, with a faltering voice. "Yes, I dare say you will. You have had as little to vex you in this house as any creature in the world." "I hope I am not ungrateful, aunt," said Fanny. "No, my dear; I have always found you a very good girl." "Am I never to live here again?" "Never, my dear; but you are sure of a comfortable home." Fanny left the room with a very sorrowful heart; she could not think of living with her aunt with satisfaction. As soon as she met with Edmund she told him her distress. "Cousin," said she, "something is going to happen which I do not like at all. I am going to live entirely with my aunt Norris." "Indeed!" "Yes; my aunt Bertram has just told me so. I am to leave Mansfield Park, and go to the White House." "Well, Fanny, if the plan were not unpleasant to you, I should call it an excellent one." "Oh, cousin!" "My aunt is acting like a sensible woman in wishing for you. She is choosing a companion exactly where she ought, and I am glad her love of money does not interfere. I hope it does not distress you very much, Fanny?" "Indeed it does. I love this house and everything in it. You know how uncomfortable I feel with her." "It was the same with us all when we were younger. She never knew how to be pleasant to children. But you are now of an age to be treated better; and when you are her only companion, you must be important to her." "I can never be important to any one." "What is to prevent you?" "Everything. My situation, my foolishness and awkwardness." "As to your foolishness and awkwardness, my dear Fanny, believe me, you never have a shadow of either, but in using the words so improperly. There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion." "You are too kind," said Fanny, colouring at such praise; "how shall I ever thank you as I ought, for thinking so well of me. Oh! cousin, if I am to go away, I shall remember your goodness to the last moment of my life." "Why, Fanny, I should hope to be remembered at such a distance as the White House. You speak as if you were going two hundred miles off; but you will belong to us as much as ever. The two families will be meeting every day. The only difference will be that, living with your aunt, you will be brought forward. Here there are too many whom you can hide behind; but with her you will be forced to speak for yourself." "Oh! do not say so." "I must say it, and with pleasure. Mrs. Norris will do a great deal for anybody she interests herself about." Fanny sighed. "I cannot see things as you do; but I ought to believe you to be right, and I am obliged to you for trying to reconcile me to it. If I could suppose my aunt really to care for me, it would be delightful to feel myself of consequence to anybody. Here, I know, I am of none, and yet I love the place so well." "The place, Fanny, is what you will not quit, though you quit the house. You will have as free a command of the park and gardens as ever. You will have the same walks to frequent, the same library to choose from, the same horse to ride." "Yes, dear old grey pony! Ah! cousin, I remember how much I used to dread riding, what terrors it gave me; and how kindly you persuaded me out of my fears, and convinced me that I should like it after a little while. When I feel how right you were, I hope you may always prophesy so well." "And I am quite convinced that your being with Mrs. Norris will be as good for your mind as riding has been for your health, and for your happiness too." So ended their discourse, which might as well have been spared, for Mrs. Norris had not the smallest intention of taking Fanny. It was a thing to be avoided. To prevent its being expected, she had fixed on the smallest habitation which could rank as genteel, the White House being only just large enough to receive herself and her servants, and allow a spare room for a friend, of which she made a very particular point. The spare rooms at the Parsonage had never been wanted, but the absolute necessity of a spare room for a friend was now never forgotten. Perhaps her very display of the importance of a spare room might have misled Sir Thomas to suppose it really intended for Fanny. Lady Bertram soon brought the matter to a head by carelessly observing to Mrs. Norris- "I think, sister, we need not keep Miss Lee, when Fanny goes to live with you." "Live with me! what do you mean?" "Is she not to live with you? I thought you had settled it with Sir Thomas." "Me! never. I never spoke a syllable about it to Sir Thomas, nor he to me. Fanny live with me! Good heaven! what could I do with Fanny? Me! a poor, helpless, forlorn widow, my spirits quite broke down; what could I do with a girl of fifteen? the very age of all others to put the cheerfullest spirits to the test! Sir Thomas could not seriously expect such a thing! How came he to speak to you about it?" "I do not know. I suppose he thought it best." "But he could not say he wished me to take Fanny." "No; he only said he thought it very likely. We both thought it would be a comfort to you. But if you do not like it, she is no encumbrance here." "Dear sister, how can she be any comfort to me? Here am I, a poor desolate widow, my health and spirits gone, my peace destroyed, with hardly enough to support me-what possible comfort could I have in taking such a charge upon me as Fanny? I would not be so unjust to the poor girl. She is in good hands. I must struggle through my sorrows as I can." "Then you will not mind living quite alone?" "Lady Bertram, I do not complain. I cannot live as I have done. I have been a liberal housekeeper enough, but I shall practise economy now. At the White House, I must live within my income; and I own it would give me great satisfaction to lay by a little at the end of the year." "I dare say you will. You always do, don't you?" "My object, Lady Bertram, is to be of use to those that come after me. It is for your children's good that I wish to be richer. I should be glad to think I could leave them a little trifle." "You are very good, but they are sure of being well provided for. Sir Thomas will take care of that." "Why, you know, Sir Thomas's means will be straitened if the Antigua estate makes such poor returns." "Oh! that will soon be settled." "Well, Lady Bertram," said Mrs. Norris, "My sole desire is to be of use to your family: and so, if Sir Thomas should speak again about my taking Fanny, you will be able to say that my health and spirits put it quite out of the question; besides, I really have no bed to give her, for I must keep a spare room for a friend." Lady Bertram repeated enough of this conversation to her husband to convince him that he had mistaken his sister-in-law's views; and she was from that moment safe from expectation. He wondered at her refusing to do anything for a niece whom she had been so anxious to adopt; but soon accepted it. Fanny learnt how unnecessary had been her fears. Mrs. Norris moved to the White House, the Grants arrived at the Parsonage, and everything at Mansfield went on for some time as usual. The Grants, being friendly and sociable, gave great satisfaction among their new acquaintance. They had their faults, and Mrs. Norris soon found them out. The Doctor was very fond of eating, and would have a good dinner every day; and Mrs. Grant gave her cook as high wages as they did at Mansfield Park. Mrs. Norris could not speak with any temper of such grievances, nor of the quantity of butter and eggs that were consumed in the house. "Nobody loved plenty and hospitality more than herself; but this was a way of going on that she could not understand. A fine lady in a country parsonage was quite out of place. Inquire where she would, she could not find out that Mrs. Grant had ever had more than five thousand pounds." Lady Bertram listened without much interest. She could not enter into the wrongs of an economist, but she felt astonishment in Mrs. Grant's being so well settled in life without being handsome. Hardly a year on, another event arose of importance in the family. Sir Thomas needed to go to Antigua to sort out his affairs, and he took his eldest son, in the hope of detaching him from some bad connexions at home. They left England expecting to be a twelvemonth absent. The necessity of the journey reconciled Sir Thomas to quitting the rest of his family, and leaving his daughters in the care of others. He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them; but, in Mrs. Norris's watchful attention, and in Edmund's judgment, he had confidence. Lady Bertram did not like to have her husband leave her; but she was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous or difficult to anybody but themselves. The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their sorrow, but for their lack of it. Their father was no object of love to them; his absence was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all restraint; they felt themselves at their own disposal, and to have every indulgence within their reach. Fanny's relief was quite equal to her cousins'; but she really grieved because she could not grieve. "Sir Thomas, who had done so much for her, gone perhaps never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it was a shameful insensibility." He had said to her, on the last morning, that he hoped she might see William again, and had told her to invite him to Mansfield when his squadron was in England. "This was so thoughtful and kind!" and if he had only smiled, and called her "my dear Fanny", every former cold address might have been forgotten. But he had ended his speech by adding, "If William does come to Mansfield, I hope you may convince him that your years here have not been spent entirely without improvement; though, I fear, he must find his sister at sixteen too much like his sister at ten." She cried bitterly over this reflection when her uncle was gone; and her cousins, seeing her with red eyes, set her down as a hypocrite.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 3

The ball was over, and the breakfast was soon over too; the last kiss was given, and William was gone. Mr. Crawford had, as he foretold, been very punctual, and short and pleasant had been the meal. After seeing William to the last moment, Fanny walked back to the breakfast-room with a very saddened heart to grieve over the melancholy change; and there her uncle kindly left her to cry in peace, conceiving, perhaps, that the deserted chair of each young man might exercise her tender enthusiasm, and that the remaining cold pork bones and mustard in William's plate might but divide her feelings with the broken egg-shells in Mr. Crawford's. She sat and cried _con_ _amore_ as her uncle intended, but it was _con_ _amore_ fraternal and no other. William was gone, and she now felt as if she had wasted half his visit in idle cares and selfish solicitudes unconnected with him. Fanny's disposition was such that she could never even think of her aunt Norris in the meagreness and cheerlessness of her own small house, without reproaching herself for some little want of attention to her when they had been last together; much less could her feelings acquit her of having done and said and thought everything by William that was due to him for a whole fortnight. It was a heavy, melancholy day. Soon after the second breakfast, Edmund bade them good-bye for a week, and mounted his horse for Peterborough, and then all were gone. Nothing remained of last night but remembrances, which she had nobody to share in. She talked to her aunt Bertram-she must talk to somebody of the ball; but her aunt had seen so little of what had passed, and had so little curiosity, that it was heavy work. Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody's dress or anybody's place at supper but her own. "She could not recollect what it was that she had heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes, or what it was that Lady Prescott had noticed in Fanny: she was not sure whether Colonel Harrison had been talking of Mr. Crawford or of William when he said he was the finest young man in the room-somebody had whispered something to her; she had forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be." And these were her longest speeches and clearest communications: the rest was only a languid "Yes, yes; very well; did you? did he? I did not see _that_; I should not know one from the other." This was very bad. It was only better than Mrs. Norris's sharp answers would have been; but she being gone home with all the supernumerary jellies to nurse a sick maid, there was peace and good-humour in their little party, though it could not boast much beside. The evening was heavy like the day. "I cannot think what is the matter with me," said Lady Bertram, when the tea-things were removed. "I feel quite stupid. It must be sitting up so late last night. Fanny, you must do something to keep me awake. I cannot work. Fetch the cards; I feel so very stupid." The cards were brought, and Fanny played at cribbage with her aunt till bedtime; and as Sir Thomas was reading to himself, no sounds were heard in the room for the next two hours beyond the reckonings of the game-"And _that_ makes thirty-one; four in hand and eight in crib. You are to deal, ma'am; shall I deal for you?" Fanny thought and thought again of the difference which twenty-four hours had made in that room, and all that part of the house. Last night it had been hope and smiles, bustle and motion, noise and brilliancy, in the drawing-room, and out of the drawing-room, and everywhere. Now it was languor, and all but solitude. A good night's rest improved her spirits. She could think of William the next day more cheerfully; and as the morning afforded her an opportunity of talking over Thursday night with Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford, in a very handsome style, with all the heightenings of imagination, and all the laughs of playfulness which are so essential to the shade of a departed ball, she could afterwards bring her mind without much effort into its everyday state, and easily conform to the tranquillity of the present quiet week. They were indeed a smaller party than she had ever known there for a whole day together, and _he_ was gone on whom the comfort and cheerfulness of every family meeting and every meal chiefly depended. But this must be learned to be endured. He would soon be always gone; and she was thankful that she could now sit in the same room with her uncle, hear his voice, receive his questions, and even answer them, without such wretched feelings as she had formerly known. "We miss our two young men," was Sir Thomas's observation on both the first and second day, as they formed their very reduced circle after dinner; and in consideration of Fanny's swimming eyes, nothing more was said on the first day than to drink their good health; but on the second it led to something farther. William was kindly commended and his promotion hoped for. "And there is no reason to suppose," added Sir Thomas, "but that his visits to us may now be tolerably frequent. As to Edmund, we must learn to do without him. This will be the last winter of his belonging to us, as he has done." "Yes," said Lady Bertram, "but I wish he was not going away. They are all going away, I think. I wish they would stay at home." This wish was levelled principally at Julia, who had just applied for permission to go to town with Maria; and as Sir Thomas thought it best for each daughter that the permission should be granted, Lady Bertram, though in her own good-nature she would not have prevented it, was lamenting the change it made in the prospect of Julia's return, which would otherwise have taken place about this time. A great deal of good sense followed on Sir Thomas's side, tending to reconcile his wife to the arrangement. Everything that a considerate parent _ought_ to feel was advanced for her use; and everything that an affectionate mother _must_ feel in promoting her children's enjoyment was attributed to her nature. Lady Bertram agreed to it all with a calm "Yes"; and at the end of a quarter of an hour's silent consideration spontaneously observed, "Sir Thomas, I have been thinking-and I am very glad we took Fanny as we did, for now the others are away we feel the good of it." Sir Thomas immediately improved this compliment by adding, "Very true. We shew Fanny what a good girl we think her by praising her to her face, she is now a very valuable companion. If we have been kind to _her_, she is now quite as necessary to _us_." "Yes," said Lady Bertram presently; "and it is a comfort to think that we shall always have _her_." Sir Thomas paused, half smiled, glanced at his niece, and then gravely replied, "She will never leave us, I hope, till invited to some other home that may reasonably promise her greater happiness than she knows here." "And _that_ is not very likely to be, Sir Thomas. Who should invite her? Maria might be very glad to see her at Sotherton now and then, but she would not think of asking her to live there; and I am sure she is better off here; and besides, I cannot do without her." The week which passed so quietly and peaceably at the great house in Mansfield had a very different character at the Parsonage. To the young lady, at least, in each family, it brought very different feelings. What was tranquillity and comfort to Fanny was tediousness and vexation to Mary. Something arose from difference of disposition and habit: one so easily satisfied, the other so unused to endure; but still more might be imputed to difference of circumstances. In some points of interest they were exactly opposed to each other. To Fanny's mind, Edmund's absence was really, in its cause and its tendency, a relief. To Mary it was every way painful. She felt the want of his society every day, almost every hour, and was too much in want of it to derive anything but irritation from considering the object for which he went. He could not have devised anything more likely to raise his consequence than this week's absence, occurring as it did at the very time of her brother's going away, of William Price's going too, and completing the sort of general break-up of a party which had been so animated. She felt it keenly. They were now a miserable trio, confined within doors by a series of rain and snow, with nothing to do and no variety to hope for. Angry as she was with Edmund for adhering to his own notions, and acting on them in defiance of her (and she had been so angry that they had hardly parted friends at the ball), she could not help thinking of him continually when absent, dwelling on his merit and affection, and longing again for the almost daily meetings they lately had. His absence was unnecessarily long. He should not have planned such an absence-he should not have left home for a week, when her own departure from Mansfield was so near. Then she began to blame herself. She wished she had not spoken so warmly in their last conversation. She was afraid she had used some strong, some contemptuous expressions in speaking of the clergy, and that should not have been. It was ill-bred; it was wrong. She wished such words unsaid with all her heart. Her vexation did not end with the week. All this was bad, but she had still more to feel when Friday came round again and brought no Edmund; when Saturday came and still no Edmund; and when, through the slight communication with the other family which Sunday produced, she learned that he had actually written home to defer his return, having promised to remain some days longer with his friend. If she had felt impatience and regret before-if she had been sorry for what she said, and feared its too strong effect on him-she now felt and feared it all tenfold more. She had, moreover, to contend with one disagreeable emotion entirely new to her-jealousy. His friend Mr. Owen had sisters; he might find them attractive. But, at any rate, his staying away at a time when, according to all preceding plans, she was to remove to London, meant something that she could not bear. Had Henry returned, as he talked of doing, at the end of three or four days, she should now have been leaving Mansfield. It became absolutely necessary for her to get to Fanny and try to learn something more. She could not live any longer in such solitary wretchedness; and she made her way to the Park, through difficulties of walking which she had deemed unconquerable a week before, for the chance of hearing a little in addition, for the sake of at least hearing his name. The first half-hour was lost, for Fanny and Lady Bertram were together, and unless she had Fanny to herself she could hope for nothing. But at last Lady Bertram left the room, and then almost immediately Miss Crawford thus began, with a voice as well regulated as she could-"And how do _you_ like your cousin Edmund's staying away so long? Being the only young person at home, I consider _you_ as the greatest sufferer. You must miss him. Does his staying longer surprise you?" "I do not know," said Fanny hesitatingly. "Yes; I had not particularly expected it." "Perhaps he will always stay longer than he talks of. It is the general way all young men do." "He did not, the only time he went to see Mr. Owen before." "He finds the house more agreeable _now_. He is a very-a very pleasing young man himself, and I cannot help being rather concerned at not seeing him again before I go to London, as will now undoubtedly be the case. I am looking for Henry every day, and as soon as he comes there will be nothing to detain me at Mansfield. I should like to have seen him once more, I confess. But you must give my compliments to him. Yes; I think it must be compliments. Is not there a something wanted, Miss Price, in our language-a something between compliments and-and love-to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together? So many months' acquaintance! But compliments may be sufficient here. Was his letter a long one? Does he give you much account of what he is doing? Is it Christmas gaieties that he is staying for?" "I only heard a part of the letter; it was to my uncle; but I believe it was very short; indeed I am sure it was but a few lines. All that I heard was that his friend had pressed him to stay longer, and that he had agreed to do so. A _few_ days longer, or _some_ days longer; I am not quite sure which." "Oh! if he wrote to his father; but I thought it might have been to Lady Bertram or you. But if he wrote to his father, no wonder he was concise. Who could write chat to Sir Thomas? If he had written to you, there would have been more particulars. You would have heard of balls and parties. He would have sent you a description of everything and everybody. How many Miss Owens are there?" "Three grown up." "Are they musical?" "I do not at all know. I never heard." "That is the first question, you know," said Miss Crawford, trying to appear gay and unconcerned, "which every woman who plays herself is sure to ask about another. But it is very foolish to ask questions about any young ladies-about any three sisters just grown up; for one knows, without being told, exactly what they are: all very accomplished and pleasing, and one very pretty. There is a beauty in every family; it is a regular thing. Two play on the pianoforte, and one on the harp; and all sing, or would sing if they were taught, or sing all the better for not being taught; or something like it." "I know nothing of the Miss Owens," said Fanny calmly. "You know nothing and you care less, as people say. Never did tone express indifference plainer. Indeed, how can one care for those one has never seen? Well, when your cousin comes back, he will find Mansfield very quiet; all the noisy ones gone, your brother and mine and myself. I do not like the idea of leaving Mrs. Grant now the time draws near. She does not like my going." Fanny felt obliged to speak. "You cannot doubt your being missed by many," said she. "You will be very much missed." Miss Crawford turned her eye on her, as if wanting to hear or see more, and then laughingly said, "Oh yes! missed as every noisy evil is missed when it is taken away; that is, there is a great difference felt. But I am not fishing; don't compliment me. If I _am_ missed, it will appear. I may be discovered by those who want to see me. I shall not be in any doubtful, or distant, or unapproachable region." Now Fanny could not bring herself to speak, and Miss Crawford was disappointed; for she had hoped to hear some pleasant assurance of her power from one who she thought must know, and her spirits were clouded again. "The Miss Owens," said she, soon afterwards; "suppose you were to have one of the Miss Owens settled at Thornton Lacey; how should you like it? Stranger things have happened. I dare say they are trying for it. And they are quite in the right, for it would be a very pretty establishment for them. I do not at all wonder or blame them. It is everybody's duty to do as well for themselves as they can. Sir Thomas Bertram's son is somebody; and now he is in their own line. Their father is a clergyman, and their brother is a clergyman, and they are all clergymen together. He is their lawful property; he fairly belongs to them. You don't speak, Fanny; Miss Price, you don't speak. But honestly now, do not you rather expect it than otherwise?" "No," said Fanny stoutly, "I do not expect it at all." "Not at all!" cried Miss Crawford with alacrity. "I wonder at that. But I dare say you know exactly-I always imagine you are-perhaps you do not think him likely to marry at all-or not at present." "No, I do not," said Fanny softly, hoping she did not err either in the belief or the acknowledgment of it. Her companion looked at her keenly; and gathering greater spirit from the blush soon produced from such a look, only said, "He is best off as he is," and turned the subject.

The breakfast was soon over; the last kiss was given, and William was gone. Mr. Crawford had been very punctual, and short and pleasant had been the meal. Fanny walked back to the breakfast-room with a very saddened heart; and there her uncle kindly left her to cry in peace, conceiving, perhaps, that the cold pork bones in William's plate might but divide her feelings with the broken egg-shells in Mr. Crawford's. She sat and cried as her uncle intended, but for her brother only. William was gone, and she felt as if she had wasted half his visit in idle cares. It was a heavy, melancholy day. Edmund bade them good-bye for a week, and mounted his horse for Peterborough, and then all were gone. Nothing remained of last night but remembrances, which she had nobody to share in. She talked to her aunt Bertram, but it was heavy work. Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody's dress or anybody's place at supper but her own. Much of her conversation was a languid, "Yes, very well; did you? did he? I did not see that; I should not know one from the other." This was very bad. It was only better than Mrs. Norris's sharp answers would have been; but she was gone home with the leftover jellies to nurse a sick maid. The evening was heavy like the day. "I cannot think what is the matter with me," said Lady Bertram. "I feel quite stupid. It must be sitting up so late last night. Fanny, you must do something to keep me awake. Fetch the cards; I feel so very stupid." The cards were brought, and Fanny played at cribbage with her aunt till bedtime; and as Sir Thomas was reading to himself, no sounds were heard in the room for the next two hours beyond the reckonings of the game-"And that makes thirty-one; four in hand and eight in crib. You are to deal, ma'am; shall I deal for you?" Fanny thought of the difference which twenty-four hours had made. Last night it had been bustle and motion, noise and brilliancy, everywhere. Now it was languor, and all but solitude. A good night's rest improved her spirits. She could think of William more cheerfully; and as she was able to talk over Thursday night with Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford, with all the playfulness so essential to the shade of a departed ball, she could afterwards bring her mind back to its everyday tranquillity. They were a small party now, with Edmund gone. But she must learn to endure this. He would soon be always gone; and she was thankful that she could now sit in the same room with her uncle and answer his questions without such wretched feelings as formerly. "We miss our two young men," observed Sir Thomas on the first day; and seeing Fanny's swimming eyes, said nothing more than to drink their good health; but on the second day, William was kindly commended and his promotion hoped for. "His visits to us may now be more frequent," said Sir Thomas. "As to Edmund, we must learn to do without him. This will be the last winter of his belonging to us." "Yes," said Lady Bertram, "but I wish he was not going away. They are all going away, I think. I wish they would stay at home." This wish was levelled principally at Julia, who had just asked to go to town with Maria; and as Sir Thomas had granted permission, Lady Bertram was lamenting the change it made in the prospect of Julia's return. Sir Thomas used much good sense to reconcile his wife to the arrangement. Everything that an affectionate mother must feel in promoting her children's enjoyment was attributed to her nature. Lady Bertram agreed to it all, and then observed, "Sir Thomas, I am very glad we took Fanny as we did, for now the others are away we feel the good of it." Sir Thomas immediately added, "Very true. We show Fanny what a good girl we think her by praising her to her face; she is now a very valuable companion." "Yes," said Lady Bertram; "and it is a comfort to think that we shall always have her." Sir Thomas half smiled, glanced at his niece, and gravely replied, "She will never leave us, I hope, till invited to some other home that may promise her greater happiness." "That is not very likely, Sir Thomas. Who should invite her? Maria would not think of asking her to live at Sotherton; and besides, I cannot do without her." The week which passed so quietly at the great house in Mansfield had a very different character at the Parsonage. What was tranquillity and comfort to Fanny was tediousness and vexation to Mary. To Fanny's mind, Edmund's absence was really, in its cause and its tendency, a relief. To Mary it was every way painful. She felt the want of his society almost every hour, and was irritated when she considered why he went. They were now a miserable trio at the Parsonage, confined within doors by rain and snow, with nothing to do. Angry as she was with Edmund for adhering to his own notions, and acting on them in defiance of her (and she had been so angry that they had hardly parted friends at the ball), she could not help thinking of him continually when absent, dwelling on his merit and affection, and longing again for their almost daily meetings. He should not have planned such an absence, when her own departure from Mansfield was so near. Then she began to blame herself. She wished she had not spoken so warmly in their last conversation. She was afraid she had used some strong, contemptuous expressions in speaking of the clergy, and that was ill-bred; it was wrong. She wished such words unsaid with all her heart. All this was bad, but she had still more to feel when Friday came round again and brought no Edmund; Saturday, and still no Edmund; and when she learned that he had written home to defer his return, having promised to remain some days longer with his friend. If she had felt impatience and regret before, she now felt it tenfold more. She had, moreover, to contend with an entirely new emotion-jealousy. His friend Mr. Owen had sisters; he might find them attractive. It became absolutely necessary for her to try to learn something more; and she made her way to the Park and Fanny, for the chance of hearing a little news, or at least hearing his name. Miss Crawford thus began, with a voice as well regulated as she could-"And how do you like your cousin Edmund's staying away so long? You must miss him. Does his staying longer surprise you?" "I do not know," said Fanny hesitatingly. "Yes; I had not particularly expected it." "Perhaps he will stay longer than he talks of, as young men do." "He did not, the only time he went to see Mr. Owen before." "He finds the house more agreeable now. He is a very-a very pleasing young man himself, and I cannot help being rather concerned at not seeing him again before I go to London. As soon as Henry comes there will be nothing to detain me at Mansfield. I should like to have seen him once more, I confess. But you must give my compliments to him. Yes; I think it must be compliments. Is not there a something needed, Miss Price, in our language-a something between compliments and-and love-to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together? But compliments may be sufficient here. Was his letter a long one? Is it Christmas gaieties that he is staying for?" "I only heard a part of the letter; it was to my uncle; but I believe it was very short. All that I heard was that his friend had pressed him to stay a few days longer, and that he had agreed to do so." "Oh! if he wrote to his father, no wonder he was concise. Who could write chat to Sir Thomas? If he had written to you, there would have been particulars of balls and parties. He would have sent you a description of everybody. How many Miss Owens are there?" "Three grown up." "Are they musical?" "I do not at all know." "That is the first question, you know," said Miss Crawford, trying to appear gay and unconcerned, "which every woman who plays herself is sure to ask about another. But one knows, without being told, exactly what any three sisters must be: all very accomplished and pleasing, and one very pretty. Two play on the pianoforte, and one on the harp; and all sing, or would sing if they were taught, or sing all the better for not being taught; or something like it." "I know nothing of the Miss Owens," said Fanny calmly. "You know nothing and you care less, as people say. Indeed, how can one care for those one has never seen? Well, when your cousin comes back, he will find Mansfield very quiet; all the noisy ones gone, myself included. Mrs. Grant does not like my going." Fanny felt obliged to speak. "You cannot doubt your being missed by many," said she. "You will be very much missed." Miss Crawford turned her eye on her, as if wanting to hear or see more, and then laughingly said, "Oh yes! missed as every noisy evil is missed when it is taken away. But I may be found by those who want to see me. I shall not be in any distant, or unapproachable region." Now Fanny could not bring herself to speak, and Miss Crawford was disappointed; for she had hoped to hear some pleasant assurance of her power from one who she thought must know. "The Miss Owens," said she, "suppose you were to have one of the Miss Owens settled at Thornton Lacey; how should you like it? I dare say they are trying for it. It would be a very pretty establishment for them. Their father is a clergyman, and their brother is a clergyman, and they are all clergymen together. You don't speak, Fanny; but honestly now, do not you rather expect it?" "No," said Fanny stoutly, "I do not expect it at all." "Not at all!" cried Miss Crawford with alacrity. "But I dare say you know-perhaps you do not think him likely to marry at all-or not at present." "No, I do not," said Fanny softly, hoping she did not err. Her companion looked at her keenly; and gathering greater spirit from Fanny's blush, only said, "He is best off as he is," and turned the subject.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 29

Henry Crawford was at Mansfield Park again the next morning, and at an earlier hour than common visiting warrants. The two ladies were together in the breakfast-room, and, fortunately for him, Lady Bertram was on the very point of quitting it as he entered. She was almost at the door, and not chusing by any means to take so much trouble in vain, she still went on, after a civil reception, a short sentence about being waited for, and a "Let Sir Thomas know" to the servant. Henry, overjoyed to have her go, bowed and watched her off, and without losing another moment, turned instantly to Fanny, and, taking out some letters, said, with a most animated look, "I must acknowledge myself infinitely obliged to any creature who gives me such an opportunity of seeing you alone: I have been wishing it more than you can have any idea. Knowing as I do what your feelings as a sister are, I could hardly have borne that any one in the house should share with you in the first knowledge of the news I now bring. He is made. Your brother is a lieutenant. I have the infinite satisfaction of congratulating you on your brother's promotion. Here are the letters which announce it, this moment come to hand. You will, perhaps, like to see them." Fanny could not speak, but he did not want her to speak. To see the expression of her eyes, the change of her complexion, the progress of her feelings, their doubt, confusion, and felicity, was enough. She took the letters as he gave them. The first was from the Admiral to inform his nephew, in a few words, of his having succeeded in the object he had undertaken, the promotion of young Price, and enclosing two more, one from the Secretary of the First Lord to a friend, whom the Admiral had set to work in the business, the other from that friend to himself, by which it appeared that his lordship had the very great happiness of attending to the recommendation of Sir Charles; that Sir Charles was much delighted in having such an opportunity of proving his regard for Admiral Crawford, and that the circumstance of Mr. William Price's commission as Second Lieutenant of H.M. Sloop Thrush being made out was spreading general joy through a wide circle of great people. While her hand was trembling under these letters, her eye running from one to the other, and her heart swelling with emotion, Crawford thus continued, with unfeigned eagerness, to express his interest in the event- "I will not talk of my own happiness," said he, "great as it is, for I think only of yours. Compared with you, who has a right to be happy? I have almost grudged myself my own prior knowledge of what you ought to have known before all the world. I have not lost a moment, however. The post was late this morning, but there has not been since a moment's delay. How impatient, how anxious, how wild I have been on the subject, I will not attempt to describe; how severely mortified, how cruelly disappointed, in not having it finished while I was in London! I was kept there from day to day in the hope of it, for nothing less dear to me than such an object would have detained me half the time from Mansfield. But though my uncle entered into my wishes with all the warmth I could desire, and exerted himself immediately, there were difficulties from the absence of one friend, and the engagements of another, which at last I could no longer bear to stay the end of, and knowing in what good hands I left the cause, I came away on Monday, trusting that many posts would not pass before I should be followed by such very letters as these. My uncle, who is the very best man in the world, has exerted himself, as I knew he would, after seeing your brother. He was delighted with him. I would not allow myself yesterday to say how delighted, or to repeat half that the Admiral said in his praise. I deferred it all till his praise should be proved the praise of a friend, as this day _does_ prove it. _Now_ I may say that even I could not require William Price to excite a greater interest, or be followed by warmer wishes and higher commendation, than were most voluntarily bestowed by my uncle after the evening they had passed together." "Has this been all _your_ doing, then?" cried Fanny. "Good heaven! how very, very kind! Have you really-was it by _your_ desire? I beg your pardon, but I am bewildered. Did Admiral Crawford apply? How was it? I am stupefied." Henry was most happy to make it more intelligible, by beginning at an earlier stage, and explaining very particularly what he had done. His last journey to London had been undertaken with no other view than that of introducing her brother in Hill Street, and prevailing on the Admiral to exert whatever interest he might have for getting him on. This had been his business. He had communicated it to no creature: he had not breathed a syllable of it even to Mary; while uncertain of the issue, he could not have borne any participation of his feelings, but this had been his business; and he spoke with such a glow of what his solicitude had been, and used such strong expressions, was so abounding in the _deepest_ _interest_, in _twofold_ _motives_, in _views_ _and_ _wishes_ _more_ _than_ _could_ _be_ _told_, that Fanny could not have remained insensible of his drift, had she been able to attend; but her heart was so full and her senses still so astonished, that she could listen but imperfectly even to what he told her of William, and saying only when he paused, "How kind! how very kind! Oh, Mr. Crawford, we are infinitely obliged to you! Dearest, dearest William!" She jumped up and moved in haste towards the door, crying out, "I will go to my uncle. My uncle ought to know it as soon as possible." But this could not be suffered. The opportunity was too fair, and his feelings too impatient. He was after her immediately. "She must not go, she must allow him five minutes longer," and he took her hand and led her back to her seat, and was in the middle of his farther explanation, before she had suspected for what she was detained. When she did understand it, however, and found herself expected to believe that she had created sensations which his heart had never known before, and that everything he had done for William was to be placed to the account of his excessive and unequalled attachment to her, she was exceedingly distressed, and for some moments unable to speak. She considered it all as nonsense, as mere trifling and gallantry, which meant only to deceive for the hour; she could not but feel that it was treating her improperly and unworthily, and in such a way as she had not deserved; but it was like himself, and entirely of a piece with what she had seen before; and she would not allow herself to shew half the displeasure she felt, because he had been conferring an obligation, which no want of delicacy on his part could make a trifle to her. While her heart was still bounding with joy and gratitude on William's behalf, she could not be severely resentful of anything that injured only herself; and after having twice drawn back her hand, and twice attempted in vain to turn away from him, she got up, and said only, with much agitation, "Don't, Mr. Crawford, pray don't! I beg you would not. This is a sort of talking which is very unpleasant to me. I must go away. I cannot bear it." But he was still talking on, describing his affection, soliciting a return, and, finally, in words so plain as to bear but one meaning even to her, offering himself, hand, fortune, everything, to her acceptance. It was so; he had said it. Her astonishment and confusion increased; and though still not knowing how to suppose him serious, she could hardly stand. He pressed for an answer. "No, no, no!" she cried, hiding her face. "This is all nonsense. Do not distress me. I can hear no more of this. Your kindness to William makes me more obliged to you than words can express; but I do not want, I cannot bear, I must not listen to such-No, no, don't think of me. But you are _not_ thinking of me. I know it is all nothing." She had burst away from him, and at that moment Sir Thomas was heard speaking to a servant in his way towards the room they were in. It was no time for farther assurances or entreaty, though to part with her at a moment when her modesty alone seemed, to his sanguine and preassured mind, to stand in the way of the happiness he sought, was a cruel necessity. She rushed out at an opposite door from the one her uncle was approaching, and was walking up and down the East room in the utmost confusion of contrary feeling, before Sir Thomas's politeness or apologies were over, or he had reached the beginning of the joyful intelligence which his visitor came to communicate. She was feeling, thinking, trembling about everything; agitated, happy, miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry. It was all beyond belief! He was inexcusable, incomprehensible! But such were his habits that he could do nothing without a mixture of evil. He had previously made her the happiest of human beings, and now he had insulted-she knew not what to say, how to class, or how to regard it. She would not have him be serious, and yet what could excuse the use of such words and offers, if they meant but to trifle? But William was a lieutenant. _That_ was a fact beyond a doubt, and without an alloy. She would think of it for ever and forget all the rest. Mr. Crawford would certainly never address her so again: he must have seen how unwelcome it was to her; and in that case, how gratefully she could esteem him for his friendship to William! She would not stir farther from the East room than the head of the great staircase, till she had satisfied herself of Mr. Crawford's having left the house; but when convinced of his being gone, she was eager to go down and be with her uncle, and have all the happiness of his joy as well as her own, and all the benefit of his information or his conjectures as to what would now be William's destination. Sir Thomas was as joyful as she could desire, and very kind and communicative; and she had so comfortable a talk with him about William as to make her feel as if nothing had occurred to vex her, till she found, towards the close, that Mr. Crawford was engaged to return and dine there that very day. This was a most unwelcome hearing, for though he might think nothing of what had passed, it would be quite distressing to her to see him again so soon. She tried to get the better of it; tried very hard, as the dinner hour approached, to feel and appear as usual; but it was quite impossible for her not to look most shy and uncomfortable when their visitor entered the room. She could not have supposed it in the power of any concurrence of circumstances to give her so many painful sensations on the first day of hearing of William's promotion. Mr. Crawford was not only in the room-he was soon close to her. He had a note to deliver from his sister. Fanny could not look at him, but there was no consciousness of past folly in his voice. She opened her note immediately, glad to have anything to do, and happy, as she read it, to feel that the fidgetings of her aunt Norris, who was also to dine there, screened her a little from view. "MY DEAR FANNY,-for so I may now always call you, to the infinite relief of a tongue that has been stumbling at _Miss_ _Price_ for at least the last six weeks-I cannot let my brother go without sending you a few lines of general congratulation, and giving my most joyful consent and approval. Go on, my dear Fanny, and without fear; there can be no difficulties worth naming. I chuse to suppose that the assurance of my consent will be something; so you may smile upon him with your sweetest smiles this afternoon, and send him back to me even happier than he goes. Yours affectionately, M. C." These were not expressions to do Fanny any good; for though she read in too much haste and confusion to form the clearest judgment of Miss Crawford's meaning, it was evident that she meant to compliment her on her brother's attachment, and even to _appear_ to believe it serious. She did not know what to do, or what to think. There was wretchedness in the idea of its being serious; there was perplexity and agitation every way. She was distressed whenever Mr. Crawford spoke to her, and he spoke to her much too often; and she was afraid there was a something in his voice and manner in addressing her very different from what they were when he talked to the others. Her comfort in that day's dinner was quite destroyed: she could hardly eat anything; and when Sir Thomas good-humouredly observed that joy had taken away her appetite, she was ready to sink with shame, from the dread of Mr. Crawford's interpretation; for though nothing could have tempted her to turn her eyes to the right hand, where he sat, she felt that _his_ were immediately directed towards her. She was more silent than ever. She would hardly join even when William was the subject, for his commission came all from the right hand too, and there was pain in the connexion. She thought Lady Bertram sat longer than ever, and began to be in despair of ever getting away; but at last they were in the drawing-room, and she was able to think as she would, while her aunts finished the subject of William's appointment in their own style. Mrs. Norris seemed as much delighted with the saving it would be to Sir Thomas as with any part of it. "_Now_ William would be able to keep himself, which would make a vast difference to his uncle, for it was unknown how much he had cost his uncle; and, indeed, it would make some difference in _her_ presents too. She was very glad that she had given William what she did at parting, very glad, indeed, that it had been in her power, without material inconvenience, just at that time to give him something rather considerable; that is, for _her_, with _her_ limited means, for now it would all be useful in helping to fit up his cabin. She knew he must be at some expense, that he would have many things to buy, though to be sure his father and mother would be able to put him in the way of getting everything very cheap; but she was very glad she had contributed her mite towards it." "I am glad you gave him something considerable," said Lady Bertram, with most unsuspicious calmness, "for _I_ gave him only 10." "Indeed!" cried Mrs. Norris, reddening. "Upon my word, he must have gone off with his pockets well lined, and at no expense for his journey to London either!" "Sir Thomas told me 10 would be enough." Mrs. Norris, being not at all inclined to question its sufficiency, began to take the matter in another point. "It is amazing," said she, "how much young people cost their friends, what with bringing them up and putting them out in the world! They little think how much it comes to, or what their parents, or their uncles and aunts, pay for them in the course of the year. Now, here are my sister Price's children; take them all together, I dare say nobody would believe what a sum they cost Sir Thomas every year, to say nothing of what _I_ do for them." "Very true, sister, as you say. But, poor things! they cannot help it; and you know it makes very little difference to Sir Thomas. Fanny, William must not forget my shawl if he goes to the East Indies; and I shall give him a commission for anything else that is worth having. I wish he may go to the East Indies, that I may have my shawl. I think I will have two shawls, Fanny." Fanny, meanwhile, speaking only when she could not help it, was very earnestly trying to understand what Mr. and Miss Crawford were at. There was everything in the world _against_ their being serious but his words and manner. Everything natural, probable, reasonable, was against it; all their habits and ways of thinking, and all her own demerits. How could _she_ have excited serious attachment in a man who had seen so many, and been admired by so many, and flirted with so many, infinitely her superiors; who seemed so little open to serious impressions, even where pains had been taken to please him; who thought so slightly, so carelessly, so unfeelingly on all such points; who was everything to everybody, and seemed to find no one essential to him? And farther, how could it be supposed that his sister, with all her high and worldly notions of matrimony, would be forwarding anything of a serious nature in such a quarter? Nothing could be more unnatural in either. Fanny was ashamed of her own doubts. Everything might be possible rather than serious attachment, or serious approbation of it toward her. She had quite convinced herself of this before Sir Thomas and Mr. Crawford joined them. The difficulty was in maintaining the conviction quite so absolutely after Mr. Crawford was in the room; for once or twice a look seemed forced on her which she did not know how to class among the common meaning; in any other man, at least, she would have said that it meant something very earnest, very pointed. But she still tried to believe it no more than what he might often have expressed towards her cousins and fifty other women. She thought he was wishing to speak to her unheard by the rest. She fancied he was trying for it the whole evening at intervals, whenever Sir Thomas was out of the room, or at all engaged with Mrs. Norris, and she carefully refused him every opportunity. At last-it seemed an at last to Fanny's nervousness, though not remarkably late-he began to talk of going away; but the comfort of the sound was impaired by his turning to her the next moment, and saying, "Have you nothing to send to Mary? No answer to her note? She will be disappointed if she receives nothing from you. Pray write to her, if it be only a line." "Oh yes! certainly," cried Fanny, rising in haste, the haste of embarrassment and of wanting to get away-"I will write directly." She went accordingly to the table, where she was in the habit of writing for her aunt, and prepared her materials without knowing what in the world to say. She had read Miss Crawford's note only once, and how to reply to anything so imperfectly understood was most distressing. Quite unpractised in such sort of note-writing, had there been time for scruples and fears as to style she would have felt them in abundance: but something must be instantly written; and with only one decided feeling, that of wishing not to appear to think anything really intended, she wrote thus, in great trembling both of spirits and hand- "I am very much obliged to you, my dear Miss Crawford, for your kind congratulations, as far as they relate to my dearest William. The rest of your note I know means nothing; but I am so unequal to anything of the sort, that I hope you will excuse my begging you to take no farther notice. I have seen too much of Mr. Crawford not to understand his manners; if he understood me as well, he would, I dare say, behave differently. I do not know what I write, but it would be a great favour of you never to mention the subject again. With thanks for the honour of your note, I remain, dear Miss Crawford, &c., &c." The conclusion was scarcely intelligible from increasing fright, for she found that Mr. Crawford, under pretence of receiving the note, was coming towards her. "You cannot think I mean to hurry you," said he, in an undervoice, perceiving the amazing trepidation with which she made up the note, "you cannot think I have any such object. Do not hurry yourself, I entreat." "Oh! I thank you; I have quite done, just done; it will be ready in a moment; I am very much obliged to you; if you will be so good as to give _that_ to Miss Crawford." The note was held out, and must be taken; and as she instantly and with averted eyes walked towards the fireplace, where sat the others, he had nothing to do but to go in good earnest. Fanny thought she had never known a day of greater agitation, both of pain and pleasure; but happily the pleasure was not of a sort to die with the day; for every day would restore the knowledge of William's advancement, whereas the pain, she hoped, would return no more. She had no doubt that her note must appear excessively ill-written, that the language would disgrace a child, for her distress had allowed no arrangement; but at least it would assure them both of her being neither imposed on nor gratified by Mr. Crawford's attentions.

Henry Crawford was at Mansfield Park again early the next morning. Lady Bertram was quitting the breakfast-room as he entered. Henry, overjoyed to have her go, bowed and watched her off, and then turned instantly to Fanny, and, taking out some letters, said, "I have been wishing to see you alone. Knowing what your feelings as a sister are, I could hardly have borne that any one should share with you in the first knowledge of the news I bring. Your brother is a lieutenant. I have the infinite satisfaction of congratulating you on your brother's promotion. Here are the letters which announce it. You will, perhaps, like to see them." Fanny could not speak; but for him to see the expression of her eyes, the change of her complexion, was enough. She took the letters. The first was from the Admiral to inform his nephew of his having succeeded in the promotion of young Price, and enclosing two more, one from the Secretary of the First Lord to a friend, whom the Admiral had set to work in the business, the other from that friend to himself; in which it appeared that Sir Charles was delighted to prove his regard for Admiral Crawford, by the commission of Mr. William Price as Second Lieutenant. While her hand was trembling under these letters, her heart swelling with emotion, Crawford thus continued eagerly- "I will not talk of my own happiness," said he, "for I think only of yours. I have not lost a moment in bringing the news. How impatient, how anxious, how wild I have been; how cruelly disappointed, in not having the business finished while I was in London! I stayed there from day to day in the hope of it, for nothing less would have kept me from Mansfield. But there were difficulties and delays, and I came away on Monday, trusting that I should very soon be followed by such letters as these. My uncle, who is the very best man in the world, has exerted himself, as I knew he would, after seeing your brother. He was delighted with him. He gave William the highest commendation after the evening they passed together." "Has this been all your doing, then?" cried Fanny. "How very, very kind! I beg your pardon, but I am bewildered. Did Admiral Crawford apply? How was it? I am stupefied." Henry was happy to explain what he had done. His journey to London had been undertaken with no other view than that of introducing her brother to the Admiral and prevailing on him to exert his interest. This had been his business. He spoke with such a glow, used such strong expressions, and was so abounding in twofold motives, that Fanny could not have remained unaware of his drift, had she been able to attend; but her heart was so full that she could only listen imperfectly, saying when he paused, "How very kind! Oh, Mr. Crawford, we are infinitely obliged to you! Dearest William!" She jumped up, crying out, "My uncle ought to know it as soon as possible." But this could not be allowed. The opportunity was too fair, and his feelings too impatient. He was after her immediately. "She must not go, she must allow him five minutes longer." He led her back to her seat, and was in the middle of his farther explanation, before she had suspected for what she was detained. When she did understand it, however, and found herself expected to believe that she had created sensations which his heart had never known before, and that everything he had done for William was because of his attachment to her, she was exceedingly distressed, and for some moments unable to speak. She considered it all as nonsense, as mere trifling and gallantry; he was treating her improperly, and in a way that she had not deserved; but it was like himself, and entirely of a piece with what she had seen before; and she would not allow herself to show displeasure, after he had conferred such an obligation. While her heart was still bounding with joy and gratitude on William's behalf, she could not be severe; and after having twice drawn back her hand, and attempted in vain to turn away, she got up, and said only, with much agitation, "Don't, Mr. Crawford, pray don't! I beg you would not. This sort of talking is very unpleasant to me. I must go away. I cannot bear it." But he was still talking on, describing his affection, and finally offering himself, hand, fortune, everything, to her acceptance. It was so; he had said it. Her astonishment and confusion increased; and though still not supposing him serious, she could hardly stand. He pressed for an answer. "No, no, no!" she cried, hiding her face. "This is all nonsense. I can hear no more of this. Your kindness to William makes me more obliged to you than words can express; but I do not want, I cannot bear, I must not listen to such-No, no, don't think of me. But you are not thinking of me. I know it is all nothing." She burst away from him, and at that moment Sir Thomas was heard speaking to a servant just outside the room. She rushed out at an opposite door from the one her uncle was approaching, and was walking up and down the East room in the utmost confusion of feeling, before Sir Thomas had reached the beginning of the joyful news which his visitor came to communicate. She was feeling, thinking, trembling about everything; agitated, happy, miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry. It was all beyond belief! He was inexcusable, incomprehensible! But such were his habits that he could do nothing without a mixture of evil. He had previously made her the happiest of human beings, and now he had insulted-she knew not how to regard it. She did not want him to be serious, and yet what could excuse his words, if they meant but to trifle? But William was a lieutenant. That was a fact beyond a doubt. She would think of it and forget all the rest. Mr. Crawford would certainly never address her so again: he must have seen how unwelcome it was to her; and in that case, how gratefully she could esteem him for his friendship to William! She would not stir from the East room till she had satisfied herself of Mr. Crawford's having left the house; but when convinced of his being gone, she was eager to go down and share her joy with her uncle. Sir Thomas was as joyful as she could desire, and she had so comfortable a talk with him about William as to make her feel as if nothing had occurred to vex her, till she found that Mr. Crawford was engaged to return and dine there that very day. This was most unwelcome. She tried to get the better of it; tried very hard, as the dinner hour approached, to feel and appear as usual; but it was quite impossible for her not to look most shy and uncomfortable when their visitor entered the room. Mr. Crawford was soon close to her; he had a note to deliver from his sister. Fanny could not look at him. She opened her note immediately, glad to have anything to do, and happy, as she read it, to feel that the fidgetings of her aunt Norris screened her from view. "My dear Fanny,-for so I may now always call you-I cannot let my brother go without sending you a few lines of congratulation, and giving my most joyful consent and approval. Go on, my dear Fanny, and without fear; there can be no difficulties worth naming. I choose to suppose that my consent will be something; so you may smile upon him with your sweetest smiles this afternoon, and send him back to me even happier than he goes.-Yours affectionately, M. C." These were not expressions to do Fanny any good; for though she read in too much haste and confusion to form the clearest judgment of Miss Crawford's meaning, it was evident that she meant to compliment her on her brother's attachment, and believed it serious. Fanny did not know what to do. There was wretchedness in the idea of its being serious; there was perplexity every way. She was distressed whenever Mr. Crawford spoke to her, and he spoke to her much too often. She could hardly eat; and when Sir Thomas good-humouredly observed that joy had taken away her appetite, she was ready to sink with shame; for though nothing could have tempted her to turn her eyes to Mr. Crawford, she felt that his were immediately directed towards her. She was more silent than ever, hardly joining even when William was the subject. She began to despair of ever getting away; but at last they were in the drawing-room, where her aunts finished the subject of William's appointment in their own style. Mrs. Norris seemed delighted with the saving it would be to Sir Thomas. "Now William would be able to keep himself, which would make a vast difference to his uncle; and, indeed, it would make some difference in her presents too. She was very glad that she had given William something considerable at parting, for now it would be useful in helping to fit up his cabin." "I am glad you gave him something considerable," said Lady Bertram, with most unsuspicious calmness, "for I gave him only 10." "Indeed!" cried Mrs. Norris, reddening. "Upon my word, he must have gone off with his pockets well lined!" "Sir Thomas told me 10 would be enough." Mrs. Norris, being not at all inclined to question its sufficiency, began on another point. "It is amazing," said she, "how much young people cost their friends, what with bringing them up and putting them out in the world! Now, take my sister Price's children; nobody would believe what they cost Sir Thomas every year, to say nothing of what I do for them." "Very true, sister, as you say. But, poor things! they cannot help it; and you know it makes very little difference to Sir Thomas. Fanny, William must not forget my shawl if he goes to the East Indies. I wish he may go there, so that I may have my shawl. I think I will have two shawls, Fanny." Fanny, meanwhile, was very earnestly trying to understand what Mr. and Miss Crawford were at. Everything reasonable was against their being serious. How could she have attached a man who had been admired by so many, and flirted with so many, infinitely her superiors; who seemed so little open to serious impressions; who thought so carelessly, so unfeelingly on all such points, who was everything to everybody, and seemed to find no one essential to him? And could his sister, with all her worldly notions of matrimony, be forwarding anything serious in such a quarter? It was not possible. She had quite convinced herself of this before Sir Thomas and Mr. Crawford joined them. The difficulty was in maintaining the conviction after Mr. Crawford was in the room. She thought he was wishing to speak to her unheard by the rest. She fancied he was trying for it the whole evening, whenever Sir Thomas was engaged with Mrs. Norris, and she carefully refused him every opportunity. At last he began to talk of going away; but turning to her the next moment, he said, "Have you nothing to send to Mary? No answer to her note? She will be disappointed if she receives nothing from you. Pray write to her, if it be only a line." "Oh yes! certainly," cried Fanny, rising in embarrassed haste and wanting to get away-"I will write directly." She went to the table, and prepared her writing materials without knowing what in the world to say. She had read Miss Crawford's note only once, and how to reply to anything so imperfectly understood was most distressing. Yet something must be written; and wishing not to appear to think anything really intended, she wrote thus, in great trembling both of spirits and hand- "I am very much obliged to you, my dear Miss Crawford, for your kind congratulations, as far as they relate to my dearest William. The rest of your note I know means nothing; but I am so unequal to anything of the sort, that I hope you will excuse my begging you to take no farther notice. I have seen too much of Mr. Crawford not to understand his manners; if he understood me as well, he would, I dare say, behave differently. I do not know what I write, but it would be a great favour of you never to mention the subject again. With thanks for the honour of your note, I remain, dear Miss Crawford, etc., etc." The conclusion was scarcely intelligible from increasing fright, for she found that Mr. Crawford was coming towards her. "I do not mean to hurry you," said he, in an undervoice. "Oh! I thank you; it will be ready in a moment; I am very much obliged; if you will be so good as to give that to Miss Crawford." The note was held out, and must be taken; and as she instantly and with averted eyes walked towards the fireplace, he had nothing to do but to go. Fanny thought she had never known a day of greater agitation, both of pain and pleasure; but happily the pleasure was not of a sort to die with the day; whereas the pain, she hoped, would return no more. She had no doubt that her note must appear excessively ill-written, that the language would disgrace a child; but at least it would assure them both of her being neither imposed on nor gratified by Mr. Crawford's attentions.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 31

Everything was now in a regular train: theatre, actors, actresses, and dresses, were all getting forward; but though no other great impediments arose, Fanny found, before many days were past, that it was not all uninterrupted enjoyment to the party themselves, and that she had not to witness the continuance of such unanimity and delight as had been almost too much for her at first. Everybody began to have their vexation. Edmund had many. Entirely against _his_ judgment, a scene-painter arrived from town, and was at work, much to the increase of the expenses, and, what was worse, of the eclat of their proceedings; and his brother, instead of being really guided by him as to the privacy of the representation, was giving an invitation to every family who came in his way. Tom himself began to fret over the scene-painter's slow progress, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his part-all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united with the Butler, and began to be impatient to be acting; and every day thus unemployed was tending to increase his sense of the insignificance of all his parts together, and make him more ready to regret that some other play had not been chosen. Fanny, being always a very courteous listener, and often the only listener at hand, came in for the complaints and the distresses of most of them. _She_ knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that Tom Bertram spoke so quick he would be unintelligible; that Mrs. Grant spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth, who was wanting a prompter through every speech. She knew, also, that poor Mr. Rushworth could seldom get anybody to rehearse with him: _his_ complaint came before her as well as the rest; and so decided to her eye was her cousin Maria's avoidance of him, and so needlessly often the rehearsal of the first scene between her and Mr. Crawford, that she had soon all the terror of other complaints from _him_. So far from being all satisfied and all enjoying, she found everybody requiring something they had not, and giving occasion of discontent to the others. Everybody had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody but the complainer would observe any directions. Fanny believed herself to derive as much innocent enjoyment from the play as any of them; Henry Crawford acted well, and it was a pleasure to _her_ to creep into the theatre, and attend the rehearsal of the first act, in spite of the feelings it excited in some speeches for Maria. Maria, she also thought, acted well, too well; and after the first rehearsal or two, Fanny began to be their only audience; and sometimes as prompter, sometimes as spectator, was often very useful. As far as she could judge, Mr. Crawford was considerably the best actor of all: he had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and taste than Mr. Yates. She did not like him as a man, but she must admit him to be the best actor, and on this point there were not many who differed from her. Mr. Yates, indeed, exclaimed against his tameness and insipidity; and the day came at last, when Mr. Rushworth turned to her with a black look, and said, "Do you think there is anything so very fine in all this? For the life and soul of me, I cannot admire him; and, between ourselves, to see such an undersized, little, mean-looking man, set up for a fine actor, is very ridiculous in my opinion." From this moment there was a return of his former jealousy, which Maria, from increasing hopes of Crawford, was at little pains to remove; and the chances of Mr. Rushworth's ever attaining to the knowledge of his two-and-forty speeches became much less. As to his ever making anything _tolerable_ of them, nobody had the smallest idea of that except his mother; _she_, indeed, regretted that his part was not more considerable, and deferred coming over to Mansfield till they were forward enough in their rehearsal to comprehend all his scenes; but the others aspired at nothing beyond his remembering the catchword, and the first line of his speech, and being able to follow the prompter through the rest. Fanny, in her pity and kindheartedness, was at great pains to teach him how to learn, giving him all the helps and directions in her power, trying to make an artificial memory for him, and learning every word of his part herself, but without his being much the forwarder. Many uncomfortable, anxious, apprehensive feelings she certainly had; but with all these, and other claims on her time and attention, she was as far from finding herself without employment or utility amongst them, as without a companion in uneasiness; quite as far from having no demand on her leisure as on her compassion. The gloom of her first anticipations was proved to have been unfounded. She was occasionally useful to all; she was perhaps as much at peace as any. There was a great deal of needlework to be done, moreover, in which her help was wanted; and that Mrs. Norris thought her quite as well off as the rest, was evident by the manner in which she claimed it-"Come, Fanny," she cried, "these are fine times for you, but you must not be always walking from one room to the other, and doing the lookings-on at your ease, in this way; I want you here. I have been slaving myself till I can hardly stand, to contrive Mr. Rushworth's cloak without sending for any more satin; and now I think you may give me your help in putting it together. There are but three seams; you may do them in a trice. It would be lucky for me if I had nothing but the executive part to do. _You_ are best off, I can tell you: but if nobody did more than _you_, we should not get on very fast." Fanny took the work very quietly, without attempting any defence; but her kinder aunt Bertram observed on her behalf- "One cannot wonder, sister, that Fanny _should_ be delighted: it is all new to her, you know; you and I used to be very fond of a play ourselves, and so am I still; and as soon as I am a little more at leisure, _I_ mean to look in at their rehearsals too. What is the play about, Fanny? you have never told me." "Oh! sister, pray do not ask her now; for Fanny is not one of those who can talk and work at the same time. It is about Lovers' Vows." "I believe," said Fanny to her aunt Bertram, "there will be three acts rehearsed to-morrow evening, and that will give you an opportunity of seeing all the actors at once." "You had better stay till the curtain is hung," interposed Mrs. Norris; "the curtain will be hung in a day or two-there is very little sense in a play without a curtain-and I am much mistaken if you do not find it draw up into very handsome festoons." Lady Bertram seemed quite resigned to waiting. Fanny did not share her aunt's composure: she thought of the morrow a great deal, for if the three acts were rehearsed, Edmund and Miss Crawford would then be acting together for the first time; the third act would bring a scene between them which interested her most particularly, and which she was longing and dreading to see how they would perform. The whole subject of it was love-a marriage of love was to be described by the gentleman, and very little short of a declaration of love be made by the lady. She had read and read the scene again with many painful, many wondering emotions, and looked forward to their representation of it as a circumstance almost too interesting. She did not _believe_ they had yet rehearsed it, even in private. The morrow came, the plan for the evening continued, and Fanny's consideration of it did not become less agitated. She worked very diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence and her silence concealed a very absent, anxious mind; and about noon she made her escape with her work to the East room, that she might have no concern in another, and, as she deemed it, most unnecessary rehearsal of the first act, which Henry Crawford was just proposing, desirous at once of having her time to herself, and of avoiding the sight of Mr. Rushworth. A glimpse, as she passed through the hall, of the two ladies walking up from the Parsonage made no change in her wish of retreat, and she worked and meditated in the East room, undisturbed, for a quarter of an hour, when a gentle tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Miss Crawford. "Am I right? Yes; this is the East room. My dear Miss Price, I beg your pardon, but I have made my way to you on purpose to entreat your help." Fanny, quite surprised, endeavoured to shew herself mistress of the room by her civilities, and looked at the bright bars of her empty grate with concern. "Thank you; I am quite warm, very warm. Allow me to stay here a little while, and do have the goodness to hear me my third act. I have brought my book, and if you would but rehearse it with me, I should be _so_ obliged! I came here to-day intending to rehearse it with Edmund-by ourselves-against the evening, but he is not in the way; and if he _were_, I do not think I could go through it with _him_, till I have hardened myself a little; for really there is a speech or two. You will be so good, won't you?" Fanny was most civil in her assurances, though she could not give them in a very steady voice. "Have you ever happened to look at the part I mean?" continued Miss Crawford, opening her book. "Here it is. I did not think much of it at first-but, upon my word. There, look at _that_ speech, and _that_, and _that_. How am I ever to look him in the face and say such things? Could you do it? But then he is your cousin, which makes all the difference. You must rehearse it with me, that I may fancy _you_ him, and get on by degrees. You _have_ a look of _his_ sometimes." "Have I? I will do my best with the greatest readiness; but I must _read_ the part, for I can say very little of it." "_None_ of it, I suppose. You are to have the book, of course. Now for it. We must have two chairs at hand for you to bring forward to the front of the stage. There-very good school-room chairs, not made for a theatre, I dare say; much more fitted for little girls to sit and kick their feet against when they are learning a lesson. What would your governess and your uncle say to see them used for such a purpose? Could Sir Thomas look in upon us just now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing all over the house. Yates is storming away in the dining-room. I heard him as I came upstairs, and the theatre is engaged of course by those indefatigable rehearsers, Agatha and Frederick. If _they_ are not perfect, I _shall_ be surprised. By the bye, I looked in upon them five minutes ago, and it happened to be exactly at one of the times when they were trying _not_ to embrace, and Mr. Rushworth was with me. I thought he began to look a little queer, so I turned it off as well as I could, by whispering to him, 'We shall have an excellent Agatha; there is something so _maternal_ in her manner, so completely _maternal_ in her voice and countenance.' Was not that well done of me? He brightened up directly. Now for my soliloquy." She began, and Fanny joined in with all the modest feeling which the idea of representing Edmund was so strongly calculated to inspire; but with looks and voice so truly feminine as to be no very good picture of a man. With such an Anhalt, however, Miss Crawford had courage enough; and they had got through half the scene, when a tap at the door brought a pause, and the entrance of Edmund, the next moment, suspended it all. Surprise, consciousness, and pleasure appeared in each of the three on this unexpected meeting; and as Edmund was come on the very same business that had brought Miss Crawford, consciousness and pleasure were likely to be more than momentary in _them_. He too had his book, and was seeking Fanny, to ask her to rehearse with him, and help him to prepare for the evening, without knowing Miss Crawford to be in the house; and great was the joy and animation of being thus thrown together, of comparing schemes, and sympathising in praise of Fanny's kind offices. _She_ could not equal them in their warmth. _Her_ spirits sank under the glow of theirs, and she felt herself becoming too nearly nothing to both to have any comfort in having been sought by either. They must now rehearse together. Edmund proposed, urged, entreated it, till the lady, not very unwilling at first, could refuse no longer, and Fanny was wanted only to prompt and observe them. She was invested, indeed, with the office of judge and critic, and earnestly desired to exercise it and tell them all their faults; but from doing so every feeling within her shrank-she could not, would not, dared not attempt it: had she been otherwise qualified for criticism, her conscience must have restrained her from venturing at disapprobation. She believed herself to feel too much of it in the aggregate for honesty or safety in particulars. To prompt them must be enough for her; and it was sometimes _more_ than enough; for she could not always pay attention to the book. In watching them she forgot herself; and, agitated by the increasing spirit of Edmund's manner, had once closed the page and turned away exactly as he wanted help. It was imputed to very reasonable weariness, and she was thanked and pitied; but she deserved their pity more than she hoped they would ever surmise. At last the scene was over, and Fanny forced herself to add her praise to the compliments each was giving the other; and when again alone and able to recall the whole, she was inclined to believe their performance would, indeed, have such nature and feeling in it as must ensure their credit, and make it a very suffering exhibition to herself. Whatever might be its effect, however, she must stand the brunt of it again that very day. The first regular rehearsal of the three first acts was certainly to take place in the evening: Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords were engaged to return for that purpose as soon as they could after dinner; and every one concerned was looking forward with eagerness. There seemed a general diffusion of cheerfulness on the occasion. Tom was enjoying such an advance towards the end; Edmund was in spirits from the morning's rehearsal, and little vexations seemed everywhere smoothed away. All were alert and impatient; the ladies moved soon, the gentlemen soon followed them, and with the exception of Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, everybody was in the theatre at an early hour; and having lighted it up as well as its unfinished state admitted, were waiting only the arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin. They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant. She could not come. Dr. Grant, professing an indisposition, for which he had little credit with his fair sister-in-law, could not spare his wife. "Dr. Grant is ill," said she, with mock solemnity. "He has been ill ever since he did not eat any of the pheasant today. He fancied it tough, sent away his plate, and has been suffering ever since". Here was disappointment! Mrs. Grant's non-attendance was sad indeed. Her pleasant manners and cheerful conformity made her always valuable amongst them; but _now_ she was absolutely necessary. They could not act, they could not rehearse with any satisfaction without her. The comfort of the whole evening was destroyed. What was to be done? Tom, as Cottager, was in despair. After a pause of perplexity, some eyes began to be turned towards Fanny, and a voice or two to say, "If Miss Price would be so good as to _read_ the part." She was immediately surrounded by supplications; everybody asked it; even Edmund said, "Do, Fanny, if it is not _very_ disagreeable to you." But Fanny still hung back. She could not endure the idea of it. Why was not Miss Crawford to be applied to as well? Or why had not she rather gone to her own room, as she had felt to be safest, instead of attending the rehearsal at all? She had known it would irritate and distress her; she had known it her duty to keep away. She was properly punished. "You have only to _read_ the part," said Henry Crawford, with renewed entreaty. "And I do believe she can say every word of it," added Maria, "for she could put Mrs. Grant right the other day in twenty places. Fanny, I am sure you know the part." Fanny could not say she did _not_; and as they all persevered, as Edmund repeated his wish, and with a look of even fond dependence on her good-nature, she must yield. She would do her best. Everybody was satisfied; and she was left to the tremors of a most palpitating heart, while the others prepared to begin. They _did_ begin; and being too much engaged in their own noise to be struck by an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded some way when the door of the room was thrown open, and Julia, appearing at it, with a face all aghast, exclaimed, "My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment."

Everything was now in train: theatre, actors, actresses, and dresses, were all getting forward; but Fanny found that it was not all uninterrupted enjoyment to the party. Everybody began to have their vexation. Edmund had many. Against his judgment, a scene-painter arrived from town, and was at work, increasing the expenses; and his brother was giving an invitation to every family who came in his way. Tom himself began to fret, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his part-all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united with the Butler, and was impatient to be acting. Fanny, being a very courteous listener, came in for the complaints of most of them. She knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that Tom Bertram spoke too quick; that Mrs. Grant spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth, who needed a prompter through every speech. She knew, also, that poor Mr. Rushworth could seldom get anybody to rehearse with him: and so decidedly did her cousin Maria avoid him, and so needlessly often did she rehearse the first scene with Mr. Crawford, that Fanny was soon terrified of other complaints from him. So far from being all satisfied, everybody required something they had not. Everybody had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody but the complainer would observe any directions. Fanny derived much innocent enjoyment from the play. Henry Crawford acted well, and it was a pleasure to her to creep into the theatre, and attend the rehearsal of the first act, in spite of the feelings it excited in some speeches for Maria. Maria also acted well, too well. Fanny began to be their only audience, sometimes as prompter, sometimes as spectator. As far as she could judge, Mr. Crawford was the best actor of all: he had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and taste than Mr. Yates. She did not like him, but she must admit him to be the best actor. The day came at last, when Mr. Rushworth turned to her with a black look, and said, "Do you think there is anything so very fine in all this? For the life and soul of me, I cannot admire him. To see such an undersized man set up for a fine actor, is ridiculous in my opinion." From this moment there was a return of his jealousy, which Maria, from increasing hopes of Crawford, was at little pains to remove; and the chances of Mr. Rushworth's ever learning his two-and-forty speeches became much less. As to his ever making anything tolerable of them, nobody had the smallest idea of that; they aspired at nothing beyond his remembering the first line of his speech, and being able to follow the prompter through the rest. Fanny, in her pity and kindheartedness, was at great pains to teach him how to learn, trying to make an artificial memory for him, and learning every word of his part herself, but without his being much the forwarder. Many apprehensive feelings she certainly had; but with these claims on her attention, she was far from finding herself without employment. She was occasionally useful to all; she was perhaps as much at peace as any. There was a great deal of needlework to be done, moreover, in which her help was wanted; and Mrs. Norris thought her quite as well off as the rest-"Come, Fanny," she cried, "these are fine times for you, but you must not be always looking on at your ease; I want you here. I have been slaving till I can hardly stand, to contrive Mr. Rushworth's cloak without sending for more satin; now you may help me in putting it together. There are but three seams; you may do them in a trice. If nobody did more than you, we should not get on very fast." Fanny took the work very quietly, but her kinder aunt Bertram observed- "One cannot wonder, sister, that Fanny should be delighted: it is all new to her, you know; I used to be very fond of a play, and when I am a little more at leisure, I mean to look in at their rehearsals. What is the play about, Fanny? you have never told me." "Oh! sister, pray do not ask her now; for Fanny cannot talk and work at the same time. It is about Lovers' Vows." "I believe," said Fanny to her aunt Bertram, "there will be three acts rehearsed to-morrow evening, when you may see all the actors." "You had better stay till the curtain is hung," interposed Mrs. Norris; "the curtain will be hung in a day or two, and you will find it draws up into very handsome festoons." Lady Bertram seemed quite resigned to waiting. Fanny did not share her aunt's composure: she thought of the morrow a great deal, for if the three acts were rehearsed, Edmund and Miss Crawford would then be acting together for the first time. The third act would bring a scene between them which interested her particularly, and which she was longing and dreading to see how they would perform. The whole subject of it was love-a marriage of love was to be described by the gentleman, and little short of a declaration of love made by the lady. She had read and read the scene again with many painful, wondering emotions. She did not believe they had yet rehearsed it, even in private. The morrow came, and Fanny worked diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence concealed a very absent, anxious mind. About noon she made her escape with her work to the East room, to avoid another unnecessary rehearsal of the first act, which Henry Crawford was proposing. She worked and meditated in the East room, undisturbed, for a quarter of an hour, when a gentle tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Miss Crawford. "Am I right? Yes; this is the East room. My dear Miss Price, I beg your pardon, but I have come to entreat your help." Fanny, surprised, answered civilly, and looked at the bars of her empty grate with concern. "Thank you; I am quite warm. Allow me to stay a little while, and have the goodness to hear me my third act. I have brought my book, and if you would but rehearse it with me, I should be so obliged! I came to-day intending to rehearse it with Edmund, but he is not here; and if he were, I do not think I could go through it with him, till I have hardened myself a little; for really there is a speech or two. You will be so good, won't you?" Fanny was most civil in her assurances, though she could not give them in a very steady voice. "Have you ever happened to look at the part I mean?" continued Miss Crawford, opening her book. "I did not think much of it at first-but, upon my word. There, look at that speech, and that. How am I to look him in the face and say such things? Could you do it? But he is your cousin, which makes all the difference. You must rehearse it with me, that I may fancy you him, and get on by degrees. You have a look of his sometimes." "Have I? I will do my best; but I must read the part, for I can say very little of it." "None of it, I suppose. We must have two chairs for the front of the stage. There-very good school-room chairs, fitted for little girls to sit and kick their feet against. What would your governess and your uncle say to see them used for such a purpose? If Sir Thomas could see us now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing all over the house. Yates is storming away in the dining-room, and the theatre is engaged of course by Agatha and Frederick. By the bye, I looked in upon them five minutes ago, at exactly one of the times when they were trying not to embrace, and Mr. Rushworth was with me. I thought he began to look a little queer, so I whispered to him, 'We shall have an excellent Agatha; there is something so completely maternal in her manner.' Was not that well done of me? He brightened up directly. Now for my soliloquy." She began, and Fanny joined in, but with looks and voice so feminine as to be no very good picture of a man. With such an Anhalt, however, Miss Crawford had courage enough; and they had got through half the scene, when a tap at the door, and the entrance of Edmund, suspended it. Surprise, consciousness, and pleasure appeared in each on this unexpected meeting. Edmund was come on the very same business that had brought Miss Crawford. He too had his book, and was seeking Fanny to ask her to rehearse with him, without knowing Miss Crawford was in the house. Great was the joy of being thus thrown together, and sympathising in praise of Fanny's kind offices. She could not equal them in their warmth. Her spirits sank under the glow of theirs, and she felt herself becoming too nearly nothing to both to have any comfort in having been sought by either. They must now rehearse together. Edmund entreated it, till the lady, not very unwilling, could refuse no longer, and Fanny was wanted only to prompt and observe them. She was earnestly desired to tell them all their faults; but shrank from the task. To prompt them must be enough; and it was sometimes more than enough; for in watching them she forgot herself; and, agitated by the increasing spirit of Edmund's manner, closed the page and turned away exactly as he wanted help. It was imputed to very reasonable weariness, and she was thanked and pitied; but she deserved their pity more than she hoped they would ever guess. At last the scene was over, and Fanny forced herself to add her praise to the compliments each was giving the other. When again alone, she was inclined to believe their performance would, indeed, have such feeling in it as must ensure their credit, and make it very painful to herself. However, she must bear the brunt of it again that very day. The rehearsal of the three first acts was to take place in the evening; and everyone concerned was looking forward with eagerness. With the exception of Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, everybody was in the theatre early, waiting only the arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin. They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant. She could not come. Dr. Grant, who was ill, could not spare his wife. Here was disappointment! They could not rehearse without her. What was to be done? After a pause, some eyes were turned towards Fanny, and a voice said, "If Miss Price would be so good as to read the part." She was immediately surrounded by supplications; even Edmund said, "Do, Fanny, if it is not very disagreeable to you." Fanny could not endure the idea of it. Why had not she gone safely to her room, instead of attending the rehearsal? She had known it her duty to keep away. She was properly punished. "You have only to read the part," said Henry Crawford. "I do believe she can say every word of it," added Maria. "Fanny, I am sure you know the part." As they all persevered, as Edmund repeated his wish, she must yield. She would do her best. Everybody was satisfied; and she was left to the tremors of a palpitating heart, while the others prepared to begin. They did begin; and being too much engaged in their own noise to notice an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded some way when the door of the room was thrown open. Julia, appearing at it, her face aghast, exclaimed, "My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment."

Mansfield Park

Chapter 18

Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through the village as he rode into it. He had concluded-he had meant them to be far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight purposely to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield with spirits ready to feed on melancholy remembrances, and tender associations, when her own fair self was before him, leaning on her brother's arm, and he found himself receiving a welcome, unquestionably friendly, from the woman whom, two moments before, he had been thinking of as seventy miles off, and as farther, much farther, from him in inclination than any distance could express. Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped for, had he expected to see her. Coming as he did from such a purport fulfilled as had taken him away, he would have expected anything rather than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning. It was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the properest state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises at hand. William's promotion, with all its particulars, he was soon master of; and with such a secret provision of comfort within his own breast to help the joy, he found in it a source of most gratifying sensation and unvarying cheerfulness all dinner-time. After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny's history; and then all the great events of the last fortnight, and the present situation of matters at Mansfield were known to him. Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual in the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her; and when tea at last brought them away, and she was to be seen by Edmund again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He came to her, sat down by her, took her hand, and pressed it kindly; and at that moment she thought that, but for the occupation and the scene which the tea-things afforded, she must have betrayed her emotion in some unpardonable excess. He was not intending, however, by such action, to be conveying to her that unqualified approbation and encouragement which her hopes drew from it. It was designed only to express his participation in all that interested her, and to tell her that he had been hearing what quickened every feeling of affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father's side of the question. His surprise was not so great as his father's at her refusing Crawford, because, so far from supposing her to consider him with anything like a preference, he had always believed it to be rather the reverse, and could imagine her to be taken perfectly unprepared, but Sir Thomas could not regard the connexion as more desirable than he did. It had every recommendation to him; and while honouring her for what she had done under the influence of her present indifference, honouring her in rather stronger terms than Sir Thomas could quite echo, he was most earnest in hoping, and sanguine in believing, that it would be a match at last, and that, united by mutual affection, it would appear that their dispositions were as exactly fitted to make them blessed in each other, as he was now beginning seriously to consider them. Crawford had been too precipitate. He had not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end. With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers, Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion. Meanwhile, he saw enough of Fanny's embarrassment to make him scrupulously guard against exciting it a second time, by any word, or look, or movement. Crawford called the next day, and on the score of Edmund's return, Sir Thomas felt himself more than licensed to ask him to stay dinner; it was really a necessary compliment. He staid of course, and Edmund had then ample opportunity for observing how he sped with Fanny, and what degree of immediate encouragement for him might be extracted from her manners; and it was so little, so very, very little-every chance, every possibility of it, resting upon her embarrassment only; if there was not hope in her confusion, there was hope in nothing else-that he was almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every exertion of mind, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage than his eyes could discern in hers. He was very willing to hope that Crawford saw clearer, and this was the most comfortable conclusion for his friend that he could come to from all that he observed to pass before, and at, and after dinner. In the evening a few circumstances occurred which he thought more promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother and Fanny were sitting as intently and silently at work as if there were nothing else to care for. Edmund could not help noticing their apparently deep tranquillity. "We have not been so silent all the time," replied his mother. "Fanny has been reading to me, and only put the book down upon hearing you coming." And sure enough there was a book on the table which had the air of being very recently closed: a volume of Shakespeare. "She often reads to me out of those books; and she was in the middle of a very fine speech of that man's-what's his name, Fanny?-when we heard your footsteps." Crawford took the volume. "Let me have the pleasure of finishing that speech to your ladyship," said he. "I shall find it immediately." And by carefully giving way to the inclination of the leaves, he did find it, or within a page or two, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny given; not a syllable for or against. All her attention was for her work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else. But taste was too strong in her. She could not abstract her mind five minutes: she was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good reading extreme. To _good_ reading, however, she had been long used: her uncle read well, her cousins all, Edmund very well, but in Mr. Crawford's reading there was a variety of excellence beyond what she had ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, the happiest power of jumping and guessing, he could always alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches of each; and whether it were dignity, or pride, or tenderness, or remorse, or whatever were to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty. It was truly dramatic. His acting had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his reading brought all his acting before her again; nay, perhaps with greater enjoyment, for it came unexpectedly, and with no such drawback as she had been used to suffer in seeing him on the stage with Miss Bertram. Edmund watched the progress of her attention, and was amused and gratified by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework, which at the beginning seemed to occupy her totally: how it fell from her hand while she sat motionless over it, and at last, how the eyes which had appeared so studiously to avoid him throughout the day were turned and fixed on Crawford-fixed on him for minutes, fixed on him, in short, till the attraction drew Crawford's upon her, and the book was closed, and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into herself, and blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been enough to give Edmund encouragement for his friend, and as he cordially thanked him, he hoped to be expressing Fanny's secret feelings too. "That play must be a favourite with you," said he; "you read as if you knew it well." "It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour," replied Crawford; "but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand before since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I have heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately." "No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree," said Edmund, "from one's earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions; but this is totally distinct from giving his sense as you gave it. To know him in bits and scraps is common enough; to know him pretty thoroughly is, perhaps, not uncommon; but to read him well aloud is no everyday talent." "Sir, you do me honour," was Crawford's answer, with a bow of mock gravity. Both gentlemen had a glance at Fanny, to see if a word of accordant praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not be. Her praise had been given in her attention; _that_ must content them. Lady Bertram's admiration was expressed, and strongly too. "It was really like being at a play," said she. "I wish Sir Thomas had been here." Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her incompetency and languor, could feel this, the inference of what her niece, alive and enlightened as she was, must feel, was elevating. "You have a great turn for acting, I am sure, Mr. Crawford," said her ladyship soon afterwards; "and I will tell you what, I think you will have a theatre, some time or other, at your house in Norfolk. I mean when you are settled there. I do indeed. I think you will fit up a theatre at your house in Norfolk." "Do you, ma'am?" cried he, with quickness. "No, no, that will never be. Your ladyship is quite mistaken. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!" And he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant, "That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham." Edmund saw it all, and saw Fanny so determined _not_ to see it, as to make it clear that the voice was enough to convey the full meaning of the protestation; and such a quick consciousness of compliment, such a ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than not. The subject of reading aloud was farther discussed. The two young men were the only talkers, but they, standing by the fire, talked over the too common neglect of the qualification, the total inattention to it, in the ordinary school-system for boys, the consequently natural, yet in some instances almost unnatural, degree of ignorance and uncouthness of men, of sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice, giving instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes, the want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis, of foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with great entertainment. "Even in my profession," said Edmund, with a smile, "how little the art of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however, than the present. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad; but among those who were ordained twenty, thirty, forty years ago, the larger number, to judge by their performance, must have thought reading was reading, and preaching was preaching. It is different now. The subject is more justly considered. It is felt that distinctness and energy may have weight in recommending the most solid truths; and besides, there is more general observation and taste, a more critical knowledge diffused than formerly; in every congregation there is a larger proportion who know a little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise." Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination; and upon this being understood, he had a variety of questions from Crawford as to his feelings and success; questions, which being made, though with the vivacity of friendly interest and quick taste, without any touch of that spirit of banter or air of levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny, he had true pleasure in satisfying; and when Crawford proceeded to ask his opinion and give his own as to the properest manner in which particular passages in the service should be delivered, shewing it to be a subject on which he had thought before, and thought with judgment, Edmund was still more and more pleased. This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by all that gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects. "Our liturgy," observed Crawford, "has beauties, which not even a careless, slovenly style of reading can destroy; but it has also redundancies and repetitions which require good reading not to be felt. For myself, at least, I must confess being not always so attentive as I ought to be" (here was a glance at Fanny); "that nineteen times out of twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to have it to read myself. Did you speak?" stepping eagerly to Fanny, and addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying "No," he added, "Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not _allow_ my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?" "No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to-even supposing-" She stopt, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be prevailed on to add another word, not by dint of several minutes of supplication and waiting. He then returned to his former station, and went on as if there had been no such tender interruption. "A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well read. A sermon, good in itself, is no rare thing. It is more difficult to speak well than to compose well; that is, the rules and trick of composition are oftener an object of study. A thoroughly good sermon, thoroughly well delivered, is a capital gratification. I can never hear such a one without the greatest admiration and respect, and more than half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or striking, anything that rouses the attention without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not, in his public capacity, honour enough. I should like to be such a man." Edmund laughed. "I should indeed. I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without a sort of envy. But then, I must have a London audience. I could not preach but to the educated; to those who were capable of estimating my composition. And I do not know that I should be fond of preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring, after being anxiously expected for half a dozen Sundays together; but not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy." Here Fanny, who could not but listen, involuntarily shook her head, and Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her meaning; and as Edmund perceived, by his drawing in a chair, and sitting down close by her, that it was to be a very thorough attack, that looks and undertones were to be well tried, he sank as quietly as possible into a corner, turned his back, and took up a newspaper, very sincerely wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into explaining away that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her ardent lover; and as earnestly trying to bury every sound of the business from himself in murmurs of his own, over the various advertisements of "A most desirable Estate in South Wales"; "To Parents and Guardians"; and a "Capital season'd Hunter." Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself for not having been as motionless as she was speechless, and grieved to the heart to see Edmund's arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest, gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both. "What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was it meant to express? Disapprobation, I fear. But of what? What had I been saying to displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly, irreverently on the subject? Only tell me if I was. Only tell me if I was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?" In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford," repeated twice over; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager voice, and the same close neighbourhood, he went on, reurging the same questions as before. She grew more agitated and displeased. "How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can-" "Do I astonish you?" said he. "Do you wonder? Is there anything in my present entreaty that you do not understand? I will explain to you instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me an interest in what you look and do, and excites my present curiosity. I will not leave you to wonder long." In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said nothing. "You shook your head at my acknowledging that I should not like to engage in the duties of a clergyman always for a constancy. Yes, that was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I would spell it, read it, write it with anybody. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did you think I ought?" "Perhaps, sir," said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking-"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment." Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined to keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such an extremity of reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was only a change from one object of curiosity and one set of words to another. He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The opportunity was too fair. None such had occurred since his seeing her in her uncle's room, none such might occur again before his leaving Mansfield. Lady Bertram's being just on the other side of the table was a trifle, for she might always be considered as only half-awake, and Edmund's advertisements were still of the first utility. "Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment, easily tempted, easily put aside. With such an opinion, no wonder that-But we shall see.-It is not by protestations that I shall endeavour to convince you I am wronged; it is not by telling you that my affections are steady. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. _They_ shall prove that, as far as you can be deserved by anybody, I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit; all _that_ I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you beyond what-not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees anything like it-but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. There I build my confidence. By that right I do and will deserve you; and when once convinced that my attachment is what I declare it, I know you too well not to entertain the warmest hopes. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay" (seeing her draw back displeased), "forgive me. Perhaps I have as yet no right; but by what other name can I call you? Do you suppose you are ever present to my imagination under any other? No, it is 'Fanny' that I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such reality of sweetness, that nothing else can now be descriptive of you." Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, or have refrained from at least trying to get away in spite of all the too public opposition she foresaw to it, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief, the very sound which she had been long watching for, and long thinking strangely delayed. The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her from a grievous imprisonment of body and mind. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected. Edmund was not sorry to be admitted again among the number of those who might speak and hear. But though the conference had seemed full long to him, and though on looking at Fanny he saw rather a flush of vexation, he inclined to hope that so much could not have been said and listened to without some profit to the speaker.

Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through the village as he rode into it. He had thought them to be far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight purposely to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield ready to feed on melancholy remembrances, when her own fair self was before him, leaning on her brother's arm, and he found himself receiving a friendly welcome from the woman whom, two moments before, he had been thinking of as seventy miles off. Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped for. Coming as he did from his ordainment, he would have expected anything rather than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning. It was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the right state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises at hand. In William's promotion he found a source of cheerfulness all dinner-time. After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny's history; and then all the great events of the last fortnight were known to him. Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual in the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her; and when she saw Edmund again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He sat down by her, took her hand, and pressed it kindly; and she thought that, but for the occupation which the tea-things afforded, she must have betrayed her emotion. He was not intending, however, to convey to her his unqualified encouragement. He wished only to express his interest and affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father's side of the question. He was not so surprised as his father at her refusing Crawford, because he had never believed her to have a preference for him-rather the reverse; and he believed she had been completely unprepared; but the connexion had every recommendation to him. He earnestly hoped and believed that it would be a match at last, and that their dispositions were exactly fitted to make them blessed in each other. Crawford had been too hasty. He had not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end. With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers, Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion. Meanwhile, he scrupulously guarded against saying anything to give Fanny further embarrassment. Crawford called the next day, and Sir Thomas asked him to stay to dinner. Edmund had then ample opportunity for observing how much encouragement he received from Fanny's manner; and it was so little, so very, very little, that he was almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage. In the evening, circumstances occurred which he thought more promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother and Fanny were sitting silently at work, in apparently deep tranquillity. "Fanny has been reading to me," said his mother. There was a volume of Shakespeare on the table. "She often reads to me; and she was in the middle of a very fine speech when we heard your footsteps." Crawford took up the volume. "Let me have the pleasure of finishing that speech to your ladyship," said he. "I shall find it immediately." And he did find it, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny given. All her attention was for her work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else. But taste was too strong in her. She was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good reading extreme. Her uncle read well, Edmund very well, but in Mr. Crawford's reading there was excellence beyond what she had ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, he could alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches; and whether it were dignity, or tenderness, or remorse to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty. His acting had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his reading brought all his acting before her again; nay, perhaps with greater enjoyment, for it came with no such drawback as she had suffered in seeing him on the stage with Miss Bertram. Edmund watched, and was amused by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework: how it fell from her hand while she sat motionless, and at last, how her eyes were turned and fixed on Crawford-fixed on him, in short, till the attraction drew Crawford's eyes upon her, and the book was closed, and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into herself, blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been enough to give Edmund encouragement for his friend. "That play must be a favourite with you," said he. "It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour," replied Crawford; "but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution; one is intimate with him by instinct." "No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree," said Edmund, "from one's earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions. To know him in bits and scraps is common enough; but to read him well aloud is no everyday talent." "Sir, you do me honour," was Crawford's answer, with a bow of mock gravity. Both gentlemen glanced at Fanny, to see if a word of praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not be. Her praise had been given in her attention; that must content them. "It was really like being at a play," said Lady Bertram. "I wish Sir Thomas had been here." Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her languor, could feel this, her niece must feel much more. "I will tell you what, Mr Crawford," said her ladyship, "I think you will have a theatre at your house in Norfolk, when you are settled there. I do indeed." "Do you, ma'am?" cried he quickly. "No, that will never be. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!" And he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant, "That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham." Edmund saw it, and saw Fanny determined not to see it. Such a ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than not. The two young men, standing by the fire, talked over the too common neglect of reading aloud in the school-system, and the consequent ignorance of men when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud; giving instances of blunders and failures, the lack of management of the voice, of proper emphasis, all proceeding from the want of early attention and habit. Fanny was listening again with great entertainment. "Even in my profession," said Edmund, with a smile, "how little the art of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad. It is felt that distinctness and energy may help to convey the most solid truths; and besides, knowledge of good reading is more widespread than formerly; in every congregation there are more who know a little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise." Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination; and upon this being understood, Crawford asked him many questions with the vivacity of friendly interest, and none of that levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny. When Crawford asked his opinion as to the befitting manner in which particular passages in the service should be delivered, showing it to be a subject on which he had thought, Edmund was still more pleased. This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by gallantry and wit; or, at least, she would not be won by them so soon, without the assistance of seriousness on serious subjects. "Our liturgy," observed Crawford, "has beauties which not even a careless style of reading can destroy; but it has also redundancies which require good reading not to be felt. I must confess to being not always so attentive as I ought to be" (here was a glance at Fanny); "nineteen times out of twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to read it myself. Did you speak?" stepping eagerly to Fanny, and addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying "No," he added, "Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not allow my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?" "No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to-even supposing-" She stopped, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be prevailed on to add another word. He returned to his former place, and went on. "A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well read. A thoroughly good sermon, thoroughly well delivered, is a capital pleasure. I can never hear such a one without the greatest admiration, and more than half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch such a mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or striking, anything that rouses the attention without wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not honour enough. I should like to be such a man." Edmund laughed. "I should indeed," said Crawford. "I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without envy. But I must have a London audience. I could only preach to the educated. And I should not be fond of preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring; but not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy." Here Fanny involuntarily shook her head, and Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her meaning; and as Edmund perceived that it was to be a very thorough attack, he sank as quietly as possible into a corner and took up a newspaper, sincerely wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into explaining away that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her ardent lover; and he tried to bury every sound of the business in murmurs of his own, over the advertisements of "A most desirable Estate in South Wales" and a "Capital season'd Hunter." Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself, and grieved to see Edmund's arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest, gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both. "What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was it meant to express? Disapprobation, I fear. What had I been saying to displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly on the subject? Only tell me if I was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?" In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford," repeated; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager voice, he went on, reurging the same questions. She grew more agitated and displeased. "How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can-" "Do I astonish you?" said he. "Do you wonder? I will explain to you instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me an interest in what you look and do. I will not leave you to wonder long." In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said nothing. "You shook your head at my saying that I should not like the duties of a clergyman for a constancy. Yes, that was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did you think I ought?" "Perhaps, sir," said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking-"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment." Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined to keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such extreme reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was only a change from one set of words to another. He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The opportunity was too fair. None such might occur again before his leaving Mansfield. Lady Bertram's being just on the other side of the table was a trifle, for she was only half-awake, and Edmund's advertisements were still proving most useful. "Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment. But we shall see. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. They shall prove that I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit, I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. It is he who worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. There I build my confidence. By that right I do and will deserve you. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay" (seeing her draw back displeased), "forgive me; but by what other name can I call you? It is 'Fanny' that I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such sweetness, that nothing else can be descriptive of you." Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief, the sound which she had been long waiting for, and thinking strangely delayed. The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected. Edmund was not sorry to be again able to speak and hear. On looking at Fanny he saw a flush of vexation; yet he hoped that so much could not have been said without some profit to the speaker.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 34

The Honourable John Yates, this new friend, had not much to recommend him beyond habits of fashion and expense, and being the younger son of a lord with a tolerable independence; and Sir Thomas would probably have thought his introduction at Mansfield by no means desirable. Mr. Bertram's acquaintance with him had begun at Weymouth, where they had spent ten days together in the same society, and the friendship, if friendship it might be called, had been proved and perfected by Mr. Yates's being invited to take Mansfield in his way, whenever he could, and by his promising to come; and he did come rather earlier than had been expected, in consequence of the sudden breaking-up of a large party assembled for gaiety at the house of another friend, which he had left Weymouth to join. He came on the wings of disappointment, and with his head full of acting, for it had been a theatrical party; and the play in which he had borne a part was within two days of representation, when the sudden death of one of the nearest connexions of the family had destroyed the scheme and dispersed the performers. To be so near happiness, so near fame, so near the long paragraph in praise of the private theatricals at Ecclesford, the seat of the Right Hon. Lord Ravenshaw, in Cornwall, which would of course have immortalised the whole party for at least a twelvemonth! and being so near, to lose it all, was an injury to be keenly felt, and Mr. Yates could talk of nothing else. Ecclesford and its theatre, with its arrangements and dresses, rehearsals and jokes, was his never-failing subject, and to boast of the past his only consolation. Happily for him, a love of the theatre is so general, an itch for acting so strong among young people, that he could hardly out-talk the interest of his hearers. From the first casting of the parts to the epilogue it was all bewitching, and there were few who did not wish to have been a party concerned, or would have hesitated to try their skill. The play had been Lovers' Vows, and Mr. Yates was to have been Count Cassel. "A trifling part," said he, "and not at all to my taste, and such a one as I certainly would not accept again; but I was determined to make no difficulties. Lord Ravenshaw and the duke had appropriated the only two characters worth playing before I reached Ecclesford; and though Lord Ravenshaw offered to resign his to me, it was impossible to take it, you know. I was sorry for _him_ that he should have so mistaken his powers, for he was no more equal to the Baron-a little man with a weak voice, always hoarse after the first ten minutes. It must have injured the piece materially; but _I_ was resolved to make no difficulties. Sir Henry thought the duke not equal to Frederick, but that was because Sir Henry wanted the part himself; whereas it was certainly in the best hands of the two. I was surprised to see Sir Henry such a stick. Luckily the strength of the piece did not depend upon him. Our Agatha was inimitable, and the duke was thought very great by many. And upon the whole, it would certainly have gone off wonderfully." "It was a hard case, upon my word"; and, "I do think you were very much to be pitied," were the kind responses of listening sympathy. "It is not worth complaining about; but to be sure the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time; and it is impossible to help wishing that the news could have been suppressed for just the three days we wanted. It was but three days; and being only a grandmother, and all happening two hundred miles off, I think there would have been no great harm, and it was suggested, I know; but Lord Ravenshaw, who I suppose is one of the most correct men in England, would not hear of it." "An afterpiece instead of a comedy," said Mr. Bertram. "Lovers' Vows were at an end, and Lord and Lady Ravenshaw left to act My Grandmother by themselves. Well, the jointure may comfort _him_; and perhaps, between friends, he began to tremble for his credit and his lungs in the Baron, and was not sorry to withdraw; and to make _you_ amends, Yates, I think we must raise a little theatre at Mansfield, and ask you to be our manager." This, though the thought of the moment, did not end with the moment; for the inclination to act was awakened, and in no one more strongly than in him who was now master of the house; and who, having so much leisure as to make almost any novelty a certain good, had likewise such a degree of lively talents and comic taste, as were exactly adapted to the novelty of acting. The thought returned again and again. "Oh for the Ecclesford theatre and scenery to try something with." Each sister could echo the wish; and Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications it was yet an untasted pleasure, was quite alive at the idea. "I really believe," said he, "I could be fool enough at this moment to undertake any character that ever was written, from Shylock or Richard III down to the singing hero of a farce in his scarlet coat and cocked hat. I feel as if I could be anything or everything; as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any tragedy or comedy in the English language. Let us be doing something. Be it only half a play, an act, a scene; what should prevent us? Not these countenances, I am sure," looking towards the Miss Bertrams; "and for a theatre, what signifies a theatre? We shall be only amusing ourselves. Any room in this house might suffice." "We must have a curtain," said Tom Bertram; "a few yards of green baize for a curtain, and perhaps that may be enough." "Oh, quite enough," cried Mr. Yates, "with only just a side wing or two run up, doors in flat, and three or four scenes to be let down; nothing more would be necessary on such a plan as this. For mere amusement among ourselves we should want nothing more." "I believe we must be satisfied with _less_," said Maria. "There would not be time, and other difficulties would arise. We must rather adopt Mr. Crawford's views, and make the _performance_, not the _theatre_, our object. Many parts of our best plays are independent of scenery." "Nay," said Edmund, who began to listen with alarm. "Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in a theatre completely fitted up with pit, boxes, and gallery, and let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking, shifting afterpiece, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe, and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford, we do nothing." "Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia. "Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone much farther to see one." "True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting; but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who have not been bred to the trade: a set of gentlemen and ladies, who have all the disadvantages of education and decorum to struggle through." After a short pause, however, the subject still continued, and was discussed with unabated eagerness, every one's inclination increasing by the discussion, and a knowledge of the inclination of the rest; and though nothing was settled but that Tom Bertram would prefer a comedy, and his sisters and Henry Crawford a tragedy, and that nothing in the world could be easier than to find a piece which would please them all, the resolution to act something or other seemed so decided as to make Edmund quite uncomfortable. He was determined to prevent it, if possible, though his mother, who equally heard the conversation which passed at table, did not evince the least disapprobation. The same evening afforded him an opportunity of trying his strength. Maria, Julia, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates were in the billiard-room. Tom, returning from them into the drawing-room, where Edmund was standing thoughtfully by the fire, while Lady Bertram was on the sofa at a little distance, and Fanny close beside her arranging her work, thus began as he entered-"Such a horribly vile billiard-table as ours is not to be met with, I believe, above ground. I can stand it no longer, and I think, I may say, that nothing shall ever tempt me to it again; but one good thing I have just ascertained: it is the very room for a theatre, precisely the shape and length for it; and the doors at the farther end, communicating with each other, as they may be made to do in five minutes, by merely moving the bookcase in my father's room, is the very thing we could have desired, if we had sat down to wish for it; and my father's room will be an excellent greenroom. It seems to join the billiard-room on purpose." "You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?" said Edmund, in a low voice, as his brother approached the fire. "Not serious! never more so, I assure you. What is there to surprise you in it?" "I think it would be very wrong. In a _general_ light, private theatricals are open to some objections, but as _we_ are circumstanced, I must think it would be highly injudicious, and more than injudicious to attempt anything of the kind. It would shew great want of feeling on my father's account, absent as he is, and in some degree of constant danger; and it would be imprudent, I think, with regard to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one, considering everything, extremely delicate." "You take up a thing so seriously! as if we were going to act three times a week till my father's return, and invite all the country. But it is not to be a display of that sort. We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in chusing some play most perfectly unexceptionable; and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own. I have no fears and no scruples. And as to my father's being absent, it is so far from an objection, that I consider it rather as a motive; for the expectation of his return must be a very anxious period to my mother; and if we can be the means of amusing that anxiety, and keeping up her spirits for the next few weeks, I shall think our time very well spent, and so, I am sure, will he. It is a _very_ anxious period for her." As he said this, each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk back in one corner of the sofa, the picture of health, wealth, ease, and tranquillity, was just falling into a gentle doze, while Fanny was getting through the few difficulties of her work for her. Edmund smiled and shook his head. "By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, throwing himself into a chair with a hearty laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother, your anxiety-I was unlucky there." "What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, in the heavy tone of one half-roused; "I was not asleep." "Oh dear, no, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund," he continued, returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again, "but _this_ I _will_ maintain, that we shall be doing no harm." "I cannot agree with you; I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it." "And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people, or promotes it more, than my father, and for anything of the acting, spouting, reciting kind, I think he has always a decided taste. I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar, and to _be'd_ and not _to_ _be'd_, in this very room, for his amusement? And I am sure, _my_ _name_ _was_ _Norval_, every evening of my life through one Christmas holidays." "It was a very different thing. You must see the difference yourself. My father wished us, as schoolboys, to speak well, but he would never wish his grown-up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is strict." "I know all that," said Tom, displeased. "I know my father as well as you do; and I'll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I'll take care of the rest of the family." "If you are resolved on acting," replied the persevering Edmund, "I must hope it will be in a very small and quiet way; and I think a theatre ought not to be attempted. It would be taking liberties with my father's house in his absence which could not be justified." "For everything of that nature I will be answerable," said Tom, in a decided tone. "His house shall not be hurt. I have quite as great an interest in being careful of his house as you can have; and as to such alterations as I was suggesting just now, such as moving a bookcase, or unlocking a door, or even as using the billiard-room for the space of a week without playing at billiards in it, you might just as well suppose he would object to our sitting more in this room, and less in the breakfast-room, than we did before he went away, or to my sister's pianoforte being moved from one side of the room to the other. Absolute nonsense!" "The innovation, if not wrong as an innovation, will be wrong as an expense." "Yes, the expense of such an undertaking would be prodigious! Perhaps it might cost a whole twenty pounds. Something of a theatre we must have undoubtedly, but it will be on the simplest plan: a green curtain and a little carpenter's work, and that's all; and as the carpenter's work may be all done at home by Christopher Jackson himself, it will be too absurd to talk of expense; and as long as Jackson is employed, everything will be right with Sir Thomas. Don't imagine that nobody in this house can see or judge but yourself. Don't act yourself, if you do not like it, but don't expect to govern everybody else." "No, as to acting myself," said Edmund, "_that_ I absolutely protest against." Tom walked out of the room as he said it, and Edmund was left to sit down and stir the fire in thoughtful vexation. Fanny, who had heard it all, and borne Edmund company in every feeling throughout the whole, now ventured to say, in her anxiety to suggest some comfort, "Perhaps they may not be able to find any play to suit them. Your brother's taste and your sisters' seem very different." "I have no hope there, Fanny. If they persist in the scheme, they will find something. I shall speak to my sisters and try to dissuade _them_, and that is all I can do." "I should think my aunt Norris would be on your side." "I dare say she would, but she has no influence with either Tom or my sisters that could be of any use; and if I cannot convince them myself, I shall let things take their course, without attempting it through her. Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all, and we had better do anything than be altogether by the ears." His sisters, to whom he had an opportunity of speaking the next morning, were quite as impatient of his advice, quite as unyielding to his representation, quite as determined in the cause of pleasure, as Tom. Their mother had no objection to the plan, and they were not in the least afraid of their father's disapprobation. There could be no harm in what had been done in so many respectable families, and by so many women of the first consideration; and it must be scrupulousness run mad that could see anything to censure in a plan like theirs, comprehending only brothers and sisters and intimate friends, and which would never be heard of beyond themselves. Julia _did_ seem inclined to admit that Maria's situation might require particular caution and delicacy-but that could not extend to _her_-she was at liberty; and Maria evidently considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above restraint, and leaving her less occasion than Julia to consult either father or mother. Edmund had little to hope, but he was still urging the subject when Henry Crawford entered the room, fresh from the Parsonage, calling out, "No want of hands in our theatre, Miss Bertram. No want of understrappers: my sister desires her love, and hopes to be admitted into the company, and will be happy to take the part of any old duenna or tame confidante, that you may not like to do yourselves." Maria gave Edmund a glance, which meant, "What say you now? Can we be wrong if Mary Crawford feels the same?" And Edmund, silenced, was obliged to acknowledge that the charm of acting might well carry fascination to the mind of genius; and with the ingenuity of love, to dwell more on the obliging, accommodating purport of the message than on anything else. The scheme advanced. Opposition was vain; and as to Mrs. Norris, he was mistaken in supposing she would wish to make any. She started no difficulties that were not talked down in five minutes by her eldest nephew and niece, who were all-powerful with her; and as the whole arrangement was to bring very little expense to anybody, and none at all to herself, as she foresaw in it all the comforts of hurry, bustle, and importance, and derived the immediate advantage of fancying herself obliged to leave her own house, where she had been living a month at her own cost, and take up her abode in theirs, that every hour might be spent in their service, she was, in fact, exceedingly delighted with the project.

The Honourable John Yates, this new friend of Tom's, had not much to recommend him beyond being the younger son of a lord; and Sir Thomas would probably have thought his introduction at Mansfield undesirable. Mr. Bertram's acquaintance with him had begun at Weymouth, where they had spent ten days in the same society. Mr. Yates was invited to visit Mansfield, and came rather earlier than expected, in consequence of the sudden breaking-up of a large party at the house of another friend. He came on the wings of disappointment, and with his head full of acting, for it had been a theatrical party; the sudden death of a connexion of the family had dispersed the performers two days before the performance. To be so near happiness, so near fame, so near the long paragraph in praise of the private theatricals at Ecclesford, the seat of Lord Ravenshaw, which would have immortalised the whole party for a twelvemonth! to lose it all, was an injury keenly felt, and Mr. Yates could talk of nothing else. Ecclesford and its theatre, its dresses, rehearsals and jokes, was his never-failing subject. Happily for him, a love of the theatre is so general, an itch for acting so strong among young people, that he could hardly out-talk the interest of his hearers. It was all bewitching. The play had been Lovers' Vows, and Mr. Yates was to have been Count Cassel. "A trifling part," said he, "and not to my taste; but I was determined to make no difficulties. Lord Ravenshaw and the duke had taken the only two characters worth playing. I was sorry that Lord Ravenshaw should have so mistaken his powers, for he was not equal to the Baron-a little man with a weak voice, always hoarse after ten minutes. Sir Henry thought the duke not equal to Frederick, but that was because Sir Henry wanted the part himself. Our Agatha was inimitable, and the duke was thought very great by many. It would certainly have gone off wonderfully." "I do think you were very much to be pitied," was the kind response. "To be sure, the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time; and I wish the news could have been suppressed for just three days. I think there would have been no great harm, and it was suggested, I know; but Lord Ravenshaw would not hear of it." "To make you amends, Yates," said Mr Bertram, "I think we must raise a little theatre at Mansfield, and ask you to be our manager." The desire to act was awakened in Tom, who was now master of the house; and who had such lively talents and comic taste as were exactly adapted to the novelty of acting. Each sister echoed the wish; and Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications it was an untasted pleasure, was quite alive at the idea. "I really believe," said he, "I could at this moment undertake any character that ever was written. I feel as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any play in the English language. Let us be doing something. As for a theatre, any room in this house might suffice." "We must have a curtain," said Tom Bertram; "a few yards of green baize for a curtain may be enough." "Oh, quite enough," cried Mr. Yates, "with only just a side wing or two run up, doors in flat, and three or four scenes to be let down. We should want nothing more." "I believe we must be satisfied with less," said Maria. "We must make the performance, not the theatre, our object." "Nay," said Edmund, listening with alarm. "Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in a theatre completely fitted up with pit, boxes, and gallery, and let us have a play entire, with a good tricking, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe, and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford, we do nothing." "Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia. "Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone farther to see one." "True, to see real acting; but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who have not been bred to the trade." However, the subject continued to be discussed with eagerness; and though nothing was settled but that Tom Bertram would prefer a comedy, and his sisters and Henry Crawford a tragedy, and that nothing could be easier than to find a piece which would please them all, their resolution to act seemed so decided as to make Edmund quite uncomfortable. He was determined to prevent it, if possible, though his mother did not show the least disapprobation. The same evening gave him an opportunity of trying his strength. Maria, Julia, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates were in the billiard-room. Tom, returning from them into the drawing-room, found Edmund standing thoughtfully by the fire, while Lady Bertram and Fanny were on the sofa. Tom began as he entered-"Such a horribly vile billiard-table as ours is not to be met with. I can stand it no longer, but I have just ascertained one good thing: the room is precisely the shape for a theatre; and with the doors at the end communicating with each other, as they may be made to do by merely moving the bookcase in my father's room, is the very thing we could have desired." "You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?" said Edmund. "Never more so, I assure you." "I think it would be very wrong. It would be highly injudicious. It would show great lack of feeling on my father's account, absent as he is, and in constant danger; and it would be imprudent with regard to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one." "You take it so seriously! as if we were going to act three times a week, and invite all the country. But we mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves. We want no audience, no publicity. As to my father's absence, I consider it a motive; for this must be a very anxious period to my mother; and if we can keep up her spirits for the next few weeks, I shall think our time well spent." Each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk in one corner of the sofa, the picture of ease and tranquillity, was just falling into a gentle doze. Edmund smiled and shook his head. "By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, with a laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother-I was unlucky there." "What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, half-roused; "I was not asleep." "No, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund," he continued, as Lady Bertram began to nod again, "I maintain that we shall be doing no harm." "I cannot agree; I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it." "And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people than my father, and I think he has a decided taste for acting. He encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Caesar, and to be'd and not to be'd, for his amusement?" "It was a very different thing. My father wished us, as schoolboys, to speak well, but he would never wish his grown-up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is strict." "I know that," said Tom, displeased. "I know my father as well as you do; and I'll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I'll take care of the rest of the family." "If you are resolved on acting," replied the persevering Edmund, "I hope it will be in a very quiet way; and I think a theatre ought not to be attempted. It would be taking liberties with my father's house." "I will be answerable," said Tom. "His house shall not be hurt. I have quite as great an interest in his house as you; and as to such alterations as moving a bookcase, or unlocking a door, or using the billiard-room for the space of a week, you might as well suppose he would object to my sister's pianoforte being moved from one side of the room to the other. Absolute nonsense!" "The innovation will be wrong as an expense." "Yes, the expense would be prodigious! Perhaps it might cost a whole twenty pounds. It will be a green curtain and a little carpenter's work, that's all; and as the carpenter's work may be done by Christopher Jackson, it will be absurd to talk of expense. As long as Jackson is employed, everything will be right with Sir Thomas. Don't imagine that nobody in this house can see or judge but yourself. Don't act yourself, if you do not like it, but don't expect to govern everybody else." "No, as to acting myself," said Edmund, "that I absolutely protest against." Tom walked out of the room, and Edmund was left to stir the fire in thoughtful vexation. Fanny said, anxious to suggest some comfort, "Perhaps they may not find any play to suit them. Your brother's taste and your sisters' seem very different." "I have no hope there, Fanny. They will find something. I shall try to dissuade my sisters, and that is all I can do." "I should think my aunt Norris would be on your side." "I dare say she would, but she has no influence with either Tom or my sisters; and if I cannot convince them myself, I shall let things take their course. Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all." His sisters, to whom he spoke the next morning, were quite as impatient of his advice as Tom. Their mother had no objection to the plan, and they were not afraid of their father's disapprobation. There could be no harm in what had been done in so many respectable families. Julia did admit that Maria's situation might require particular caution-but that could not extend to her-she was at liberty; and Maria evidently considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above restraint. Edmund was still urging them when Henry Crawford entered the room, calling out, "No lack of hands in our theatre, Miss Bertram. My sister hopes to be admitted into the company, and will be happy to take the part of any old duenna that you may not like yourselves." Maria gave Edmund a glance, which meant, "What say you now? Can we be wrong if Mary Crawford feels the same?" And Edmund, silenced, acknowledged that the charm of acting might well carry fascination to the mind of genius. As to Mrs. Norris, he was mistaken in supposing she would wish to oppose the scheme. She was talked down in five minutes by her eldest nephew and niece, who were all-powerful with her. The arrangement was to bring very little expense to anybody, and none at all to herself. She foresaw in it all the comforts of bustle and importance, and fancied herself obliged to leave her own house, where she had been living at her own cost, and stay in theirs, so that every hour might be spent in their service. She was, in fact, delighted with the project.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 13

A week was gone since Edmund might be supposed in town, and Fanny had heard nothing of him. There were three different conclusions to be drawn from his silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation; each of them at times being held the most probable. Either his going had been again delayed, or he had yet procured no opportunity of seeing Miss Crawford alone, or he was too happy for letter-writing! One morning, about this time, Fanny having now been nearly four weeks from Mansfield, a point which she never failed to think over and calculate every day, as she and Susan were preparing to remove, as usual, upstairs, they were stopped by the knock of a visitor, whom they felt they could not avoid, from Rebecca's alertness in going to the door, a duty which always interested her beyond any other. It was a gentleman's voice; it was a voice that Fanny was just turning pale about, when Mr. Crawford walked into the room. Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon; and she found that she had been able to name him to her mother, and recall her remembrance of the name, as that of "William's friend," though she could not previously have believed herself capable of uttering a syllable at such a moment. The consciousness of his being known there only as William's friend was some support. Having introduced him, however, and being all reseated, the terrors that occurred of what this visit might lead to were overpowering, and she fancied herself on the point of fainting away. While trying to keep herself alive, their visitor, who had at first approached her with as animated a countenance as ever, was wisely and kindly keeping his eyes away, and giving her time to recover, while he devoted himself entirely to her mother, addressing her, and attending to her with the utmost politeness and propriety, at the same time with a degree of friendliness, of interest at least, which was making his manner perfect. Mrs. Price's manners were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of such a friend to her son, and regulated by the wish of appearing to advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude-artless, maternal gratitude-which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out, which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to feel that _she_ could not regret it; for to her many other sources of uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the home in which he found her. She might scold herself for the weakness, but there was no scolding it away. She was ashamed, and she would have been yet more ashamed of her father than of all the rest. They talked of William, a subject on which Mrs. Price could never tire; and Mr. Crawford was as warm in his commendation as even her heart could wish. She felt that she had never seen so agreeable a man in her life; and was only astonished to find that, so great and so agreeable as he was, he should be come down to Portsmouth neither on a visit to the port-admiral, nor the commissioner, nor yet with the intention of going over to the island, nor of seeing the dockyard. Nothing of all that she had been used to think of as the proof of importance, or the employment of wealth, had brought him to Portsmouth. He had reached it late the night before, was come for a day or two, was staying at the Crown, had accidentally met with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance since his arrival, but had no object of that kind in coming. By the time he had given all this information, it was not unreasonable to suppose that Fanny might be looked at and spoken to; and she was tolerably able to bear his eye, and hear that he had spent half an hour with his sister the evening before his leaving London; that she had sent her best and kindest love, but had had no time for writing; that he thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even half an hour, having spent scarcely twenty-four hours in London, after his return from Norfolk, before he set off again; that her cousin Edmund was in town, had been in town, he understood, a few days; that he had not seen him himself, but that he was well, had left them all well at Mansfield, and was to dine, as yesterday, with the Frasers. Fanny listened collectedly, even to the last-mentioned circumstance; nay, it seemed a relief to her worn mind to be at any certainty; and the words, "then by this time it is all settled," passed internally, without more evidence of emotion than a faint blush. After talking a little more about Mansfield, a subject in which her interest was most apparent, Crawford began to hint at the expediency of an early walk. "It was a lovely morning, and at that season of the year a fine morning so often turned off, that it was wisest for everybody not to delay their exercise"; and such hints producing nothing, he soon proceeded to a positive recommendation to Mrs. Price and her daughters to take their walk without loss of time. Now they came to an understanding. Mrs. Price, it appeared, scarcely ever stirred out of doors, except of a Sunday; she owned she could seldom, with her large family, find time for a walk. "Would she not, then, persuade her daughters to take advantage of such weather, and allow him the pleasure of attending them?" Mrs. Price was greatly obliged and very complying. "Her daughters were very much confined; Portsmouth was a sad place; they did not often get out; and she knew they had some errands in the town, which they would be very glad to do." And the consequence was, that Fanny, strange as it was-strange, awkward, and distressing-found herself and Susan, within ten minutes, walking towards the High Street with Mr. Crawford. It was soon pain upon pain, confusion upon confusion; for they were hardly in the High Street before they met her father, whose appearance was not the better from its being Saturday. He stopt; and, ungentlemanlike as he looked, Fanny was obliged to introduce him to Mr. Crawford. She could not have a doubt of the manner in which Mr. Crawford must be struck. He must be ashamed and disgusted altogether. He must soon give her up, and cease to have the smallest inclination for the match; and yet, though she had been so much wanting his affection to be cured, this was a sort of cure that would be almost as bad as the complaint; and I believe there is scarcely a young lady in the United Kingdoms who would not rather put up with the misfortune of being sought by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity of her nearest relations. Mr. Crawford probably could not regard his future father-in-law with any idea of taking him for a model in dress; but (as Fanny instantly, and to her great relief, discerned) her father was a very different man, a very different Mr. Price in his behaviour to this most highly respected stranger, from what he was in his own family at home. His manners now, though not polished, were more than passable: they were grateful, animated, manly; his expressions were those of an attached father, and a sensible man; his loud tones did very well in the open air, and there was not a single oath to be heard. Such was his instinctive compliment to the good manners of Mr. Crawford; and, be the consequence what it might, Fanny's immediate feelings were infinitely soothed. The conclusion of the two gentlemen's civilities was an offer of Mr. Price's to take Mr. Crawford into the dockyard, which Mr. Crawford, desirous of accepting as a favour what was intended as such, though he had seen the dockyard again and again, and hoping to be so much the longer with Fanny, was very gratefully disposed to avail himself of, if the Miss Prices were not afraid of the fatigue; and as it was somehow or other ascertained, or inferred, or at least acted upon, that they were not at all afraid, to the dockyard they were all to go; and but for Mr. Crawford, Mr. Price would have turned thither directly, without the smallest consideration for his daughters' errands in the High Street. He took care, however, that they should be allowed to go to the shops they came out expressly to visit; and it did not delay them long, for Fanny could so little bear to excite impatience, or be waited for, that before the gentlemen, as they stood at the door, could do more than begin upon the last naval regulations, or settle the number of three-deckers now in commission, their companions were ready to proceed. They were then to set forward for the dockyard at once, and the walk would have been conducted-according to Mr. Crawford's opinion-in a singular manner, had Mr. Price been allowed the entire regulation of it, as the two girls, he found, would have been left to follow, and keep up with them or not, as they could, while they walked on together at their own hasty pace. He was able to introduce some improvement occasionally, though by no means to the extent he wished; he absolutely would not walk away from them; and at any crossing or any crowd, when Mr. Price was only calling out, "Come, girls; come, Fan; come, Sue, take care of yourselves; keep a sharp lookout!" he would give them his particular attendance. Once fairly in the dockyard, he began to reckon upon some happy intercourse with Fanny, as they were very soon joined by a brother lounger of Mr. Price's, who was come to take his daily survey of how things went on, and who must prove a far more worthy companion than himself; and after a time the two officers seemed very well satisfied going about together, and discussing matters of equal and never-failing interest, while the young people sat down upon some timbers in the yard, or found a seat on board a vessel in the stocks which they all went to look at. Fanny was most conveniently in want of rest. Crawford could not have wished her more fatigued or more ready to sit down; but he could have wished her sister away. A quick-looking girl of Susan's age was the very worst third in the world: totally different from Lady Bertram, all eyes and ears; and there was no introducing the main point before her. He must content himself with being only generally agreeable, and letting Susan have her share of entertainment, with the indulgence, now and then, of a look or hint for the better-informed and conscious Fanny. Norfolk was what he had mostly to talk of: there he had been some time, and everything there was rising in importance from his present schemes. Such a man could come from no place, no society, without importing something to amuse; his journeys and his acquaintance were all of use, and Susan was entertained in a way quite new to her. For Fanny, somewhat more was related than the accidental agreeableness of the parties he had been in. For her approbation, the particular reason of his going into Norfolk at all, at this unusual time of year, was given. It had been real business, relative to the renewal of a lease in which the welfare of a large and-he believed-industrious family was at stake. He had suspected his agent of some underhand dealing; of meaning to bias him against the deserving; and he had determined to go himself, and thoroughly investigate the merits of the case. He had gone, had done even more good than he had foreseen, had been useful to more than his first plan had comprehended, and was now able to congratulate himself upon it, and to feel that in performing a duty, he had secured agreeable recollections for his own mind. He had introduced himself to some tenants whom he had never seen before; he had begun making acquaintance with cottages whose very existence, though on his own estate, had been hitherto unknown to him. This was aimed, and well aimed, at Fanny. It was pleasing to hear him speak so properly; here he had been acting as he ought to do. To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! Nothing could be more grateful to her; and she was on the point of giving him an approving look, when it was all frightened off by his adding a something too pointed of his hoping soon to have an assistant, a friend, a guide in every plan of utility or charity for Everingham: a somebody that would make Everingham and all about it a dearer object than it had ever been yet. She turned away, and wished he would not say such things. She was willing to allow he might have more good qualities than she had been wont to suppose. She began to feel the possibility of his turning out well at last; but he was and must ever be completely unsuited to her, and ought not to think of her. He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham, and that it would be as well to talk of something else, and turned to Mansfield. He could not have chosen better; that was a topic to bring back her attention and her looks almost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear or to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided from everybody who knew the place, she felt it quite the voice of a friend when he mentioned it, and led the way to her fond exclamations in praise of its beauties and comforts, and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed her to gratify her own heart in the warmest eulogium, in speaking of her uncle as all that was clever and good, and her aunt as having the sweetest of all sweet tempers. He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so; he looked forward with the hope of spending much, very much, of his time there; always there, or in the neighbourhood. He particularly built upon a very happy summer and autumn there this year; he felt that it would be so: he depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior to the last. As animated, as diversified, as social, but with circumstances of superiority undescribable. "Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey," he continued; "what a society will be comprised in those houses! And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth may be added: some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so dear; for as to any partnership in Thornton Lacey, as Edmund Bertram once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foresee two objections: two fair, excellent, irresistible objections to that plan." Fanny was doubly silenced here; though when the moment was passed, could regret that she had not forced herself into the acknowledged comprehension of one half of his meaning, and encouraged him to say something more of his sister and Edmund. It was a subject which she must learn to speak of, and the weakness that shrunk from it would soon be quite unpardonable. When Mr. Price and his friend had seen all that they wished, or had time for, the others were ready to return; and in the course of their walk back, Mr. Crawford contrived a minute's privacy for telling Fanny that his only business in Portsmouth was to see her; that he was come down for a couple of days on her account, and hers only, and because he could not endure a longer total separation. She was sorry, really sorry; and yet in spite of this and the two or three other things which she wished he had not said, she thought him altogether improved since she had seen him; he was much more gentle, obliging, and attentive to other people's feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she had never seen him so agreeable-so _near_ being agreeable; his behaviour to her father could not offend, and there was something particularly kind and proper in the notice he took of Susan. He was decidedly improved. She wished the next day over, she wished he had come only for one day; but it was not so very bad as she would have expected: the pleasure of talking of Mansfield was so very great! Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure, and one of no trivial kind. Her father asked him to do them the honour of taking his mutton with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror, before he declared himself prevented by a prior engagement. He was engaged to dinner already both for that day and the next; he had met with some acquaintance at the Crown who would not be denied; he should have the honour, however, of waiting on them again on the morrow, etc., and so they parted-Fanny in a state of actual felicity from escaping so horrible an evil! To have had him join their family dinner-party, and see all their deficiencies, would have been dreadful! Rebecca's cookery and Rebecca's waiting, and Betsey's eating at table without restraint, and pulling everything about as she chose, were what Fanny herself was not yet enough inured to for her often to make a tolerable meal. _She_ was nice only from natural delicacy, but _he_ had been brought up in a school of luxury and epicurism.

A week was gone since Edmund might be supposed to be in London, and Fanny had heard nothing of him. Either his going had been again delayed, or he had as yet found no opportunity of seeing Miss Crawford alone, or he was too happy for letter-writing! One morning, Fanny having now been nearly four weeks from Mansfield, a point which she never failed to calculate every day, there was the knock of a visitor. It was a gentleman's voice; it was a voice that Fanny was just turning pale about, when Mr. Crawford walked into the room. Good sense will always act when really called upon; and she found that she had been able to name him to her mother, as "William's friend," though she could not have believed herself capable of uttering a syllable. Having introduced him, however, her terror of what this visit might lead to became overpowering, and she fancied herself on the point of fainting. Their visitor was wisely and kindly keeping his eyes away, giving her time to recover, while he devoted himself entirely to her mother, addressing her with the utmost politeness and propriety. Mrs. Price's manners were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of such a friend to her son, and wishing to appear to advantage, she was overflowing with gratitude. Mr. Price was out, which she regretted very much. Fanny did not; for she felt ashamed of her home, and she would have been yet more ashamed of her father than of all the rest. They talked of William; and Mr. Crawford was as warm in his commendation as even Mrs Price could wish. She felt that she had never seen so agreeable a man; and was only astonished to find that it was no port-admiral, or any object of importance and wealth, that had brought him to Portsmouth. He had come for a day or two, was staying at the Crown, had accidentally met with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance, but had no object of that kind in coming. By the time he had given all this information, Fanny was able to bear his gaze, and hear that he had spent half an hour with his sister the evening before his leaving London; that she had sent her best love, but had had no time for writing; that he thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even half an hour, having spent scarcely twenty-four hours in London; that her cousin Edmund had been in town, he understood, a few days; that he had not seen him, but that Edmund was well, had left them all well at Mansfield, and was to dine, as yesterday, with Mary and the Frasers. Fanny listened collectedly, even to the last-mentioned circumstance; nay, it seemed a relief; and "then by this time it is all settled," passed internally, without more evidence of emotion than a faint blush. After talking a little more about Mansfield, Crawford began to hint at the convenience of an early walk. "It was a lovely morning, and at that season a fine morning so often changed, that it was wisest for everybody not to delay their exercise". Such hints producing nothing, he proceeded to a positive recommendation to Mrs. Price and her daughters to take their walk. But Mrs. Price, it appeared, scarcely ever stirred out of doors, except of a Sunday. "Would she not, then, persuade her daughters to take advantage of such weather, and allow him the pleasure of attending them?" Mrs. Price agreed. "She knew they had some errands in the town, which they would be very glad to do." And the consequence was, that Fanny, strange and distressing as it was, found herself and Susan, within ten minutes, walking towards the High Street with Mr. Crawford. They were hardly there before they met her father, whose appearance was not the better from its being Saturday. He stopped; and Fanny was obliged to introduce him to Mr. Crawford. She could not have a doubt of how Mr. Crawford must be struck. He must be ashamed and disgusted altogether. He must soon cease to have the smallest inclination for the match; and yet this cure would be almost as bad as the complaint. I believe there is scarcely a young lady living who would not rather put up with the misfortune of being sought by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity of her relations. However, (as Fanny instantly, and to her great relief, discerned) her father was a very different man in his behaviour to this highly respected stranger, from what he was at home. His manners were more than passable: they were grateful, animated, manly; his loud tones did very well in the open air, and there was not a single oath to be heard. Such was his instinctive compliment to the good manners of Mr. Crawford; and Fanny's feelings were infinitely soothed. Mr. Price offered to take Mr. Crawford into the dockyard: Mr. Crawford, though he had seen the dockyard before, was still grateful to accept, hoping to be so much the longer with Fanny. Mr. Price would have turned thither directly, without the smallest consideration for his daughters' errands in the High Street. Mr Crawford took care, however, that they should be allowed to go to the shops they came to visit. They then set forward for the dockyard, and the walk would have been conducted in a singular manner, had Mr. Price been allowed the regulation of it, as the two girls would have been left to follow, and keep up with the gentlemen or not, as they could. Mr Crawford was able to introduce some improvement; he would not walk away from them, and at any crossing, when Mr. Price was calling out, "Come, girls; come, Fan; come, Sue; keep a sharp lookout!" he would give them his particular attendance. Once in the dockyard, he hoped for some happy conversation with Fanny, as they were joined by a brother lounger of Mr. Price's, who must prove a more worthy companion than himself; and the two officers seemed very well satisfied going about together, while the young people sat down upon some timbers in the yard. Fanny was most conveniently in want of rest. Crawford could not have wished her more ready to sit down; but he could have wished her sister away. A quick-looking girl of Susan's age was the very worst third in the world: totally different from Lady Bertram, all eyes and ears; and there was no introducing the main point before her. He must content himself with being generally agreeable, and letting Susan have her share of entertainment, with a hint, now and then, for Fanny. Norfolk was what he mostly talked of. Such a man could come from no place, without importing something to amuse; his journeys and his acquaintances entertained Susan in a way quite new to her. For Fanny's approval, he gave the reason of his going into Norfolk at this unusual time of year. It related to the renewal of a lease in which the welfare of a large family was at stake. He had suspected his agent of some underhand dealing; and he had determined to go himself, and thoroughly investigate the case. He had gone, had done even more good than he had foreseen, and was now able to congratulate himself. He had introduced himself to some tenants whom he had never seen before; and he had made acquaintance with cottages whose very existence, though on his own estate, had been unknown to him. This was aimed at Fanny. It was pleasing to hear him speak so properly; here he had been acting as he ought. To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! She was on the point of giving him an approving look, when it was frightened off by his adding pointedly that he hoped soon to have a friend and guide in every plan of charity for Everingham. She turned away, and wished he would not say such things. She began to feel the possibility of his turning out well at last; but he was and must ever be completely unsuited to her. He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham, and turned to Mansfield. He could not have chosen better; that was a topic to bring back her attention instantly. She felt it the voice of a friend when he mentioned it, and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed her to gratify her own heart, in speaking of her uncle as all that was clever and good, and her aunt as having the sweetest of tempers. He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself, he said; he hoped to spend much of his time there, or in the neighbourhood. He predicted a very happy summer and autumn there this year; he felt that it would be infinitely superior to the last. "Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey," he continued; "what a society will be comprised in those houses! And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth may be added: some small hunting-box; for as to any partnership in Thornton Lacey, as Edmund Bertram once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foresee two objections: two fair, excellent, irresistible objections to that plan." Fanny was doubly silenced here; though she regretted that she had not encouraged him to say more of his sister and Edmund. It was a subject which she must learn to speak of. By now, all were ready to return; and during their walk back, Mr. Crawford contrived a minute's privacy for telling Fanny that his only business in Portsmouth was to see her; it was on her account, because he could not endure a longer separation. She was really sorry; and yet in spite of this, she thought him improved since she had seen him; he was much more gentle, obliging, and attentive to other people's feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she had never seen him so near being agreeable. He was decidedly improved. She wished he had come only for one day; but it was not so very bad: the pleasure of talking of Mansfield was so great! Her father asked him to do them the honour of taking his mutton with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror, before he declared himself prevented by a prior engagement. He should, however, wait on them again on the morrow, and so they parted-Fanny thankful to escape so horrible an evil! To have had him join their family dinner-party, and see all their deficiencies, would have been dreadful! Fanny was not yet inured to Rebecca's cookery and Rebecca's waiting, and Betsey's eating at table without restraint, and pulling everything about as she chose.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 41

As Fanny could not doubt that her answer was conveying a real disappointment, she was rather in expectation, from her knowledge of Miss Crawford's temper, of being urged again; and though no second letter arrived for the space of a week, she had still the same feeling when it did come. On receiving it, she could instantly decide on its containing little writing, and was persuaded of its having the air of a letter of haste and business. Its object was unquestionable; and two moments were enough to start the probability of its being merely to give her notice that they should be in Portsmouth that very day, and to throw her into all the agitation of doubting what she ought to do in such a case. If two moments, however, can surround with difficulties, a third can disperse them; and before she had opened the letter, the possibility of Mr. and Miss Crawford's having applied to her uncle and obtained his permission was giving her ease. This was the letter- "A most scandalous, ill-natured rumour has just reached me, and I write, dear Fanny, to warn you against giving the least credit to it, should it spread into the country. Depend upon it, there is some mistake, and that a day or two will clear it up; at any rate, that Henry is blameless, and in spite of a moment's _etourderie_, thinks of nobody but you. Say not a word of it; hear nothing, surmise nothing, whisper nothing till I write again. I am sure it will be all hushed up, and nothing proved but Rushworth's folly. If they are gone, I would lay my life they are only gone to Mansfield Park, and Julia with them. But why would not you let us come for you? I wish you may not repent it.-Yours, etc." Fanny stood aghast. As no scandalous, ill-natured rumour had reached her, it was impossible for her to understand much of this strange letter. She could only perceive that it must relate to Wimpole Street and Mr. Crawford, and only conjecture that something very imprudent had just occurred in that quarter to draw the notice of the world, and to excite her jealousy, in Miss Crawford's apprehension, if she heard it. Miss Crawford need not be alarmed for her. She was only sorry for the parties concerned and for Mansfield, if the report should spread so far; but she hoped it might not. If the Rushworths were gone themselves to Mansfield, as was to be inferred from what Miss Crawford said, it was not likely that anything unpleasant should have preceded them, or at least should make any impression. As to Mr. Crawford, she hoped it might give him a knowledge of his own disposition, convince him that he was not capable of being steadily attached to any one woman in the world, and shame him from persisting any longer in addressing herself. It was very strange! She had begun to think he really loved her, and to fancy his affection for her something more than common; and his sister still said that he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been some marked display of attentions to her cousin, there must have been some strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not of a sort to regard a slight one. Very uncomfortable she was, and must continue, till she heard from Miss Crawford again. It was impossible to banish the letter from her thoughts, and she could not relieve herself by speaking of it to any human being. Miss Crawford need not have urged secrecy with so much warmth; she might have trusted to her sense of what was due to her cousin. The next day came and brought no second letter. Fanny was disappointed. She could still think of little else all the morning; but, when her father came back in the afternoon with the daily newspaper as usual, she was so far from expecting any elucidation through such a channel that the subject was for a moment out of her head. She was deep in other musing. The remembrance of her first evening in that room, of her father and his newspaper, came across her. No candle was now wanted. The sun was yet an hour and half above the horizon. She felt that she had, indeed, been three months there; and the sun's rays falling strongly into the parlour, instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the country. Here, its power was only a glare: a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains and dirt that might otherwise have slept. There was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town. She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by her father's head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca's hands had first produced it. Her father read his newspaper, and her mother lamented over the ragged carpet as usual, while the tea was in preparation, and wished Rebecca would mend it; and Fanny was first roused by his calling out to her, after humphing and considering over a particular paragraph: "What's the name of your great cousins in town, Fan?" A moment's recollection enabled her to say, "Rushworth, sir." "And don't they live in Wimpole Street?" "Yes, sir." "Then, there's the devil to pay among them, that's all! There" (holding out the paper to her); "much good may such fine relations do you. I don't know what Sir Thomas may think of such matters; he may be too much of the courtier and fine gentleman to like his daughter the less. But, by G-! if she belonged to _me_, I'd give her the rope's end as long as I could stand over her. A little flogging for man and woman too would be the best way of preventing such things." Fanny read to herself that "it was with infinite concern the newspaper had to announce to the world a matrimonial _fracas_ in the family of Mr. R. of Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs. R., whose name had not long been enrolled in the lists of Hymen, and who had promised to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world, having quitted her husband's roof in company with the well-known and captivating Mr. C., the intimate friend and associate of Mr. R., and it was not known even to the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone." "It is a mistake, sir," said Fanny instantly; "it must be a mistake, it cannot be true; it must mean some other people." She spoke from the instinctive wish of delaying shame; she spoke with a resolution which sprung from despair, for she spoke what she did not, could not believe herself. It had been the shock of conviction as she read. The truth rushed on her; and how she could have spoken at all, how she could even have breathed, was afterwards matter of wonder to herself. Mr. Price cared too little about the report to make her much answer. "It might be all a lie," he acknowledged; "but so many fine ladies were going to the devil nowadays that way, that there was no answering for anybody." "Indeed, I hope it is not true," said Mrs. Price plaintively; "it would be so very shocking! If I have spoken once to Rebecca about that carpet, I am sure I have spoke at least a dozen times; have not I, Betsey? And it would not be ten minutes' work." The horror of a mind like Fanny's, as it received the conviction of such guilt, and began to take in some part of the misery that must ensue, can hardly be described. At first, it was a sort of stupefaction; but every moment was quickening her perception of the horrible evil. She could not doubt, she dared not indulge a hope, of the paragraph being false. Miss Crawford's letter, which she had read so often as to make every line her own, was in frightful conformity with it. Her eager defence of her brother, her hope of its being _hushed_ _up_, her evident agitation, were all of a piece with something very bad; and if there was a woman of character in existence, who could treat as a trifle this sin of the first magnitude, who would try to gloss it over, and desire to have it unpunished, she could believe Miss Crawford to be the woman! Now she could see her own mistake as to _who_ were gone, or _said_ to be gone. It was not Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth; it was Mrs. Rushworth and Mr. Crawford. Fanny seemed to herself never to have been shocked before. There was no possibility of rest. The evening passed without a pause of misery, the night was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness to shudderings of horror; and from hot fits of fever to cold. The event was so shocking, that there were moments even when her heart revolted from it as impossible: when she thought it could not be. A woman married only six months ago; a man professing himself devoted, even _engaged_ to another; that other her near relation; the whole family, both families connected as they were by tie upon tie; all friends, all intimate together! It was too horrible a confusion of guilt, too gross a complication of evil, for human nature, not in a state of utter barbarism, to be capable of! yet her judgment told her it was so. _His_ unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity, _Maria's_ decided attachment, and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it possibility: Miss Crawford's letter stampt it a fact. What would be the consequence? Whom would it not injure? Whose views might it not affect? Whose peace would it not cut up for ever? Miss Crawford, herself, Edmund; but it was dangerous, perhaps, to tread such ground. She confined herself, or tried to confine herself, to the simple, indubitable family misery which must envelop all, if it were indeed a matter of certified guilt and public exposure. The mother's sufferings, the father's; there she paused. Julia's, Tom's, Edmund's; there a yet longer pause. They were the two on whom it would fall most horribly. Sir Thomas's parental solicitude and high sense of honour and decorum, Edmund's upright principles, unsuspicious temper, and genuine strength of feeling, made her think it scarcely possible for them to support life and reason under such disgrace; and it appeared to her that, as far as this world alone was concerned, the greatest blessing to every one of kindred with Mrs. Rushworth would be instant annihilation. Nothing happened the next day, or the next, to weaken her terrors. Two posts came in, and brought no refutation, public or private. There was no second letter to explain away the first from Miss Crawford; there was no intelligence from Mansfield, though it was now full time for her to hear again from her aunt. This was an evil omen. She had, indeed, scarcely the shadow of a hope to soothe her mind, and was reduced to so low and wan and trembling a condition, as no mother, not unkind, except Mrs. Price could have overlooked, when the third day did bring the sickening knock, and a letter was again put into her hands. It bore the London postmark, and came from Edmund. "Dear Fanny,-You know our present wretchedness. May God support you under your share! We have been here two days, but there is nothing to be done. They cannot be traced. You may not have heard of the last blow-Julia's elopement; she is gone to Scotland with Yates. She left London a few hours before we entered it. At any other time this would have been felt dreadfully. Now it seems nothing; yet it is an heavy aggravation. My father is not overpowered. More cannot be hoped. He is still able to think and act; and I write, by his desire, to propose your returning home. He is anxious to get you there for my mother's sake. I shall be at Portsmouth the morning after you receive this, and hope to find you ready to set off for Mansfield. My father wishes you to invite Susan to go with you for a few months. Settle it as you like; say what is proper; I am sure you will feel such an instance of his kindness at such a moment! Do justice to his meaning, however I may confuse it. You may imagine something of my present state. There is no end of the evil let loose upon us. You will see me early by the mail.-Yours, etc." Never had Fanny more wanted a cordial. Never had she felt such a one as this letter contained. To-morrow! to leave Portsmouth to-morrow! She was, she felt she was, in the greatest danger of being exquisitely happy, while so many were miserable. The evil which brought such good to her! She dreaded lest she should learn to be insensible of it. To be going so soon, sent for so kindly, sent for as a comfort, and with leave to take Susan, was altogether such a combination of blessings as set her heart in a glow, and for a time seemed to distance every pain, and make her incapable of suitably sharing the distress even of those whose distress she thought of most. Julia's elopement could affect her comparatively but little; she was amazed and shocked; but it could not occupy her, could not dwell on her mind. She was obliged to call herself to think of it, and acknowledge it to be terrible and grievous, or it was escaping her, in the midst of all the agitating pressing joyful cares attending this summons to herself. There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy, and her occupations were hopeful. She had so much to do, that not even the horrible story of Mrs. Rushworth (now fixed to the last point of certainty), could affect her as it had done before. She had not time to be miserable. Within twenty-four hours she was hoping to be gone; her father and mother must be spoken to, Susan prepared, everything got ready. Business followed business; the day was hardly long enough. The happiness she was imparting, too, happiness very little alloyed by the black communication which must briefly precede it-the joyful consent of her father and mother to Susan's going with her-the general satisfaction with which the going of both seemed regarded, and the ecstasy of Susan herself, was all serving to support her spirits. The affliction of the Bertrams was little felt in the family. Mrs. Price talked of her poor sister for a few minutes, but how to find anything to hold Susan's clothes, because Rebecca took away all the boxes and spoilt them, was much more in her thoughts: and as for Susan, now unexpectedly gratified in the first wish of her heart, and knowing nothing personally of those who had sinned, or of those who were sorrowing-if she could help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was as much as ought to be expected from human virtue at fourteen. As nothing was really left for the decision of Mrs. Price, or the good offices of Rebecca, everything was rationally and duly accomplished, and the girls were ready for the morrow. The advantage of much sleep to prepare them for their journey was impossible. The cousin who was travelling towards them could hardly have less than visited their agitated spirits-one all happiness, the other all varying and indescribable perturbation. By eight in the morning Edmund was in the house. The girls heard his entrance from above, and Fanny went down. The idea of immediately seeing him, with the knowledge of what he must be suffering, brought back all her own first feelings. He so near her, and in misery. She was ready to sink as she entered the parlour. He was alone, and met her instantly; and she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words, just articulate, "My Fanny, my only sister; my only comfort now!" She could say nothing; nor for some minutes could he say more. He turned away to recover himself, and when he spoke again, though his voice still faltered, his manner shewed the wish of self-command, and the resolution of avoiding any farther allusion. "Have you breakfasted? When shall you be ready? Does Susan go?" were questions following each other rapidly. His great object was to be off as soon as possible. When Mansfield was considered, time was precious; and the state of his own mind made him find relief only in motion. It was settled that he should order the carriage to the door in half an hour. Fanny answered for their having breakfasted and being quite ready in half an hour. He had already ate, and declined staying for their meal. He would walk round the ramparts, and join them with the carriage. He was gone again; glad to get away even from Fanny. He looked very ill; evidently suffering under violent emotions, which he was determined to suppress. She knew it must be so, but it was terrible to her. The carriage came; and he entered the house again at the same moment, just in time to spend a few minutes with the family, and be a witness-but that he saw nothing-of the tranquil manner in which the daughters were parted with, and just in time to prevent their sitting down to the breakfast-table, which, by dint of much unusual activity, was quite and completely ready as the carriage drove from the door. Fanny's last meal in her father's house was in character with her first: she was dismissed from it as hospitably as she had been welcomed. How her heart swelled with joy and gratitude as she passed the barriers of Portsmouth, and how Susan's face wore its broadest smiles, may be easily conceived. Sitting forwards, however, and screened by her bonnet, those smiles were unseen. The journey was likely to be a silent one. Edmund's deep sighs often reached Fanny. Had he been alone with her, his heart must have opened in spite of every resolution; but Susan's presence drove him quite into himself, and his attempts to talk on indifferent subjects could never be long supported. Fanny watched him with never-failing solicitude, and sometimes catching his eye, revived an affectionate smile, which comforted her; but the first day's journey passed without her hearing a word from him on the subjects that were weighing him down. The next morning produced a little more. Just before their setting out from Oxford, while Susan was stationed at a window, in eager observation of the departure of a large family from the inn, the other two were standing by the fire; and Edmund, particularly struck by the alteration in Fanny's looks, and from his ignorance of the daily evils of her father's house, attributing an undue share of the change, attributing _all_ to the recent event, took her hand, and said in a low, but very expressive tone, "No wonder-you must feel it-you must suffer. How a man who had once loved, could desert you! But _yours_-your regard was new compared with--Fanny, think of _me_!" The first division of their journey occupied a long day, and brought them, almost knocked up, to Oxford; but the second was over at a much earlier hour. They were in the environs of Mansfield long before the usual dinner-time, and as they approached the beloved place, the hearts of both sisters sank a little. Fanny began to dread the meeting with her aunts and Tom, under so dreadful a humiliation; and Susan to feel with some anxiety, that all her best manners, all her lately acquired knowledge of what was practised here, was on the point of being called into action. Visions of good and ill breeding, of old vulgarisms and new gentilities, were before her; and she was meditating much upon silver forks, napkins, and finger-glasses. Fanny had been everywhere awake to the difference of the country since February; but when they entered the Park her perceptions and her pleasures were of the keenest sort. It was three months, full three months, since her quitting it, and the change was from winter to summer. Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination. Her enjoyment, however, was for herself alone. Edmund could not share it. She looked at him, but he was leaning back, sunk in a deeper gloom than ever, and with eyes closed, as if the view of cheerfulness oppressed him, and the lovely scenes of home must be shut out. It made her melancholy again; and the knowledge of what must be enduring there, invested even the house, modern, airy, and well situated as it was, with a melancholy aspect. By one of the suffering party within they were expected with such impatience as she had never known before. Fanny had scarcely passed the solemn-looking servants, when Lady Bertram came from the drawing-room to meet her; came with no indolent step; and falling on her neck, said, "Dear Fanny! now I shall be comfortable."

As Fanny could not doubt that her answer would give Miss Crawford real disappointment, she rather expected to be urged again; and though no second letter arrived for a week, she had still the same feeling when it did come. On receiving it, she was instantly persuaded of its having the air of a brief letter of haste and business. In all probability it would be merely to give her notice that they should be in Portsmouth that very day, and to throw her into all the agitation of doubting what she ought to do. This was the letter- "A most scandalous, ill-natured rumour has just reached me, and I write, dear Fanny, to warn you against giving the least credit to it. Depend upon it, there is some mistake, and a day or two will clear it up; Henry is blameless, and in spite of a moment's rashness, thinks of nobody but you. Say not a word of it; hear nothing, surmise nothing, whisper nothing till I write again. I am sure it will be all hushed up, and nothing proved but Rushworth's folly. If they are gone, I would lay my life they are only gone to Mansfield Park, and Julia with them. But why would not you let us come for you? I wish you may not repent it.-Yours, etc." Fanny stood aghast. As no scandalous, ill-natured rumour had reached her, it was impossible for her to understand much of this strange letter. She could only perceive that it must relate to Wimpole Street and Mr. Crawford, and only conjecture that something very imprudent had just occurred in that quarter to draw the notice of the world, and to excite her jealousy, in Miss Crawford's apprehension. Miss Crawford need not be alarmed for her. She was only sorry for the parties concerned and for Mansfield, if the report should spread that far; but she hoped it might not. If the Rushworths were gone to Mansfield, as she gathered from Miss Crawford's words, it was not likely that anything unpleasant should have preceded them. As to Mr. Crawford, she hoped it might give him a knowledge of his own disposition, convince him that he was not capable of being steadily attached to any one woman in the world, and shame him from persisting any longer in addressing herself. It was very strange! She had begun to think he really loved her, and to fancy his affection for her something more than common; and his sister still said that he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been some marked display of attentions to her cousin, some strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not of a sort to regard a slight one. Very uncomfortable she was, and must continue, till she heard from Miss Crawford again. It was impossible to banish the letter from her thoughts, and she could not speak of it to anyone. The next day came and brought no second letter. Fanny was disappointed. She could still think of little else all morning; but, when her father came back in the afternoon with the newspaper as usual, she was deep in musing. The remembrance of her first evening in that room, of her father and his newspaper, came across her. She felt that she had, indeed, been three months there; and the sun's rays falling strongly into the parlour made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town from in the country. Here, its power was only a glare: a stifling, sickly glare, bringing neither health nor gaiety. She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the table cut and notched by her brothers, to the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca's hands had first produced it. Her father read his newspaper, and Fanny was first roused by his calling out to her: "What's the name of your great cousins in town, Fan?" "Rushworth, sir." "And don't they live in Wimpole Street?" "Yes, sir." "Then, there's the devil to pay among them, that's all! There" (holding out the paper to her); "much good may such fine relations do you. I don't know what Sir Thomas may think of such matters; but, by G-! if she belonged to me, I'd give her the rope's end. A little flogging for man and woman too would be the best way of preventing such things." Fanny read to herself that "it was with infinite concern the newspaper had to announce a matrimonial fracas in the family of Mr. R. of Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs. R., not long married, who had promised to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world, having quitted her husband's roof in company with the well-known and captivating Mr. C., the intimate friend of Mr. R., and it was not known even to the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone." "It is a mistake, sir," said Fanny instantly; "it cannot be true; it must mean some other people." She spoke from the instinctive wish of delaying shame; she spoke with a resolution which sprung from despair, for she spoke what she could not believe herself. It had been the shock of conviction as she read. The truth rushed on her; and how she could have spoken at all was afterwards a matter of wonder. Mr. Price cared too little to make much answer. "It might be all a lie, but so many fine ladies were going to the devil nowadays, that there was no answering for anybody." "Indeed, I hope it is not true," said Mrs. Price plaintively; "it would be so very shocking! If I have spoken once to Rebecca about that carpet, I am sure I have spoke at least a dozen times; have not I, Betsey? It would not be ten minutes' work." The horror of Fanny's mind, as it received the conviction of such guilt, and began to take in the misery that must follow, can hardly be described. At first, it was a sort of stupefaction; but every moment was quickening her perception of the horrible evil. She dared not hope of the paragraph being false. Miss Crawford's letter was in frightful agreement with it. Her eager defence of her brother, her hope of its being hushed up, her evident agitation, were all of a piece with something very bad; and if there was a woman of character in existence, who could treat as a trifle this sin of the first magnitude, who would try to gloss it over, she could believe Miss Crawford to be the woman! Now she could see her own mistake as to who were gone. It was not Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth; it was Mrs. Rushworth and Mr. Crawford. Fanny felt herself never to have been shocked before. The evening passed without a pause of misery, the night was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness to shudderings of horror. The event was so shocking, that there were moments even when her heart revolted from it as impossible: it could not be. A woman married only six months ago; a man professing himself devoted to another; both families connected as they were by tie upon tie; all friends, all intimate together! It was too horrible a confusion of guilt, too gross a complication of evil, for civilized human nature to be capable of! yet her judgment told her it was so. His unsettled affections, Maria's decided attachment, and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it possibility: Miss Crawford's letter stamped it a fact. What would be the consequence? Whom would it not injure? Whose peace would it not cut up for ever? Miss Crawford, herself, Edmund; but it was dangerous, perhaps, to tread such ground. She tried to confine herself to the indubitable family misery which must envelop all. The mother's sufferings, the father's; there she paused. Julia's, Tom's, Edmund's; there a yet longer pause. They were the two on whom it would fall most horribly. Sir Thomas's high sense of honour and decorum, Edmund's upright principles, unsuspicious temper, and genuine strength of feeling, made her think it scarcely possible for them to support life and reason under such disgrace. She felt as if the greatest blessing for everyone related to Mrs. Rushworth would be instant annihilation. Nothing happened the next day, or the next, to weaken her terrors. Two posts came in, and brought no denial, no second letter from Miss Crawford to explain away the first; there was no news from Mansfield, though it was now full time for her to hear again from her aunt. This was an evil omen. She had, indeed, scarcely the shadow of a hope to soothe her mind, and was reduced to so low and trembling a condition, as no mother except Mrs. Price could have overlooked, when the third day did bring the sickening knock, and a letter was put into her hands. It bore the London postmark, and came from Edmund. "Dear Fanny,-You know our present wretchedness. May God support you under your share! We have been in London two days, but there is nothing to be done. They cannot be traced. You may not have heard of the last blow-Julia's elopement; she is gone to Scotland with Yates. She left London a few hours before we entered it. At any other time this would have been felt dreadfully. Now it seems nothing; yet it is an heavy aggravation. My father is not overpowered. More cannot be hoped. He is still able to think and act; and I write, by his desire, to propose your returning home. He is anxious to get you there for my mother's sake. I shall be at Portsmouth the morning after you receive this, and hope to find you ready to set off for Mansfield. My father wishes you to invite Susan to go with you for a few months. Settle it as you like; I am sure you will feel his kindness at such a moment! Do justice to his meaning, however I may confuse it. You may imagine something of my present state. There is no end of the evil let loose upon us. You will see me early by the mail.-Yours, etc." Tomorrow! to leave Portsmouth tomorrow! She felt she was in the greatest danger of being exquisitely happy, while so many were miserable. The evil which brought such good to her! She dreaded lest she should learn to be careless of it. To be going so soon, sent for so kindly, and with permission to take Susan, was altogether such a combination of blessings as set her heart in a glow, and for a time seemed to distance every pain, and make her incapable of sharing the distress even of those she thought of most. Julia's elopement could affect her but little; she was amazed and shocked; but it could not dwell on her mind. She acknowledged it to be grievous, but it almost escaped her, in the midst of all the joyful cares attending this summons. There is nothing like employment for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy, and her occupations were hopeful. She had so much to do that she had not time to be miserable. Her father and mother must be spoken to, Susan prepared, everything got ready. Business followed business; the day was hardly long enough. The happiness she was imparting, too,-the joyful consent of her father and mother to Susan's going with her, and the ecstasy of Susan herself, were all serving to support her spirits. The affliction of the Bertrams was little felt in the family. Mrs. Price talked of her poor sister for a few minutes, but how to find anything to hold Susan's clothes was much more in her thoughts: and as for Susan, now unexpectedly gratified in the first wish of her heart, and knowing nothing personally of those who had sinned, or who were sorrowing-if she could help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was as much as ought to be expected from human virtue at fourteen. Everything was duly accomplished, and the girls were ready for the morrow. They slept little: one was all happiness, the other all indescribable perturbation. By eight in the morning Edmund was in the house, and Fanny went down to him. The idea of seeing him, with the knowledge of what he must be suffering, brought back all her own first feelings. He so near her, and in misery. She was ready to sink as she entered the parlour. He was alone; and she found herself pressed to his heart with these words, just articulate, "My Fanny, my only sister; my only comfort now!" She could say nothing; nor for some minutes could he say more. He turned away to recover himself, and when he spoke again, though his voice still faltered, his manner showed the wish of self-command. "Have you breakfasted? When shall you be ready? Does Susan go?" were questions following each other rapidly. His great object was to be off as soon as possible. Time was precious; and the state of his mind made him find relief only in motion. It was settled that he should order the carriage to the door in half an hour. Fanny answered for their having breakfasted and being quite ready. He declined staying for their meal. He would walk round the ramparts, and join them with the carriage. He was gone again; glad to get away even from Fanny. He looked very ill; evidently suffering under violent emotions, which he was determined to suppress. She knew it must be so, but it was terrible to her. The carriage came; and he entered the house again, just in time to spend a few minutes with the family, and be a witness-except that he saw nothing-of the tranquil manner in which the daughters were parted with, and just in time to prevent their sitting down to the breakfast-table, which by dint of unusual activity was completely ready as the carriage drove from the door. Fanny's last meal in her father's house was in character with her first: she was dismissed from it as hospitably as she had been welcomed. How her heart swelled with joy and gratitude as she left Portsmouth, and how Susan's face wore its broadest smiles, may be easily conceived. Sitting forwards, however, and screened by her bonnet, those smiles were unseen. The journey was a silent one. Edmund's deep sighs often reached Fanny. Had he been alone with her, his heart must have opened; but Susan's presence drove him quite into himself, and his attempts to talk on indifferent subjects could never be long supported. Fanny watched him with never-failing solicitude, and sometimes catching his eye, revived an affectionate smile, which comforted her; but the first day's journey passed without her hearing a word from him on the subjects that were weighing him down. The next morning produced a little more. Just before their setting out from Oxford, while Susan was eagerly looking from a window, the other two were standing by the fire; and Edmund, struck by the alteration in Fanny's looks, and ignorant of the daily evils of her father's house, attributed the change in her to the recent event. He took her hand, and said in a low expressive tone, "No wonder-you must suffer. How a man who had once loved, could desert you! But your regard was new compared with--Fanny, think of me!" The second part of their journey was soon over. They were close to Mansfield long before the usual dinner-time, and as they approached, the hearts of both sisters sank a little. Fanny began to dread the meeting with her aunts and Tom; and Susan to feel with some anxiety, that all her best manners were on the point of being called into action. Visions of good and ill breeding were before her; and she was meditating much upon silver forks, napkins, and finger-glasses. It was full three months since Fanny's quitting Mansfield, and winter had changed to summer. Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand. Her enjoyment, however, was for herself alone. Edmund could not share it. She looked at him, but he was leaning back, sunk in a deeper gloom than ever, and with eyes closed, as if the lovely scenes of home must be shut out. It made her melancholy again; and the knowledge of what the family must be enduring there, invested even the house with a melancholy aspect. By one of the suffering party within, they were expected with such impatience as she had never known before. Fanny had scarcely passed the solemn-looking servants, when Lady Bertram came from the drawing-room to meet her; came almost hastily; and falling on her neck, said, "Dear Fanny! now I shall be comfortable."

Mansfield Park

Chapter 46

The intercourse of the two families was at this period more nearly restored to what it had been in the autumn, than any member of the old intimacy had thought ever likely to be again. The return of Henry Crawford, and the arrival of William Price, had much to do with it, but much was still owing to Sir Thomas's more than toleration of the neighbourly attempts at the Parsonage. His mind, now disengaged from the cares which had pressed on him at first, was at leisure to find the Grants and their young inmates really worth visiting; and though infinitely above scheming or contriving for any the most advantageous matrimonial establishment that could be among the apparent possibilities of any one most dear to him, and disdaining even as a littleness the being quick-sighted on such points, he could not avoid perceiving, in a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was somewhat distinguishing his niece-nor perhaps refrain (though unconsciously) from giving a more willing assent to invitations on that account. His readiness, however, in agreeing to dine at the Parsonage, when the general invitation was at last hazarded, after many debates and many doubts as to whether it were worth while, "because Sir Thomas seemed so ill inclined, and Lady Bertram was so indolent!" proceeded from good-breeding and goodwill alone, and had nothing to do with Mr. Crawford, but as being one in an agreeable group: for it was in the course of that very visit that he first began to think that any one in the habit of such idle observations _would_ _have_ _thought_ that Mr. Crawford was the admirer of Fanny Price. The meeting was generally felt to be a pleasant one, being composed in a good proportion of those who would talk and those who would listen; and the dinner itself was elegant and plentiful, according to the usual style of the Grants, and too much according to the usual habits of all to raise any emotion except in Mrs. Norris, who could never behold either the wide table or the number of dishes on it with patience, and who did always contrive to experience some evil from the passing of the servants behind her chair, and to bring away some fresh conviction of its being impossible among so many dishes but that some must be cold. In the evening it was found, according to the predetermination of Mrs. Grant and her sister, that after making up the whist-table there would remain sufficient for a round game, and everybody being as perfectly complying and without a choice as on such occasions they always are, speculation was decided on almost as soon as whist; and Lady Bertram soon found herself in the critical situation of being applied to for her own choice between the games, and being required either to draw a card for whist or not. She hesitated. Luckily Sir Thomas was at hand. "What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation; which will amuse me most?" Sir Thomas, after a moment's thought, recommended speculation. He was a whist player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much amuse him to have her for a partner. "Very well," was her ladyship's contented answer; "then speculation, if you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach me." Here Fanny interposed, however, with anxious protestations of her own equal ignorance; she had never played the game nor seen it played in her life; and Lady Bertram felt a moment's indecision again; but upon everybody's assuring her that nothing could be so easy, that it was the easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford's stepping forward with a most earnest request to be allowed to sit between her ladyship and Miss Price, and teach them both, it was so settled; and Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant being seated at the table of prime intellectual state and dignity, the remaining six, under Miss Crawford's direction, were arranged round the other. It was a fine arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with his hands full of business, having two persons' cards to manage as well as his own; for though it was impossible for Fanny not to feel herself mistress of the rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to inspirit her play, sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which, especially in any competition with William, was a work of some difficulty; and as for Lady Bertram, he must continue in charge of all her fame and fortune through the whole evening; and if quick enough to keep her from looking at her cards when the deal began, must direct her in whatever was to be done with them to the end of it. He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease, and preeminent in all the lively turns, quick resources, and playful impudence that could do honour to the game; and the round table was altogether a very comfortable contrast to the steady sobriety and orderly silence of the other. Twice had Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment and success of his lady, but in vain; no pause was long enough for the time his measured manner needed; and very little of her state could be known till Mrs. Grant was able, at the end of the first rubber, to go to her and pay her compliments. "I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game." "Oh dear, yes! very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does all the rest." "Bertram," said Crawford, some time afterwards, taking the opportunity of a little languor in the game, "I have never told you what happened to me yesterday in my ride home." They had been hunting together, and were in the midst of a good run, and at some distance from Mansfield, when his horse being found to have flung a shoe, Henry Crawford had been obliged to give up, and make the best of his way back. "I told you I lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew-trees, because I can never bear to ask; but I have not told you that, with my usual luck-for I never do wrong without gaining by it-I found myself in due time in the very place which I had a curiosity to see. I was suddenly, upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the midst of a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my right-which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, and not a gentleman or half a gentleman's house to be seen excepting one-to be presumed the Parsonage-within a stone's throw of the said knoll and church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton Lacey." "It sounds like it," said Edmund; "but which way did you turn after passing Sewell's farm?" "I answer no such irrelevant and insidious questions; though were I to answer all that you could put in the course of an hour, you would never be able to prove that it was _not_ Thornton Lacey-for such it certainly was." "You inquired, then?" "No, I never inquire. But I _told_ a man mending a hedge that it was Thornton Lacey, and he agreed to it." "You have a good memory. I had forgotten having ever told you half so much of the place." Thornton Lacey was the name of his impending living, as Miss Crawford well knew; and her interest in a negotiation for William Price's knave increased. "Well," continued Edmund, "and how did you like what you saw?" "Very much indeed. You are a lucky fellow. There will be work for five summers at least before the place is liveable." "No, no, not so bad as that. The farmyard must be moved, I grant you; but I am not aware of anything else. The house is by no means bad, and when the yard is removed, there may be a very tolerable approach to it." "The farmyard must be cleared away entirely, and planted up to shut out the blacksmith's shop. The house must be turned to front the east instead of the north-the entrance and principal rooms, I mean, must be on that side, where the view is really very pretty; I am sure it may be done. And _there_ must be your approach, through what is at present the garden. You must make a new garden at what is now the back of the house; which will be giving it the best aspect in the world, sloping to the south-east. The ground seems precisely formed for it. I rode fifty yards up the lane, between the church and the house, in order to look about me; and saw how it might all be. Nothing can be easier. The meadows beyond what _will_ _be_ the garden, as well as what now _is_, sweeping round from the lane I stood in to the north-east, that is, to the principal road through the village, must be all laid together, of course; very pretty meadows they are, finely sprinkled with timber. They belong to the living, I suppose; if not, you must purchase them. Then the stream-something must be done with the stream; but I could not quite determine what. I had two or three ideas." "And I have two or three ideas also," said Edmund, "and one of them is, that very little of your plan for Thornton Lacey will ever be put in practice. I must be satisfied with rather less ornament and beauty. I think the house and premises may be made comfortable, and given the air of a gentleman's residence, without any very heavy expense, and that must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me." Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain tone of voice, and a certain half-look attending the last expression of his hope, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price; and securing his knave at an exorbitant rate, exclaimed, "There, I will stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it." The game was hers, and only did not pay her for what she had given to secure it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about Thornton Lacey. "My plan may not be the best possible: I had not many minutes to form it in; but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it, and you will find yourself not satisfied with much less than it is capable of. (Excuse me, your ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie just before you.) The place deserves it, Bertram. You talk of giving it the air of a gentleman's residence. _That_ will be done by the removal of the farmyard; for, independent of that terrible nuisance, I never saw a house of the kind which had in itself so much the air of a gentleman's residence, so much the look of a something above a mere parsonage-house-above the expenditure of a few hundreds a year. It is not a scrambling collection of low single rooms, with as many roofs as windows; it is not cramped into the vulgar compactness of a square farmhouse: it is a solid, roomy, mansion-like looking house, such as one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in from generation to generation, through two centuries at least, and were now spending from two to three thousand a year in." Miss Crawford listened, and Edmund agreed to this. "The air of a gentleman's residence, therefore, you cannot but give it, if you do anything. But it is capable of much more. (Let me see, Mary; Lady Bertram bids a dozen for that queen; no, no, a dozen is more than it is worth. Lady Bertram does not bid a dozen. She will have nothing to say to it. Go on, go on.) By some such improvements as I have suggested (I do not really require you to proceed upon my plan, though, by the bye, I doubt anybody's striking out a better) you may give it a higher character. You may raise it into a _place_. From being the mere gentleman's residence, it becomes, by judicious improvement, the residence of a man of education, taste, modern manners, good connexions. All this may be stamped on it; and that house receive such an air as to make its owner be set down as the great landholder of the parish by every creature travelling the road; especially as there is no real squire's house to dispute the point-a circumstance, between ourselves, to enhance the value of such a situation in point of privilege and independence beyond all calculation. _You_ think with me, I hope" (turning with a softened voice to Fanny). "Have you ever seen the place?" Fanny gave a quick negative, and tried to hide her interest in the subject by an eager attention to her brother, who was driving as hard a bargain, and imposing on her as much as he could; but Crawford pursued with "No, no, you must not part with the queen. You have bought her too dearly, and your brother does not offer half her value. No, no, sir, hands off, hands off. Your sister does not part with the queen. She is quite determined. The game will be yours," turning to her again; "it will certainly be yours." "And Fanny had much rather it were William's," said Edmund, smiling at her. "Poor Fanny! not allowed to cheat herself as she wishes!" "Mr. Bertram," said Miss Crawford, a few minutes afterwards, "you know Henry to be such a capital improver, that you cannot possibly engage in anything of the sort at Thornton Lacey without accepting his help. Only think how useful he was at Sotherton! Only think what grand things were produced there by our all going with him one hot day in August to drive about the grounds, and see his genius take fire. There we went, and there we came home again; and what was done there is not to be told!" Fanny's eyes were turned on Crawford for a moment with an expression more than grave-even reproachful; but on catching his, were instantly withdrawn. With something of consciousness he shook his head at his sister, and laughingly replied, "I cannot say there was much done at Sotherton; but it was a hot day, and we were all walking after each other, and bewildered." As soon as a general buzz gave him shelter, he added, in a low voice, directed solely at Fanny, "I should be sorry to have my powers of _planning_ judged of by the day at Sotherton. I see things very differently now. Do not think of me as I appeared then." Sotherton was a word to catch Mrs. Norris, and being just then in the happy leisure which followed securing the odd trick by Sir Thomas's capital play and her own against Dr. and Mrs. Grant's great hands, she called out, in high good-humour, "Sotherton! Yes, that is a place, indeed, and we had a charming day there. William, you are quite out of luck; but the next time you come, I hope dear Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth will be at home, and I am sure I can answer for your being kindly received by both. Your cousins are not of a sort to forget their relations, and Mr. Rushworth is a most amiable man. They are at Brighton now, you know; in one of the best houses there, as Mr. Rushworth's fine fortune gives them a right to be. I do not exactly know the distance, but when you get back to Portsmouth, if it is not very far off, you ought to go over and pay your respects to them; and I could send a little parcel by you that I want to get conveyed to your cousins." "I should be very happy, aunt; but Brighton is almost by Beachey Head; and if I could get so far, I could not expect to be welcome in such a smart place as that-poor scrubby midshipman as I am." Mrs. Norris was beginning an eager assurance of the affability he might depend on, when she was stopped by Sir Thomas's saying with authority, "I do not advise your going to Brighton, William, as I trust you may soon have more convenient opportunities of meeting; but my daughters would be happy to see their cousins anywhere; and you will find Mr. Rushworth most sincerely disposed to regard all the connexions of our family as his own." "I would rather find him private secretary to the First Lord than anything else," was William's only answer, in an undervoice, not meant to reach far, and the subject dropped. As yet Sir Thomas had seen nothing to remark in Mr. Crawford's behaviour; but when the whist-table broke up at the end of the second rubber, and leaving Dr. Grant and Mrs. Norris to dispute over their last play, he became a looker-on at the other, he found his niece the object of attentions, or rather of professions, of a somewhat pointed character. Henry Crawford was in the first glow of another scheme about Thornton Lacey; and not being able to catch Edmund's ear, was detailing it to his fair neighbour with a look of considerable earnestness. His scheme was to rent the house himself the following winter, that he might have a home of his own in that neighbourhood; and it was not merely for the use of it in the hunting-season (as he was then telling her), though _that_ consideration had certainly some weight, feeling as he did that, in spite of all Dr. Grant's very great kindness, it was impossible for him and his horses to be accommodated where they now were without material inconvenience; but his attachment to that neighbourhood did not depend upon one amusement or one season of the year: he had set his heart upon having a something there that he could come to at any time, a little homestall at his command, where all the holidays of his year might be spent, and he might find himself continuing, improving, and _perfecting_ that friendship and intimacy with the Mansfield Park family which was increasing in value to him every day. Sir Thomas heard and was not offended. There was no want of respect in the young man's address; and Fanny's reception of it was so proper and modest, so calm and uninviting, that he had nothing to censure in her. She said little, assented only here and there, and betrayed no inclination either of appropriating any part of the compliment to herself, or of strengthening his views in favour of Northamptonshire. Finding by whom he was observed, Henry Crawford addressed himself on the same subject to Sir Thomas, in a more everyday tone, but still with feeling. "I want to be your neighbour, Sir Thomas, as you have, perhaps, heard me telling Miss Price. May I hope for your acquiescence, and for your not influencing your son against such a tenant?" Sir Thomas, politely bowing, replied, "It is the only way, sir, in which I could _not_ wish you established as a permanent neighbour; but I hope, and believe, that Edmund will occupy his own house at Thornton Lacey. Edmund, am I saying too much?" Edmund, on this appeal, had first to hear what was going on; but, on understanding the question, was at no loss for an answer. "Certainly, sir, I have no idea but of residence. But, Crawford, though I refuse you as a tenant, come to me as a friend. Consider the house as half your own every winter, and we will add to the stables on your own improved plan, and with all the improvements of your improved plan that may occur to you this spring." "We shall be the losers," continued Sir Thomas. "His going, though only eight miles, will be an unwelcome contraction of our family circle; but I should have been deeply mortified if any son of mine could reconcile himself to doing less. It is perfectly natural that you should not have thought much on the subject, Mr. Crawford. But a parish has wants and claims which can be known only by a clergyman constantly resident, and which no proxy can be capable of satisfying to the same extent. Edmund might, in the common phrase, do the duty of Thornton, that is, he might read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park: he might ride over every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited, and go through divine service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours, if that would content him. But it will not. He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey; and that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself, by constant attention, their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own." Mr. Crawford bowed his acquiescence. "I repeat again," added Sir Thomas, "that Thornton Lacey is the only house in the neighbourhood in which I should _not_ be happy to wait on Mr. Crawford as occupier." Mr. Crawford bowed his thanks. "Sir Thomas," said Edmund, "undoubtedly understands the duty of a parish priest. We must hope his son may prove that _he_ knows it too." Whatever effect Sir Thomas's little harangue might really produce on Mr. Crawford, it raised some awkward sensations in two of the others, two of his most attentive listeners-Miss Crawford and Fanny. One of whom, having never before understood that Thornton was so soon and so completely to be his home, was pondering with downcast eyes on what it would be _not_ to see Edmund every day; and the other, startled from the agreeable fancies she had been previously indulging on the strength of her brother's description, no longer able, in the picture she had been forming of a future Thornton, to shut out the church, sink the clergyman, and see only the respectable, elegant, modernised, and occasional residence of a man of independent fortune, was considering Sir Thomas, with decided ill-will, as the destroyer of all this, and suffering the more from that involuntary forbearance which his character and manner commanded, and from not daring to relieve herself by a single attempt at throwing ridicule on his cause. All the agreeable of _her_ speculation was over for that hour. It was time to have done with cards, if sermons prevailed; and she was glad to find it necessary to come to a conclusion, and be able to refresh her spirits by a change of place and neighbour. The chief of the party were now collected irregularly round the fire, and waiting the final break-up. William and Fanny were the most detached. They remained together at the otherwise deserted card-table, talking very comfortably, and not thinking of the rest, till some of the rest began to think of them. Henry Crawford's chair was the first to be given a direction towards them, and he sat silently observing them for a few minutes; himself, in the meanwhile, observed by Sir Thomas, who was standing in chat with Dr. Grant. "This is the assembly night," said William. "If I were at Portsmouth I should be at it, perhaps." "But you do not wish yourself at Portsmouth, William?" "No, Fanny, that I do not. I shall have enough of Portsmouth and of dancing too, when I cannot have you. And I do not know that there would be any good in going to the assembly, for I might not get a partner. The Portsmouth girls turn up their noses at anybody who has not a commission. One might as well be nothing as a midshipman. One _is_ nothing, indeed. You remember the Gregorys; they are grown up amazing fine girls, but they will hardly speak to _me_, because Lucy is courted by a lieutenant." "Oh! shame, shame! But never mind it, William" (her own cheeks in a glow of indignation as she spoke). "It is not worth minding. It is no reflection on _you_; it is no more than what the greatest admirals have all experienced, more or less, in their time. You must think of that, you must try to make up your mind to it as one of the hardships which fall to every sailor's share, like bad weather and hard living, only with this advantage, that there will be an end to it, that there will come a time when you will have nothing of that sort to endure. When you are a lieutenant! only think, William, when you are a lieutenant, how little you will care for any nonsense of this kind." "I begin to think I shall never be a lieutenant, Fanny. Everybody gets made but me." "Oh! my dear William, do not talk so; do not be so desponding. My uncle says nothing, but I am sure he will do everything in his power to get you made. He knows, as well as you do, of what consequence it is." She was checked by the sight of her uncle much nearer to them than she had any suspicion of, and each found it necessary to talk of something else. "Are you fond of dancing, Fanny?" "Yes, very; only I am soon tired." "I should like to go to a ball with you and see you dance. Have you never any balls at Northampton? I should like to see you dance, and I'd dance with you if you _would_, for nobody would know who I was here, and I should like to be your partner once more. We used to jump about together many a time, did not we? when the hand-organ was in the street? I am a pretty good dancer in my way, but I dare say you are a better." And turning to his uncle, who was now close to them, "Is not Fanny a very good dancer, sir?" Fanny, in dismay at such an unprecedented question, did not know which way to look, or how to be prepared for the answer. Some very grave reproof, or at least the coldest expression of indifference, must be coming to distress her brother, and sink her to the ground. But, on the contrary, it was no worse than, "I am sorry to say that I am unable to answer your question. I have never seen Fanny dance since she was a little girl; but I trust we shall both think she acquits herself like a gentlewoman when we do see her, which, perhaps, we may have an opportunity of doing ere long." "I have had the pleasure of seeing your sister dance, Mr. Price," said Henry Crawford, leaning forward, "and will engage to answer every inquiry which you can make on the subject, to your entire satisfaction. But I believe" (seeing Fanny looked distressed) "it must be at some other time. There is _one_ person in company who does not like to have Miss Price spoken of." True enough, he had once seen Fanny dance; and it was equally true that he would now have answered for her gliding about with quiet, light elegance, and in admirable time; but, in fact, he could not for the life of him recall what her dancing had been, and rather took it for granted that she had been present than remembered anything about her. He passed, however, for an admirer of her dancing; and Sir Thomas, by no means displeased, prolonged the conversation on dancing in general, and was so well engaged in describing the balls of Antigua, and listening to what his nephew could relate of the different modes of dancing which had fallen within his observation, that he had not heard his carriage announced, and was first called to the knowledge of it by the bustle of Mrs. Norris. "Come, Fanny, Fanny, what are you about? We are going. Do not you see your aunt is going? Quick, quick! I cannot bear to keep good old Wilcox waiting. You should always remember the coachman and horses. My dear Sir Thomas, we have settled it that the carriage should come back for you, and Edmund and William." Sir Thomas could not dissent, as it had been his own arrangement, previously communicated to his wife and sister; but _that_ seemed forgotten by Mrs. Norris, who must fancy that she settled it all herself. Fanny's last feeling in the visit was disappointment: for the shawl which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to bring and put round her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford's quicker hand, and she was obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention.

The intimacy between the two families was now nearly restored to its former state. Sir Thomas found the Grants and their young inmates really worth visiting; and though above scheming for any marriage, he could not avoid perceiving, in a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was distinguishing his niece, and he assented more willingly to invitations on that account. His readiness, however, in agreeing to dine at the Parsonage, when the general invitation was at last sent out, proceeded from goodwill alone, and had nothing to do with Mr. Crawford: for it was during that visit that he first began to think Mr Crawford was the admirer of Fanny Price. The meeting was a pleasant one, and the dinner was elegant and plentiful, according to the usual style of the Grants, and enjoyed by everyone except Mrs. Norris, who could never behold either the wide table or the number of dishes on it with patience. In the evening it was found that after making up the whist-table there would remain sufficient people for a round game. Speculation was decided on; and Lady Bertram soon found herself being asked to choose between the games. She hesitated. "What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation; which will amuse me most?" Sir Thomas, after a moment's thought, recommended speculation. He was a whist player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much amuse him to have her for a partner. "Very well," was her ladyship's contented answer; "then speculation, if you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach me." Here Fanny interposed anxiously; she had never played the game; but upon everybody's assuring her that it was the easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford's stepping forward with an earnest request to sit between her ladyship and Miss Price, and teach them both, it was settled. Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant being seated at the table of prime intellectual state, the remaining six, under Miss Crawford's direction, were arranged round the other. It was a fine arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with two persons' cards to manage as well as his own; for though it was impossible for Fanny not to master the rules in three minutes, he had yet to sharpen her avarice and harden her heart, which, especially in any competition with William, was a work of some difficulty. As for Lady Bertram, he was in charge of her fortune through the whole evening. He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease and playful impudence; and the round table was altogether a very comfortable contrast to the sobriety and orderly silence of the other. Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment of his lady. "I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game." "Oh dear, yes! very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does all the rest." "Bertram," said Crawford, some time afterwards, "I have never told you what happened to me yesterday in my ride home." They had been hunting together, and were at some distance from Mansfield, when his horse flung a shoe, and Henry Crawford had been obliged to give up and make his way back. "I lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew-trees, because I can never bear to ask; and I found myself in the very place which I was curious to see. I was suddenly in a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream before me, a church standing to my right-which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, where there was no gentleman's house to be seen excepting one-to be presumed the Parsonage-within a stone's throw of the church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton Lacey." "It sounds like it," said Edmund. "You inquired, then?" "No, I never inquire. But I told a man mending a hedge that it was Thornton Lacey, and he agreed." "You have a good memory. I had forgotten having ever told you half so much of the place." Thornton Lacey was the name of his impending living, as Miss Crawford well knew; and her interest in a negotiation for William Price's knave increased. "Well," continued Edmund, "and how did you like what you saw?" "Very much indeed. You are a lucky fellow. There will be work for five summers at least before the place is liveable." "No, no, not so bad as that. The farmyard must be moved, I grant you; but I am not aware of anything else. The house is by no means bad, and when the yard is removed, there may be a very tolerable approach to it." "The farmyard must be cleared away entirely, and planted up. The house must be turned to face the east, where the view is really very pretty; I am sure it may be done. And your approach must be through what is at present the garden. You must make a new garden at the back of the house; which will give it the best aspect, sloping to the south-east. I rode fifty yards up the lane, between the church and the house, in order to look about me; and saw how it might all be. Nothing can be easier. The meadows must be all laid together, of course; very pretty meadows they are, finely sprinkled with timber. They belong to the living, I suppose; if not, you must purchase them. Then the stream-something must be done with the stream; but I could not quite determine what. I had two or three ideas." "And I have two or three ideas also," said Edmund, "and one of them is, that very little of your plan for Thornton Lacey will ever be put in practice. I must be satisfied with rather less. I think the house may be made comfortable, and given the air of a gentleman's residence, without any very heavy expense, and that must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me." Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain half-look attending this last expression, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price, and exclaimed, "There, I will stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it." The game was hers, and only did not repay her what she had paid for it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about Thornton Lacey. "My plan may not be the best possible: but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it. (Excuse me, your ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie before you.) You talk of giving it the air of a gentleman's residence. That will be done by the removal of the farmyard; for the house has the look of a something above a mere parsonage. It is a solid, roomy, mansion-like house, such as one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in through two centuries at least." Miss Crawford listened, and Edmund agreed. "The air of a gentleman's residence, therefore, you cannot help giving it. But it is capable of much more. (Lady Bertram bids a dozen for that queen; no, no, a dozen is more than it is worth. Lady Bertram does not bid. Go on, go on.) By some improvements you may give it a higher character. It may become the residence of a man of education, taste, and good connexions. All this may be stamped on it; and that house receive such an air as to make its owner be set down as the great landholder of the parish; especially as there is no real squire's house to dispute the point. You think with me, I hope," (turning with a softened voice to Fanny). "Have you ever seen the place?" Fanny gave a quick negative, and tried to hide her interest by attending to her brother, who was driving a hard bargain; but Crawford pursued with "No, no, you must not part with the queen. Your brother does not offer half her value. Hands off, sir. Your sister does not part with the queen. The game will be yours," turning to her again; "it will certainly be yours." "And Fanny had much rather it were William's," said Edmund, smiling. "Poor Fanny! not allowed to cheat herself as she wishes!" "Mr. Bertram," said Miss Crawford, "you know Henry to be such a capital improver, that you cannot do anything at Thornton Lacey without his help. Only think how useful he was at Sotherton! Only think what grand things were produced there that one hot day in August. What was done there is not to be told!" Fanny's eyes were turned on Crawford for a moment with an expression more than grave-even reproachful; but on catching his, were instantly withdrawn. With some consciousness he shook his head at his sister, and laughingly replied, "I cannot say there was much done at Sotherton; we were all walking after each other, and bewildered." He added, in a low voice, directed solely at Fanny, "I should be sorry to have my powers of planning judged of by the day at Sotherton. I see things very differently now. Do not think of me as I appeared then." Sotherton was a word to catch Mrs. Norris, and she called out, in high good-humour, "Sotherton! Yes, that is a place, indeed, and we had a charming day there. William, the next time you come, I hope dear Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth will be at home, and I can answer for your being kindly received by both. They are at Brighton now, you know; in one of the best houses there. I do not exactly know the distance, but when you get back to Portsmouth, you ought to go over and pay your respects to them; and I could send a little parcel by you that I want to get to your cousins." "I should be very happy, aunt; but Brighton is almost by Beachey Head; and if I could get so far, I could not expect to be welcome in such a smart place as that-poor scrubby midshipman as I am." Mrs. Norris's eager assurance to the contrary was stopped by Sir Thomas's saying with authority, "I do not advise your going to Brighton, William, as I trust you may have more convenient opportunities of meeting. My daughters would be happy to see their cousins anywhere; and you will find Mr. Rushworth well disposed towards you." "I would rather find him private secretary to the First Lord than anything else," was William's only answer, in an undervoice, and the subject dropped. As yet Sir Thomas had seen nothing to remark in Mr. Crawford's behaviour; but when the whist-table broke up, he became a looker-on at the other, and found his niece the object of pointed attentions. Henry Crawford was in the glow of another scheme about Thornton Lacey; and was detailing it to Fanny with a look of earnestness. His scheme was to rent the house himself the following winter, that he might have a home of his own in that neighbourhood; not merely for the use of it in the hunting-season, (as he said), for his attachment to that neighbourhood did not depend upon one amusement or one season of the year: he had set his heart upon having a place that he could come to at any time, a home where his holidays might be spent, so that he might continue that friendship with the Mansfield Park family which was increasing in value to him every day. Sir Thomas heard and was not offended. There was no want of respect in the young man's address; and Fanny's reception of it was so calm and uninviting, that he had nothing to censure in her. Finding by whom he was observed, Henry Crawford addressed himself on the subject to Sir Thomas. "I want to be your neighbour, Sir Thomas, as you have, perhaps, heard me telling Miss Price. May I hope for your acquiescence?" Sir Thomas, politely bowing, replied, "It is the only way, sir, in which I could not wish you established as a permanent neighbour; but I hope and believe that Edmund will occupy his own house at Thornton Lacey. Edmund, am I saying too much?" "Certainly, sir, I have no idea but of residence," answered Edmund. "But, Crawford, though I refuse you as a tenant, come to me as a friend. Consider the house as half yours every winter, and we will add to the stables on your own improved plan." "We shall be the losers," continued Sir Thomas. "Edmund's going, though only eight miles, will be an unwelcome contraction of our family circle; but I should have been deeply mortified if my son could reconcile himself to doing less. A parish has claims which can be known only by a clergyman constantly resident. Edmund might read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park: he might ride over every Sunday and go through divine service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours, if that would content him. But it will not. He knows that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own. Thornton Lacey, therefore, is the only house in the neighbourhood which I should not be happy for Mr. Crawford to occupy." Mr. Crawford bowed. Whatever effect Sir Thomas's little harangue might really produce on Mr. Crawford, it raised some awkward sensations in two of his most attentive listeners. Fanny, having not understood that Thornton was so soon to be his home, was pondering with downcast eyes on what it would be not to see Edmund every day; and Miss Crawford, startled from the agreeable fancies she had been indulging on the strength of her brother's description, was no longer able, in her picture of a future Thornton, to shut out the church, sink the clergyman, and see only the elegant, modernised residence of a man of independent fortune. She considered Sir Thomas as the destroyer of all this. Her agreeable speculation was over. It was time to have done with cards, if sermons prevailed; and she was glad to refresh her spirits by a change of place and neighbour. Most of the party were now collected round the fire. William and Fanny remained together at the deserted card-table, talking comfortably. Henry Crawford sat silently observing them for a few minutes; himself, in the meanwhile, observed by Sir Thomas. "This is the assembly night," said William. "If I were at Portsmouth I should be at it, perhaps." "But you do not wish yourself at Portsmouth, William?" "No, Fanny, I do not. I shall have enough of Portsmouth later. And I do not know that there would be any good in going to the assembly, for the Portsmouth girls turn up their noses at anybody who has not a commission. A midshipman is nothing. You remember the Gregorys; they are grown up amazing fine girls, but they will hardly speak to me, because Lucy is courted by a lieutenant." "Oh! shame! But never mind, William" (her own cheeks in a glow of indignation). "It is not worth minding. It is no more than the greatest admirals have experienced, in their time. You must think of it as one of the hardships which fall to every sailor, but it will end when you are a lieutenant!" "I begin to think I shall never be a lieutenant, Fanny. Everybody gets made but me." "Oh! my dear William, do not talk so; do not be so desponding. My uncle says nothing, but I am sure he will do everything in his power to get you made." She was checked by the sight of her uncle much nearer to them than she had supposed, and each began to talk of something else. "Are you fond of dancing, Fanny?" "Yes, very; only I am soon tired." "I should like to go to a ball with you and see you dance. Have you never any balls at Northampton? I'd dance with you, for nobody would know who I was, and I should like to be your partner once more. We used to jump about together many a time, did not we? when the hand-organ was in the street? I am a pretty good dancer in my way, but I dare say you are a better." And turning to his uncle, "Is not Fanny a very good dancer, sir?" Fanny did not know which way to look. Some very grave reproof must be coming to distress her brother, and sink her to the ground. But, on the contrary, Sir Thomas answered, "I am sorry to say that I have never seen Fanny dance; but I trust she will acquit herself like a gentlewoman when we do see her, which, perhaps, we may have an opportunity of doing before long." "I have had the pleasure of seeing your sister dance, Mr. Price," said Henry Crawford, leaning forward, "and will engage to answer your every inquiry on the subject. But I believe" (seeing Fanny looked distressed) "it must be at some other time. There is one person in company who does not like to have Miss Price spoken of." True enough, he had once seen Fanny dance; and it was equally true that he would now have answered for her gliding about with quiet, light elegance; but, in fact, he could not for the life of him recall what her dancing had been. He passed, however, for an admirer of her dancing; and Sir Thomas, pleased, prolonged the conversation, and was so well engaged in describing the balls of Antigua, that he did not hear his carriage announced, until Mrs. Norris began to bustle. "Come, Fanny, what are you about? We are going. Quick, quick! I cannot bear to keep good old Wilcox waiting. My dear Sir Thomas, we have settled it that the carriage should come back for you, and Edmund and William." Sir Thomas could not dissent, as it had been his own arrangement; but that seemed forgotten by Mrs. Norris, who must fancy that she had settled it all herself. Fanny's last feeling was disappointment: for the shawl which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to put round her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford, and she was obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 25

Seven weeks of the two months were very nearly gone, when the one letter, the letter from Edmund, so long expected, was put into Fanny's hands. As she opened, and saw its length, she prepared herself for a minute detail of happiness and a profusion of love and praise towards the fortunate creature who was now mistress of his fate. These were the contents- "My Dear Fanny,-Excuse me that I have not written before. Crawford told me that you were wishing to hear from me, but I found it impossible to write from London, and persuaded myself that you would understand my silence. Could I have sent a few happy lines, they should not have been wanting, but nothing of that nature was ever in my power. I am returned to Mansfield in a less assured state than when I left it. My hopes are much weaker. You are probably aware of this already. So very fond of you as Miss Crawford is, it is most natural that she should tell you enough of her own feelings to furnish a tolerable guess at mine. I will not be prevented, however, from making my own communication. Our confidences in you need not clash. I ask no questions. There is something soothing in the idea that we have the same friend, and that whatever unhappy differences of opinion may exist between us, we are united in our love of you. It will be a comfort to me to tell you how things now are, and what are my present plans, if plans I can be said to have. I have been returned since Saturday. I was three weeks in London, and saw her (for London) very often. I had every attention from the Frasers that could be reasonably expected. I dare say I was not reasonable in carrying with me hopes of an intercourse at all like that of Mansfield. It was her manner, however, rather than any unfrequency of meeting. Had she been different when I did see her, I should have made no complaint, but from the very first she was altered: my first reception was so unlike what I had hoped, that I had almost resolved on leaving London again directly. I need not particularise. You know the weak side of her character, and may imagine the sentiments and expressions which were torturing me. She was in high spirits, and surrounded by those who were giving all the support of their own bad sense to her too lively mind. I do not like Mrs. Fraser. She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage, places her disappointment not to faults of judgment, or temper, or disproportion of age, but to her being, after all, less affluent than many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister, Lady Stornaway, and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious, provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough. I look upon her intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest misfortune of her life and mine. They have been leading her astray for years. Could she be detached from them!-and sometimes I do not despair of it, for the affection appears to me principally on their side. They are very fond of her; but I am sure she does not love them as she loves you. When I think of her great attachment to you, indeed, and the whole of her judicious, upright conduct as a sister, she appears a very different creature, capable of everything noble, and I am ready to blame myself for a too harsh construction of a playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny. She is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife. If I did not believe that she had some regard for me, of course I should not say this, but I do believe it. I am convinced that she is not without a decided preference. I have no jealousy of any individual. It is the influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous of. It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her ideas are not higher than her own fortune may warrant, but they are beyond what our incomes united could authorise. There is comfort, however, even here. I could better bear to lose her because not rich enough, than because of my profession. That would only prove her affection not equal to sacrifices, which, in fact, I am scarcely justified in asking; and, if I am refused, that, I think, will be the honest motive. Her prejudices, I trust, are not so strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as they arise, my dear Fanny; perhaps they are sometimes contradictory, but it will not be a less faithful picture of my mind. Having once begun, it is a pleasure to me to tell you all I feel. I cannot give her up. Connected as we already are, and, I hope, are to be, to give up Mary Crawford would be to give up the society of some of those most dear to me; to banish myself from the very houses and friends whom, under any other distress, I should turn to for consolation. The loss of Mary I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were it a decided thing, an actual refusal, I hope I should know how to bear it, and how to endeavour to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the course of a few years-but I am writing nonsense. Were I refused, I must bear it; and till I am, I can never cease to try for her. This is the truth. The only question is _how_? What may be the likeliest means? I have sometimes thought of going to London again after Easter, and sometimes resolved on doing nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now, she speaks with pleasure of being in Mansfield in June; but June is at a great distance, and I believe I shall write to her. I have nearly determined on explaining myself by letter. To be at an early certainty is a material object. My present state is miserably irksome. Considering everything, I think a letter will be decidedly the best method of explanation. I shall be able to write much that I could not say, and shall be giving her time for reflection before she resolves on her answer, and I am less afraid of the result of reflection than of an immediate hasty impulse; I think I am. My greatest danger would lie in her consulting Mrs. Fraser, and I at a distance unable to help my own cause. A letter exposes to all the evil of consultation, and where the mind is anything short of perfect decision, an adviser may, in an unlucky moment, lead it to do what it may afterwards regret. I must think this matter over a little. This long letter, full of my own concerns alone, will be enough to tire even the friendship of a Fanny. The last time I saw Crawford was at Mrs. Fraser's party. I am more and more satisfied with all that I see and hear of him. There is not a shadow of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind, and acts up to his resolutions: an inestimable quality. I could not see him and my eldest sister in the same room without recollecting what you once told me, and I acknowledge that they did not meet as friends. There was marked coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him draw back surprised, and I was sorry that Mrs. Rushworth should resent any former supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You will wish to hear my opinion of Maria's degree of comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of unhappiness. I hope they get on pretty well together. I dined twice in Wimpole Street, and might have been there oftener, but it is mortifying to be with Rushworth as a brother. Julia seems to enjoy London exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there, but have less here. We are not a lively party. You are very much wanted. I miss you more than I can express. My mother desires her best love, and hopes to hear from you soon. She talks of you almost every hour, and I am sorry to find how many weeks more she is likely to be without you. My father means to fetch you himself, but it will not be till after Easter, when he has business in town. You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but this must not be a yearly visit. I want you at home, that I may have your opinion about Thornton Lacey. I have little heart for extensive improvements till I know that it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall certainly write. It is quite settled that the Grants go to Bath; they leave Mansfield on Monday. I am glad of it. I am not comfortable enough to be fit for anybody; but your aunt seems to feel out of luck that such an article of Mansfield news should fall to my pen instead of hers.-Yours ever, my dearest Fanny." "I never will, no, I certainly never will wish for a letter again," was Fanny's secret declaration as she finished this. "What do they bring but disappointment and sorrow? Not till after Easter! How shall I bear it? And my poor aunt talking of me every hour!" Fanny checked the tendency of these thoughts as well as she could, but she was within half a minute of starting the idea that Sir Thomas was quite unkind, both to her aunt and to herself. As for the main subject of the letter, there was nothing in that to soothe irritation. She was almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. "There is no good in this delay," said she. "Why is not it settled? He is blinded, and nothing will open his eyes; nothing can, after having had truths before him so long in vain. He will marry her, and be poor and miserable. God grant that her influence do not make him cease to be respectable!" She looked over the letter again. "'So very fond of me!' 'tis nonsense all. She loves nobody but herself and her brother. Her friends leading her astray for years! She is quite as likely to have led _them_ astray. They have all, perhaps, been corrupting one another; but if they are so much fonder of her than she is of them, she is the less likely to have been hurt, except by their flattery. 'The only woman in the world whom he could ever think of as a wife.' I firmly believe it. It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused, his heart is wedded to her for ever. 'The loss of Mary I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny.' Edmund, you do not know me. The families would never be connected if you did not connect them! Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself." Such sensations, however, were too near akin to resentment to be long guiding Fanny's soliloquies. She was soon more softened and sorrowful. His warm regard, his kind expressions, his confidential treatment, touched her strongly. He was only too good to everybody. It was a letter, in short, which she would not but have had for the world, and which could never be valued enough. This was the end of it. Everybody at all addicted to letter-writing, without having much to say, which will include a large proportion of the female world at least, must feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck in having such a capital piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath, occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it, and will admit that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the share of her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want of other employment, and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being in Parliament, got into the way of making and keeping correspondents, and formed for herself a very creditable, common-place, amplifying style, so that a very little matter was enough for her: she could not do entirely without any; she must have something to write about, even to her niece; and being so soon to lose all the benefit of Dr. Grant's gouty symptoms and Mrs. Grant's morning calls, it was very hard upon her to be deprived of one of the last epistolary uses she could put them to. There was a rich amends, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram's hour of good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt of Edmund's letter, Fanny had one from her aunt, beginning thus- "My Dear Fanny,-I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming intelligence, which I make no doubt will give you much concern". This was a great deal better than to have to take up the pen to acquaint her with all the particulars of the Grants' intended journey, for the present intelligence was of a nature to promise occupation for the pen for many days to come, being no less than the dangerous illness of her eldest son, of which they had received notice by express a few hours before. Tom had gone from London with a party of young men to Newmarket, where a neglected fall and a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever; and when the party broke up, being unable to move, had been left by himself at the house of one of these young men to the comforts of sickness and solitude, and the attendance only of servants. Instead of being soon well enough to follow his friends, as he had then hoped, his disorder increased considerably, and it was not long before he thought so ill of himself as to be as ready as his physician to have a letter despatched to Mansfield. "This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose," observed her ladyship, after giving the substance of it, "has agitated us exceedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being greatly alarmed and apprehensive for the poor invalid, whose state Sir Thomas fears may be very critical; and Edmund kindly proposes attending his brother immediately, but I am happy to add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on this distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me. We shall greatly miss Edmund in our small circle, but I trust and hope he will find the poor invalid in a less alarming state than might be apprehended, and that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly, which Sir Thomas proposes should be done, and thinks best on every account, and I flatter myself the poor sufferer will soon be able to bear the removal without material inconvenience or injury. As I have little doubt of your feeling for us, my dear Fanny, under these distressing circumstances, I will write again very soon." Fanny's feelings on the occasion were indeed considerably more warm and genuine than her aunt's style of writing. She felt truly for them all. Tom dangerously ill, Edmund gone to attend him, and the sadly small party remaining at Mansfield, were cares to shut out every other care, or almost every other. She could just find selfishness enough to wonder whether Edmund _had_ written to Miss Crawford before this summons came, but no sentiment dwelt long with her that was not purely affectionate and disinterestedly anxious. Her aunt did not neglect her: she wrote again and again; they were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund, and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny, in the same diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts, hopes, and fears, all following and producing each other at haphazard. It was a sort of playing at being frightened. The sufferings which Lady Bertram did not see had little power over her fancy; and she wrote very comfortably about agitation, and anxiety, and poor invalids, till Tom was actually conveyed to Mansfield, and her own eyes had beheld his altered appearance. Then a letter which she had been previously preparing for Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language of real feeling and alarm; then she wrote as she might have spoken. "He is just come, my dear Fanny, and is taken upstairs; and I am so shocked to see him, that I do not know what to do. I am sure he has been very ill. Poor Tom! I am quite grieved for him, and very much frightened, and so is Sir Thomas; and how glad I should be if you were here to comfort me. But Sir Thomas hopes he will be better to-morrow, and says we must consider his journey." The real solicitude now awakened in the maternal bosom was not soon over. Tom's extreme impatience to be removed to Mansfield, and experience those comforts of home and family which had been little thought of in uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being conveyed thither too early, as a return of fever came on, and for a week he was in a more alarming state than ever. They were all very seriously frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who might now be said to live upon letters, and pass all her time between suffering from that of to-day and looking forward to to-morrow's. Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, her tenderness of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of her principles added yet a keener solicitude, when she considered how little useful, how little self-denying his life had (apparently) been. Susan was her only companion and listener on this, as on more common occasions. Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathise. Nobody else could be interested in so remote an evil as illness in a family above an hundred miles off; not even Mrs. Price, beyond a brief question or two, if she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand, and now and then the quiet observation of, "My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of trouble." So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing. An attachment, originally as tranquil as their tempers, was now become a mere name. Mrs. Price did quite as much for Lady Bertram as Lady Bertram would have done for Mrs. Price. Three or four Prices might have been swept away, any or all except Fanny and William, and Lady Bertram would have thought little about it; or perhaps might have caught from Mrs. Norris's lips the cant of its being a very happy thing and a great blessing to their poor dear sister Price to have them so well provided for.

Seven weeks of the two months were gone, when the letter, the letter from Edmund, so long expected, was put into Fanny's hands. As she saw its length, she prepared herself for a minute detail of happiness and a profusion of praise towards his future wife. These were the contents- "My Dear Fanny,-Excuse my not writing before. Crawford told me that you wished to hear from me, but I found it impossible to write from London, and persuaded myself that you would understand my silence. Could I have sent a few happy lines, I should have done so, but nothing of that nature was ever in my power. I am returned to Mansfield in a less assured state than when I left it. My hopes are much weaker. You are probably aware of this already from your friend. I may tell you myself, however. Our confidences in you need not clash. There is something soothing in the idea that we have the same friend, and that whatever unhappy differences of opinion may exist between us, we are united in our love of you. It will be a comfort to me to tell you how things now are. "I was three weeks in London, and saw her very often. I dare say I was not reasonable in bringing hopes of an intimacy like that of Mansfield. From the very first she was altered: my reception was so unlike what I had hoped, that I almost resolved on leaving London again directly. She was in high spirits, and surrounded by those who were giving the support of their own bad sense to her too lively mind. I do not like Mrs. Fraser. She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage, blames her disappointment not on faults of judgment or temper, but to her being less affluent than her sister, Lady Stornaway; she is mercenary and ambitious. I look upon Miss Crawford's intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest misfortune of her life and mine. They have been leading her astray for years. If only she could be detached from them!-and sometimes I do not despair of it, for the affection appears to me principally on their side. I am sure she does not love them as she loves you. When I think of her great attachment to you, indeed, and her conduct as a sister, she appears a very different creature, capable of everything noble, and I am ready to blame myself for a too harsh construction of her playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny. She is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife. If I did not believe that she had regard for me, of course I should not say this, but I do believe it. I am convinced that she is not without a decided preference. I have no jealousy of any individual. It is the influence of the fashionable world that I am jealous of. It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her ideas are not higher than her own fortune may warrant, but they are beyond what our incomes united could authorise. There is comfort, however, even here. I could better bear to lose her because not rich enough, than because of my profession. Her prejudices, I trust, are not so strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as they arise, my dear Fanny; perhaps they are sometimes contradictory, but it will not be a less faithful picture of my mind. Having once begun, it is a pleasure to me to tell you all I feel. I cannot give her up. Connected as we already are, and, I hope, are to be, to give up Mary Crawford would be to give up the society of some of those most dear to me; to banish myself from the very houses and friends whom, under any other distress, I should turn to for consolation. The loss of Mary must include the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were it an actual refusal, I hope I should know how to bear it, and how to endeavour to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the course of a few years-but I am writing nonsense. Were I refused, I must bear it; and till I am, I can never cease to try for her. This is the truth. The only question is how? I have sometimes thought of going to London again after Easter, and sometimes resolved on doing nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now, she speaks with pleasure of being in Mansfield in June; but June is at a great distance, and I believe I shall write to her. My present state is miserably irksome. Considering everything, I think a letter will be best. I shall be able to write much that I could not say, and shall be giving her time to reflect before she answers, and I am less afraid of the result of reflection than of an immediate hasty impulse; I think I am. My greatest danger would lie in her consulting Mrs. Fraser. Where the mind is short of perfect decision, an adviser may, in an unlucky moment, lead it to do what it may afterwards regret. I must think this matter over. "This long letter, full of my own concerns, will be enough to tire even the friendship of a Fanny. The last time I saw Crawford was at Mrs. Fraser's party. I am more and more satisfied with all that I see and hear of him. There is not a shadow of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind, and acts up to his resolutions. I could not see him and my eldest sister in the same room without recollecting what you once told me, and I acknowledge that they did not meet as friends. There was marked coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him draw back surprised, and I was sorry that Mrs. Rushworth should resent any former supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You will wish to hear my opinion of Maria's degree of comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of unhappiness. I hope they get on pretty well together. I dined twice in Wimpole Street, and might have been there oftener, but it is mortifying to be with Rushworth as a brother. Julia seems to enjoy London exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there, but have less here. We are not a lively party. You are very much wanted. I miss you more than I can express. My mother desires her best love, and hopes to hear from you soon. She talks of you every hour, and I am sorry to find how many weeks more she is likely to be without you. My father means to fetch you himself, but it will not be till after Easter. You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but I want you at home, that I may have your opinion about Thornton Lacey. I have little heart for extensive improvements till I know that it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall certainly write.-Yours ever, my dearest Fanny." "I never will, no, I certainly never will wish for a letter again," was Fanny's declaration as she finished this. "What do they bring but disappointment and sorrow? Not till after Easter! How shall I bear it? And my poor aunt talking of me every hour!" Fanny checked these thoughts as well as she could, but she almost considered that Sir Thomas was quite unkind, both to her aunt and to herself. As for the main subject of the letter, she was almost vexed into anger against Edmund. "There is no good in this delay," said she. "Why is not it settled? He is blinded, and nothing will open his eyes. He will marry her, and be poor and miserable." She looked over the letter again. "'So very fond of me!' 'tis nonsense all. She loves nobody but herself and her brother. Her friends leading her astray for years! She is quite as likely to have led them astray. They have all, perhaps, been corrupting one another. 'The only woman in the world whom he could ever think of as a wife.' I firmly believe it. It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused, his heart is wedded to her for ever. 'The loss of Mary must include the loss of Crawford and of Fanny.' Edmund, you do not know me. The families would never be connected if you did not connect them! Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself." Such sensations, however, were too close to resentment to last long. She was soon more softened and sorrowful. His warm regard, his confidential treatment, touched her strongly. He was only too good to everybody. It was a letter, in short, which she would not but have had for the world, and which could never be valued enough. This was the end of it. A few days after receiving Edmund's letter, Fanny had one from her aunt, beginning thus- "My Dear Fanny,-I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming intelligence, which I make no doubt will give you much concern". The intelligence was no less than the dangerous illness of her eldest son, of which they had received news a few hours before. Tom had gone from London with a party of young men to Newmarket, where a neglected fall and a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever; and when the party broke up, he had been left by himself at the house of one of these young men, with the attendance only of servants. Instead of being soon well enough to follow his friends, as he had hoped, his disorder increased, and a letter was despatched to Mansfield. "This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose," observed her ladyship, "has agitated us exceedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being greatly alarmed for the poor invalid, whose state Sir Thomas fears may be very critical; and Edmund kindly proposes attending his brother immediately, but I am happy to add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on this distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me. I trust and hope Edmund will find the poor invalid in a less alarming state than might be apprehended, and that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly, which Sir Thomas thinks best on every account, and I flatter myself the poor sufferer will soon be able to bear the removal without material injury. As I have little doubt of your feeling for us, my dear Fanny, I will write again very soon." Fanny's feelings on the occasion were indeed considerably more warm and genuine than her aunt's style of writing. She felt truly for them all. Tom dangerously ill, Edmund gone to attend him, and the sad party remaining at Mansfield, were cares to shut out almost every other care. She could just find selfishness enough to wonder whether Edmund had written to Miss Crawford before this summons came, but that sentiment did not dwell long. Her aunt wrote again and again; they were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund, and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny, in the same diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts and hopes and fears. It was a sort of playing at being frightened. The sufferings which Lady Bertram did not see had little power over her fancy; and she wrote very comfortably about poor invalids, till Tom was actually conveyed to Mansfield, and her own eyes beheld his altered appearance. Then a letter which she had started to Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language of real feeling and alarm; then she wrote as she might have spoken. "He is just come, my dear Fanny, and is taken upstairs; and I am so shocked to see him, that I do not know what to do. I am sure he has been very ill. Poor Tom! I am quite grieved for him, and very much frightened, and so is Sir Thomas; and how glad I should be if you were here to comfort me. But Sir Thomas hopes he will be better to-morrow, and says we must consider his journey." This real solicitude was not soon over. Tom's impatience to be removed to Mansfield had probably led to his being brought there too early; a return of fever came on, and for a week he was in a more alarming state than ever. They were all very seriously frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who might now be said to live upon letters. Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, her tenderness of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of her principles added yet a keener solicitude, when she considered how little useful his life had (apparently) been. Susan was her only listener on this, as on other occasions. Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathise. Nobody else could be interested in so remote an evil as illness an hundred miles off; not even Mrs. Price, beyond a brief question or two, and now and then the quiet observation of, "My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of trouble." So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 44

Mr. Bertram set off for----, and Miss Crawford was prepared to find a great chasm in their society, and to miss him decidedly in the meetings which were now becoming almost daily between the families; and on their all dining together at the Park soon after his going, she retook her chosen place near the bottom of the table, fully expecting to feel a most melancholy difference in the change of masters. It would be a very flat business, she was sure. In comparison with his brother, Edmund would have nothing to say. The soup would be sent round in a most spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles or agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote of any former haunch, or a single entertaining story, about "my friend such a one." She must try to find amusement in what was passing at the upper end of the table, and in observing Mr. Rushworth, who was now making his appearance at Mansfield for the first time since the Crawfords' arrival. He had been visiting a friend in the neighbouring county, and that friend having recently had his grounds laid out by an improver, Mr. Rushworth was returned with his head full of the subject, and very eager to be improving his own place in the same way; and though not saying much to the purpose, could talk of nothing else. The subject had been already handled in the drawing-room; it was revived in the dining-parlour. Miss Bertram's attention and opinion was evidently his chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather conscious superiority than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court, and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which prevented her from being very ungracious. "I wish you could see Compton," said he; "it is the most complete thing! I never saw a place so altered in my life. I told Smith I did not know where I was. The approach _now_, is one of the finest things in the country: you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare, when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison-quite a dismal old prison." "Oh, for shame!" cried Mrs. Norris. "A prison indeed? Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world." "It wants improvement, ma'am, beyond anything. I never saw a place that wanted so much improvement in my life; and it is so forlorn that I do not know what can be done with it." "No wonder that Mr. Rushworth should think so at present," said Mrs. Grant to Mrs. Norris, with a smile; "but depend upon it, Sotherton will have _every_ improvement in time which his heart can desire." "I must try to do something with it," said Mr. Rushworth, "but I do not know what. I hope I shall have some good friend to help me." "Your best friend upon such an occasion," said Miss Bertram calmly, "would be Mr. Repton, I imagine." "That is what I was thinking of. As he has done so well by Smith, I think I had better have him at once. His terms are five guineas a day." "Well, and if they were _ten_," cried Mrs. Norris, "I am sure _you_ need not regard it. The expense need not be any impediment. If I were you, I should not think of the expense. I would have everything done in the best style, and made as nice as possible. Such a place as Sotherton Court deserves everything that taste and money can do. You have space to work upon there, and grounds that will well reward you. For my own part, if I had anything within the fiftieth part of the size of Sotherton, I should be always planting and improving, for naturally I am excessively fond of it. It would be too ridiculous for me to attempt anything where I am now, with my little half acre. It would be quite a burlesque. But if I had more room, I should take a prodigious delight in improving and planting. We did a vast deal in that way at the Parsonage: we made it quite a different place from what it was when we first had it. You young ones do not remember much about it, perhaps; but if dear Sir Thomas were here, he could tell you what improvements we made: and a great deal more would have been done, but for poor Mr. Norris's sad state of health. He could hardly ever get out, poor man, to enjoy anything, and _that_ disheartened me from doing several things that Sir Thomas and I used to talk of. If it had not been for _that_, we should have carried on the garden wall, and made the plantation to shut out the churchyard, just as Dr. Grant has done. We were always doing something as it was. It was only the spring twelvemonth before Mr. Norris's death that we put in the apricot against the stable wall, which is now grown such a noble tree, and getting to such perfection, sir," addressing herself then to Dr. Grant. "The tree thrives well, beyond a doubt, madam," replied Dr. Grant. "The soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting that the fruit should be so little worth the trouble of gathering." "Sir, it is a Moor Park, we bought it as a Moor Park, and it cost us-that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill-and I know it cost seven shillings, and was charged as a Moor Park." "You were imposed on, ma'am," replied Dr. Grant: "these potatoes have as much the flavour of a Moor Park apricot as the fruit from that tree. It is an insipid fruit at the best; but a good apricot is eatable, which none from my garden are." "The truth is, ma'am," said Mrs. Grant, pretending to whisper across the table to Mrs. Norris, "that Dr. Grant hardly knows what the natural taste of our apricot is: he is scarcely ever indulged with one, for it is so valuable a fruit; with a little assistance, and ours is such a remarkably large, fair sort, that what with early tarts and preserves, my cook contrives to get them all." Mrs. Norris, who had begun to redden, was appeased; and, for a little while, other subjects took place of the improvements of Sotherton. Dr. Grant and Mrs. Norris were seldom good friends; their acquaintance had begun in dilapidations, and their habits were totally dissimilar. After a short interruption Mr. Rushworth began again. "Smith's place is the admiration of all the country; and it was a mere nothing before Repton took it in hand. I think I shall have Repton." "Mr. Rushworth," said Lady Bertram, "if I were you, I would have a very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine weather." Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of his acquiescence, and tried to make out something complimentary; but, between his submission to _her_ taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with the superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies in general, and of insinuating that there was one only whom he was anxious to please, he grew puzzled, and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine. Mr. Rushworth, however, though not usually a great talker, had still more to say on the subject next his heart. "Smith has not much above a hundred acres altogether in his grounds, which is little enough, and makes it more surprising that the place can have been so improved. Now, at Sotherton we have a good seven hundred, without reckoning the water meadows; so that I think, if so much could be done at Compton, we need not despair. There have been two or three fine old trees cut down, that grew too near the house, and it opens the prospect amazingly, which makes me think that Repton, or anybody of that sort, would certainly have the avenue at Sotherton down: the avenue that leads from the west front to the top of the hill, you know," turning to Miss Bertram particularly as he spoke. But Miss Bertram thought it most becoming to reply- "The avenue! Oh! I do not recollect it. I really know very little of Sotherton." Fanny, who was sitting on the other side of Edmund, exactly opposite Miss Crawford, and who had been attentively listening, now looked at him, and said in a low voice- "Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper? 'Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'" He smiled as he answered, "I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance, Fanny." "I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down, to see the place as it is now, in its old state; but I do not suppose I shall." "Have you never been there? No, you never can; and, unluckily, it is out of distance for a ride. I wish we could contrive it." "Oh! it does not signify. Whenever I do see it, you will tell me how it has been altered." "I collect," said Miss Crawford, "that Sotherton is an old place, and a place of some grandeur. In any particular style of building?" "The house was built in Elizabeth's time, and is a large, regular, brick building; heavy, but respectable looking, and has many good rooms. It is ill placed. It stands in one of the lowest spots of the park; in that respect, unfavourable for improvement. But the woods are fine, and there is a stream, which, I dare say, might be made a good deal of. Mr. Rushworth is quite right, I think, in meaning to give it a modern dress, and I have no doubt that it will be all done extremely well." Miss Crawford listened with submission, and said to herself, "He is a well-bred man; he makes the best of it." "I do not wish to influence Mr. Rushworth," he continued; "but, had I a place to new fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an improver. I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice, and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own blunders than by his." "_You_ would know what you were about, of course; but that would not suit _me_. I have no eye or ingenuity for such matters, but as they are before me; and had I a place of my own in the country, I should be most thankful to any Mr. Repton who would undertake it, and give me as much beauty as he could for my money; and I should never look at it till it was complete." "It would be delightful to _me_ to see the progress of it all," said Fanny. "Ay, you have been brought up to it. It was no part of my education; and the only dose I ever had, being administered by not the first favourite in the world, has made me consider improvements _in_ _hand_ as the greatest of nuisances. Three years ago the Admiral, my honoured uncle, bought a cottage at Twickenham for us all to spend our summers in; and my aunt and I went down to it quite in raptures; but it being excessively pretty, it was soon found necessary to be improved, and for three months we were all dirt and confusion, without a gravel walk to step on, or a bench fit for use. I would have everything as complete as possible in the country, shrubberies and flower-gardens, and rustic seats innumerable: but it must all be done without my care. Henry is different; he loves to be doing." Edmund was sorry to hear Miss Crawford, whom he was much disposed to admire, speak so freely of her uncle. It did not suit his sense of propriety, and he was silenced, till induced by further smiles and liveliness to put the matter by for the present. "Mr. Bertram," said she, "I have tidings of my harp at last. I am assured that it is safe at Northampton; and there it has probably been these ten days, in spite of the solemn assurances we have so often received to the contrary." Edmund expressed his pleasure and surprise. "The truth is, that our inquiries were too direct; we sent a servant, we went ourselves: this will not do seventy miles from London; but this morning we heard of it in the right way. It was seen by some farmer, and he told the miller, and the miller told the butcher, and the butcher's son-in-law left word at the shop." "I am very glad that you have heard of it, by whatever means, and hope there will be no further delay." "I am to have it to-morrow; but how do you think it is to be conveyed? Not by a wagon or cart: oh no! nothing of that kind could be hired in the village. I might as well have asked for porters and a handbarrow." "You would find it difficult, I dare say, just now, in the middle of a very late hay harvest, to hire a horse and cart?" "I was astonished to find what a piece of work was made of it! To want a horse and cart in the country seemed impossible, so I told my maid to speak for one directly; and as I cannot look out of my dressing-closet without seeing one farmyard, nor walk in the shrubbery without passing another, I thought it would be only ask and have, and was rather grieved that I could not give the advantage to all. Guess my surprise, when I found that I had been asking the most unreasonable, most impossible thing in the world; had offended all the farmers, all the labourers, all the hay in the parish! As for Dr. Grant's bailiff, I believe I had better keep out of _his_ way; and my brother-in-law himself, who is all kindness in general, looked rather black upon me when he found what I had been at." "You could not be expected to have thought on the subject before; but when you _do_ think of it, you must see the importance of getting in the grass. The hire of a cart at any time might not be so easy as you suppose: our farmers are not in the habit of letting them out; but, in harvest, it must be quite out of their power to spare a horse." "I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the true London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a little embarrassed at first by the sturdy independence of your country customs. However, I am to have my harp fetched to-morrow. Henry, who is good-nature itself, has offered to fetch it in his barouche. Will it not be honourably conveyed?" Edmund spoke of the harp as his favourite instrument, and hoped to be soon allowed to hear her. Fanny had never heard the harp at all, and wished for it very much. "I shall be most happy to play to you both," said Miss Crawford; "at least as long as you can like to listen: probably much longer, for I dearly love music myself, and where the natural taste is equal the player must always be best off, for she is gratified in more ways than one. Now, Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother, I entreat you to tell him that my harp is come: he heard so much of my misery about it. And you may say, if you please, that I shall prepare my most plaintive airs against his return, in compassion to his feelings, as I know his horse will lose." "If I write, I will say whatever you wish me; but I do not, at present, foresee any occasion for writing." "No, I dare say, nor if he were to be gone a twelvemonth, would you ever write to him, nor he to you, if it could be helped. The occasion would never be foreseen. What strange creatures brothers are! You would not write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world; and when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse is ill, or such a relation dead, it is done in the fewest possible words. You have but one style among you. I know it perfectly. Henry, who is in every other respect exactly what a brother should be, who loves me, consults me, confides in me, and will talk to me by the hour together, has never yet turned the page in a letter; and very often it is nothing more than-'Dear Mary, I am just arrived. Bath seems full, and everything as usual. Yours sincerely.' That is the true manly style; that is a complete brother's letter." "When they are at a distance from all their family," said Fanny, colouring for William's sake, "they can write long letters." "Miss Price has a brother at sea," said Edmund, "whose excellence as a correspondent makes her think you too severe upon us." "At sea, has she? In the king's service, of course?" Fanny would rather have had Edmund tell the story, but his determined silence obliged her to relate her brother's situation: her voice was animated in speaking of his profession, and the foreign stations he had been on; but she could not mention the number of years that he had been absent without tears in her eyes. Miss Crawford civilly wished him an early promotion. "Do you know anything of my cousin's captain?" said Edmund; "Captain Marshall? You have a large acquaintance in the navy, I conclude?" "Among admirals, large enough; but," with an air of grandeur, "we know very little of the inferior ranks. Post-captains may be very good sort of men, but they do not belong to _us_. Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in general, I can assure you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used. Certainly, my home at my uncle's brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of _Rears_ and _Vices_ I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat." Edmund again felt grave, and only replied, "It is a noble profession." "Yes, the profession is well enough under two circumstances: if it make the fortune, and there be discretion in spending it; but, in short, it is not a favourite profession of mine. It has never worn an amiable form to _me_." Edmund reverted to the harp, and was again very happy in the prospect of hearing her play. The subject of improving grounds, meanwhile, was still under consideration among the others; and Mrs. Grant could not help addressing her brother, though it was calling his attention from Miss Julia Bertram. "My dear Henry, have _you_ nothing to say? You have been an improver yourself, and from what I hear of Everingham, it may vie with any place in England. Its natural beauties, I am sure, are great. Everingham, as it _used_ to be, was perfect in my estimation: such a happy fall of ground, and such timber! What would I not give to see it again!" "Nothing could be so gratifying to me as to hear your opinion of it," was his answer; "but I fear there would be some disappointment: you would not find it equal to your present ideas. In extent, it is a mere nothing; you would be surprised at its insignificance; and, as for improvement, there was very little for me to do-too little: I should like to have been busy much longer." "You are fond of the sort of thing?" said Julia. "Excessively; but what with the natural advantages of the ground, which pointed out, even to a very young eye, what little remained to be done, and my own consequent resolutions, I had not been of age three months before Everingham was all that it is now. My plan was laid at Westminster, a little altered, perhaps, at Cambridge, and at one-and-twenty executed. I am inclined to envy Mr. Rushworth for having so much happiness yet before him. I have been a devourer of my own." "Those who see quickly, will resolve quickly, and act quickly," said Julia. "_You_ can never want employment. Instead of envying Mr. Rushworth, you should assist him with your opinion." Mrs. Grant, hearing the latter part of this speech, enforced it warmly, persuaded that no judgment could be equal to her brother's; and as Miss Bertram caught at the idea likewise, and gave it her full support, declaring that, in her opinion, it was infinitely better to consult with friends and disinterested advisers, than immediately to throw the business into the hands of a professional man, Mr. Rushworth was very ready to request the favour of Mr. Crawford's assistance; and Mr. Crawford, after properly depreciating his own abilities, was quite at his service in any way that could be useful. Mr. Rushworth then began to propose Mr. Crawford's doing him the honour of coming over to Sotherton, and taking a bed there; when Mrs. Norris, as if reading in her two nieces' minds their little approbation of a plan which was to take Mr. Crawford away, interposed with an amendment. "There can be no doubt of Mr. Crawford's willingness; but why should not more of us go? Why should not we make a little party? Here are many that would be interested in your improvements, my dear Mr. Rushworth, and that would like to hear Mr. Crawford's opinion on the spot, and that might be of some small use to you with _their_ opinions; and, for my own part, I have been long wishing to wait upon your good mother again; nothing but having no horses of my own could have made me so remiss; but now I could go and sit a few hours with Mrs. Rushworth, while the rest of you walked about and settled things, and then we could all return to a late dinner here, or dine at Sotherton, just as might be most agreeable to your mother, and have a pleasant drive home by moonlight. I dare say Mr. Crawford would take my two nieces and me in his barouche, and Edmund can go on horseback, you know, sister, and Fanny will stay at home with you." Lady Bertram made no objection; and every one concerned in the going was forward in expressing their ready concurrence, excepting Edmund, who heard it all and said nothing.

Mr. Bertram set off, and Miss Crawford was prepared to miss him decidedly in the meetings between the families; and on their dining together at the Park soon after his going, she fully expected to feel a melancholy difference. It would be a flat business, she was sure. Edmund would have nothing to say. The soup would be sent round in a spiritless manner, wine drank without any agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without one pleasant anecdote about "my friend such a one." She must try to find amusement in observing Mr. Rushworth, who was now at Mansfield. He had been visiting a friend in the neighbouring county, and that friend having recently had his grounds laid out, Mr. Rushworth returned with his head full of the subject. Eager to improve his own place in the same way, he could talk of nothing else. The subject had been already handled in the drawing-room; it was revived in the dining-parlour. Miss Bertram's attention was his chief aim; and though she showed more superiority than solicitude, the mention of Sotherton Court gave her a feeling of complacency, which made her gracious. "I wish you could see Compton," said he; "I never saw a place so altered in my life. The approach now, is one of the finest in the country: you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare, when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a dismal old prison." "Oh, for shame!" cried Mrs. Norris. "Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world." "It wants improvement, ma'am. It is so forlorn that I do not know what can be done with it. I need some good friend to help me." "Your best friend upon such an occasion," said Miss Bertram calmly, "would be Mr. Repton." "That is what I was thinking. As he has done so well by Smith, I think I had better have him. His terms are five guineas a day." "Well, and if they were ten," cried Mrs. Norris, "I am sure you need not regard it. Sotherton Court deserves everything that taste and money can do. If I had anything the fiftieth part of the size of Sotherton, I should be always improving. It would be ridiculous for me to attempt anything where I am now, with my little half acre. But if I had more, I should take a prodigious delight in improving and planting. We did a vast deal in that way at the Parsonage: and would have done more, but for poor Mr. Norris's sad state of health. We put in the apricot against the stable wall, which is now such a noble tree, sir," addressing herself to Dr. Grant. "The tree thrives well, madam," replied Dr. Grant. "The soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting that the fruit should be so little worth the trouble of gathering." "Sir, it is a Moor Park, and it cost us-that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill-and I know it cost seven shillings." "You were imposed on, ma'am," replied Dr. Grant: "The fruit from that tree is insipid." "The truth is, ma'am," said Mrs. Grant, pretending to whisper across the table, "that Dr. Grant hardly knows what the natural taste of our apricot is: he is scarcely ever indulged with one, for it is so valuable a fruit, that what with tarts and preserves, my cook contrives to get them all." Mrs. Norris, who had begun to redden, was appeased. Mr. Rushworth began again. "Smith's place is the admiration of all the country; and it was nothing before Repton took it in hand. I think I shall have Repton." "Mr. Rushworth," said Lady Bertram, "if I were you, I would have a pretty shrubbery." Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of this, and tried to say something complimentary; but, between admiring her good taste, and his having always intended the same, and professing his attention to the ladies' comfort, but meaning one lady especially, he grew puzzled; and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine. Mr. Rushworth, however, had still more to say on the subject next his heart. "Smith has not much above a hundred acres. Now, at Sotherton we have seven hundred; so that I think we need not despair. There have been two or three fine old trees cut down, and it opens the prospect amazingly, which makes me think that Repton would certainly have the avenue at Sotherton down: the avenue from the west front to the hill, you know," turning to Miss Bertram. "Oh! I do not recollect it. I really know very little of Sotherton." Fanny, sitting beside Edmund, said to him in a low voice- "Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper? 'Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'" He smiled. "I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance, Fanny." "I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down; but I do not suppose I shall." "Have you never been there? Unluckily, it is too far for a ride. I wish we could contrive it." "Oh! it does not signify." "I collect," said Miss Crawford, "that Sotherton is an old place of some grandeur. In any particular style of building?" "The house was built in Elizabeth's time," said Edmund, "and is a large brick building; heavy, but respectable, with many good rooms. It is ill placed, in one of the lowest spots of the park. But the woods are fine, and there is a stream, which might be made a good deal of. Mr. Rushworth is quite right, I think, in meaning to give it a modern dress, and I have no doubt that it will be done extremely well." Miss Crawford listened, and said to herself, "He is a well-bred man; he makes the best of it." "I do not wish to influence Mr. Rushworth," he continued; "but, had I a place to fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an improver. I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice." "That would not suit me. I have no eye for such matters; and had I a place of my own, I should be most thankful to any Mr. Repton who would undertake it; and I should never look at it till it was complete." "It would be delightful to me to see its progress," said Fanny. "I consider improvements as the greatest of nuisances. Three years ago the Admiral, my honoured uncle, bought a cottage at Twickenham for us to spend our summers in; and my aunt and I went down to it quite in raptures; but being excessively pretty, it had to be improved, and for three months we were all dirt and confusion. I would have everything complete, shrubberies and flower-gardens, and rustic seats: but it must be done without my care. Henry is different; he loves to be doing." Edmund was sorry to hear Miss Crawford, whom he was disposed to admire, speak so freely of her uncle. It did not suit his sense of propriety, and he was silenced, till induced by further smiles to put the matter by. "Mr. Bertram," said she, "I have tidings of my harp at last. I am assured that it is safe at Northampton; and has probably been there these ten days, in spite of the solemn assurances we received to the contrary." Edmund expressed his pleasure and surprise. "The truth is, that our inquiries were too direct; but this morning we heard of it in the right way. It was seen by some farmer, and he told the miller, and the miller told the butcher, and the butcher's son-in-law left word at the shop." "I am very glad that you have heard of it, by whatever means." "I am to have it to-morrow; but I could hire no wagon in the village to convey it." "You found it difficult, in the middle of hay harvest, to hire a horse and cart?" "I was astonished to find what a piece of work was made of it! I thought it would be only ask and have. Guess my surprise, when I found that I had been asking the most unreasonable thing in the world; had offended all the farmers in the parish!" "You could not be expected to have thought of it; but you must see the importance of getting in the grass. In harvest, it must be quite out of our farmers' power to spare a horse." "I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a little embarrassed by the sturdy independence of your country customs. However, I am to have my harp to-morrow. Henry, who is good-nature itself, has offered to fetch it in his barouche." Edmund spoke of the harp as his favourite instrument, and hoped to be allowed to hear her. Fanny had never heard the harp at all, and wished for it very much. "I shall be most happy to play to you both," said Miss Crawford; "for as long as you like to listen: probably longer. Mr. Bertram, if you write to your brother, tell him that my harp is come: and that I shall prepare my most plaintive airs for his return, as I know his horse will lose." "If I write, I will say whatever you wish; but I do not foresee any need to write." "What strange creatures brothers are! You would not write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity, and in the fewest possible words. You have but one style among you. I know it perfectly. Henry, who is in every other respect exactly what a brother should be, who confides in me, and will talk to me by the hour together, has never yet used a second page in a letter; and often it is nothing more than-'Dear Mary, I am just arrived. Bath seems full, and everything as usual. Yours sincerely.' That is a complete brother's letter." "When they are far from their family," said Fanny, colouring, "they can write long letters." "Miss Price has a brother at sea," said Edmund, "whose excellence as a correspondent makes her think you too severe." "At sea? In the king's service?" Fanny would rather have had Edmund tell the story, but his determined silence obliged her to relate her brother's situation: her voice was animated, but she could not mention the number of years that he had been absent without tears in her eyes. Miss Crawford civilly wished him an early promotion. "Do you know anything of my cousin's captain?" said Edmund; "Captain Marshall? You have a large acquaintance in the navy, I conclude?" "Among admirals, large enough; but," with an air of grandeur, "we know very little of the inferior ranks. Post-captains may be very good sort of men, but they do not belong to us. Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of their flags, and their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. Certainly, my home at my uncle's brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat." Edmund again felt grave, and only replied, "It is a noble profession." "Yes, it is well enough; but it is not a favourite profession of mine." Edmund reverted to the harp, and was again very happy in the prospect of hearing her play. The subject of improving grounds, meanwhile, was still under consideration among the others; and Mrs. Grant addressed her brother. "My dear Henry, have you nothing to say? You have been an improver yourself, and Everingham's natural beauties are great. Such a happy fall of ground, and such timber! What would I not give to see it again?" "I fear you would be disappointed;" was his answer; "you would be surprised at its insignificance; and, as for improvement, there was too little for me to do: I should like to have been busy much longer." "You are fond of that sort of thing?" said Julia. "Excessively; but I had not been of age three months before Everingham was completed. My plan was laid at Westminster, a little altered at Cambridge, and at one-and-twenty executed. I envy Mr. Rushworth for having so much happiness yet before him. I have been a devourer of my own." "Those who see quickly, will resolve quickly, and act quickly," said Julia. "You should assist Mr Rushworth with your opinion." Mrs. Grant agreed warmly; and as Miss Bertram gave the idea her full support, Mr. Rushworth requested the favour of Mr. Crawford's assistance; and Mr. Crawford was quite at his service. Mr. Rushworth then began to propose Mr. Crawford's coming over to Sotherton, when Mrs. Norris interposed. "Why should not more of us go? Why should not we make a little party? Here are many that would be interested in your improvements, my dear Mr. Rushworth; and, for my own part, I have long wished to wait upon your good mother again; I could sit with Mrs. Rushworth, while the rest of you walked about and settled things, and then we could dine at Sotherton, and have a pleasant drive home by moonlight. I dare say Mr. Crawford would take my two nieces and me in his barouche, and Edmund can go on horseback, you know, sister, and Fanny will stay at home with you." Lady Bertram made no objection; and every one gave their concurrence, excepting Edmund, who said nothing.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 6

On reaching home Fanny went immediately upstairs to deposit this unexpected acquisition, this doubtful good of a necklace, in some favourite box in the East room, which held all her smaller treasures; but on opening the door, what was her surprise to find her cousin Edmund there writing at the table! Such a sight having never occurred before, was almost as wonderful as it was welcome. "Fanny," said he directly, leaving his seat and his pen, and meeting her with something in his hand, "I beg your pardon for being here. I came to look for you, and after waiting a little while in hope of your coming in, was making use of your inkstand to explain my errand. You will find the beginning of a note to yourself; but I can now speak my business, which is merely to beg your acceptance of this little trifle-a chain for William's cross. You ought to have had it a week ago, but there has been a delay from my brother's not being in town by several days so soon as I expected; and I have only just now received it at Northampton. I hope you will like the chain itself, Fanny. I endeavoured to consult the simplicity of your taste; but, at any rate, I know you will be kind to my intentions, and consider it, as it really is, a token of the love of one of your oldest friends." And so saying, he was hurrying away, before Fanny, overpowered by a thousand feelings of pain and pleasure, could attempt to speak; but quickened by one sovereign wish, she then called out, "Oh! cousin, stop a moment, pray stop!" He turned back. "I cannot attempt to thank you," she continued, in a very agitated manner; "thanks are out of the question. I feel much more than I can possibly express. Your goodness in thinking of me in such a way is beyond-" "If that is all you have to say, Fanny" smiling and turning away again. "No, no, it is not. I want to consult you." Almost unconsciously she had now undone the parcel he had just put into her hand, and seeing before her, in all the niceness of jewellers' packing, a plain gold chain, perfectly simple and neat, she could not help bursting forth again, "Oh, this is beautiful indeed! This is the very thing, precisely what I wished for! This is the only ornament I have ever had a desire to possess. It will exactly suit my cross. They must and shall be worn together. It comes, too, in such an acceptable moment. Oh, cousin, you do not know how acceptable it is." "My dear Fanny, you feel these things a great deal too much. I am most happy that you like the chain, and that it should be here in time for to-morrow; but your thanks are far beyond the occasion. Believe me, I have no pleasure in the world superior to that of contributing to yours. No, I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It is without a drawback." Upon such expressions of affection Fanny could have lived an hour without saying another word; but Edmund, after waiting a moment, obliged her to bring down her mind from its heavenly flight by saying, "But what is it that you want to consult me about?" It was about the necklace, which she was now most earnestly longing to return, and hoped to obtain his approbation of her doing. She gave the history of her recent visit, and now her raptures might well be over; for Edmund was so struck with the circumstance, so delighted with what Miss Crawford had done, so gratified by such a coincidence of conduct between them, that Fanny could not but admit the superior power of one pleasure over his own mind, though it might have its drawback. It was some time before she could get his attention to her plan, or any answer to her demand of his opinion: he was in a reverie of fond reflection, uttering only now and then a few half-sentences of praise; but when he did awake and understand, he was very decided in opposing what she wished. "Return the necklace! No, my dear Fanny, upon no account. It would be mortifying her severely. There can hardly be a more unpleasant sensation than the having anything returned on our hands which we have given with a reasonable hope of its contributing to the comfort of a friend. Why should she lose a pleasure which she has shewn herself so deserving of?" "If it had been given to me in the first instance," said Fanny, "I should not have thought of returning it; but being her brother's present, is not it fair to suppose that she would rather not part with it, when it is not wanted?" "She must not suppose it not wanted, not acceptable, at least: and its having been originally her brother's gift makes no difference; for as she was not prevented from offering, nor you from taking it on that account, it ought not to prevent you from keeping it. No doubt it is handsomer than mine, and fitter for a ballroom." "No, it is not handsomer, not at all handsomer in its way, and, for my purpose, not half so fit. The chain will agree with William's cross beyond all comparison better than the necklace." "For one night, Fanny, for only one night, if it _be_ a sacrifice; I am sure you will, upon consideration, make that sacrifice rather than give pain to one who has been so studious of your comfort. Miss Crawford's attentions to you have been-not more than you were justly entitled to-I am the last person to think that _could_ _be_, but they have been invariable; and to be returning them with what must have something the _air_ of ingratitude, though I know it could never have the _meaning_, is not in your nature, I am sure. Wear the necklace, as you are engaged to do, to-morrow evening, and let the chain, which was not ordered with any reference to the ball, be kept for commoner occasions. This is my advice. I would not have the shadow of a coolness between the two whose intimacy I have been observing with the greatest pleasure, and in whose characters there is so much general resemblance in true generosity and natural delicacy as to make the few slight differences, resulting principally from situation, no reasonable hindrance to a perfect friendship. I would not have the shadow of a coolness arise," he repeated, his voice sinking a little, "between the two dearest objects I have on earth." He was gone as he spoke; and Fanny remained to tranquillise herself as she could. She was one of his two dearest-that must support her. But the other: the first! She had never heard him speak so openly before, and though it told her no more than what she had long perceived, it was a stab, for it told of his own convictions and views. They were decided. He would marry Miss Crawford. It was a stab, in spite of every long-standing expectation; and she was obliged to repeat again and again, that she was one of his two dearest, before the words gave her any sensation. Could she believe Miss Crawford to deserve him, it would be-oh, how different would it be-how far more tolerable! But he was deceived in her: he gave her merits which she had not; her faults were what they had ever been, but he saw them no longer. Till she had shed many tears over this deception, Fanny could not subdue her agitation; and the dejection which followed could only be relieved by the influence of fervent prayers for his happiness. It was her intention, as she felt it to be her duty, to try to overcome all that was excessive, all that bordered on selfishness, in her affection for Edmund. To call or to fancy it a loss, a disappointment, would be a presumption for which she had not words strong enough to satisfy her own humility. To think of him as Miss Crawford might be justified in thinking, would in her be insanity. To her he could be nothing under any circumstances; nothing dearer than a friend. Why did such an idea occur to her even enough to be reprobated and forbidden? It ought not to have touched on the confines of her imagination. She would endeavour to be rational, and to deserve the right of judging of Miss Crawford's character, and the privilege of true solicitude for him by a sound intellect and an honest heart. She had all the heroism of principle, and was determined to do her duty; but having also many of the feelings of youth and nature, let her not be much wondered at, if, after making all these good resolutions on the side of self-government, she seized the scrap of paper on which Edmund had begun writing to her, as a treasure beyond all her hopes, and reading with the tenderest emotion these words, "My very dear Fanny, you must do me the favour to accept" locked it up with the chain, as the dearest part of the gift. It was the only thing approaching to a letter which she had ever received from him; she might never receive another; it was impossible that she ever should receive another so perfectly gratifying in the occasion and the style. Two lines more prized had never fallen from the pen of the most distinguished author-never more completely blessed the researches of the fondest biographer. The enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's. To her, the handwriting itself, independent of anything it may convey, is a blessedness. Never were such characters cut by any other human being as Edmund's commonest handwriting gave! This specimen, written in haste as it was, had not a fault; and there was a felicity in the flow of the first four words, in the arrangement of "My very dear Fanny," which she could have looked at for ever. Having regulated her thoughts and comforted her feelings by this happy mixture of reason and weakness, she was able in due time to go down and resume her usual employments near her aunt Bertram, and pay her the usual observances without any apparent want of spirits. Thursday, predestined to hope and enjoyment, came; and opened with more kindness to Fanny than such self-willed, unmanageable days often volunteer, for soon after breakfast a very friendly note was brought from Mr. Crawford to William, stating that as he found himself obliged to go to London on the morrow for a few days, he could not help trying to procure a companion; and therefore hoped that if William could make up his mind to leave Mansfield half a day earlier than had been proposed, he would accept a place in his carriage. Mr. Crawford meant to be in town by his uncle's accustomary late dinner-hour, and William was invited to dine with him at the Admiral's. The proposal was a very pleasant one to William himself, who enjoyed the idea of travelling post with four horses, and such a good-humoured, agreeable friend; and, in likening it to going up with despatches, was saying at once everything in favour of its happiness and dignity which his imagination could suggest; and Fanny, from a different motive, was exceedingly pleased; for the original plan was that William should go up by the mail from Northampton the following night, which would not have allowed him an hour's rest before he must have got into a Portsmouth coach; and though this offer of Mr. Crawford's would rob her of many hours of his company, she was too happy in having William spared from the fatigue of such a journey, to think of anything else. Sir Thomas approved of it for another reason. His nephew's introduction to Admiral Crawford might be of service. The Admiral, he believed, had interest. Upon the whole, it was a very joyous note. Fanny's spirits lived on it half the morning, deriving some accession of pleasure from its writer being himself to go away. As for the ball, so near at hand, she had too many agitations and fears to have half the enjoyment in anticipation which she ought to have had, or must have been supposed to have by the many young ladies looking forward to the same event in situations more at ease, but under circumstances of less novelty, less interest, less peculiar gratification, than would be attributed to her. Miss Price, known only by name to half the people invited, was now to make her first appearance, and must be regarded as the queen of the evening. Who could be happier than Miss Price? But Miss Price had not been brought up to the trade of _coming_ _out_; and had she known in what light this ball was, in general, considered respecting her, it would very much have lessened her comfort by increasing the fears she already had of doing wrong and being looked at. To dance without much observation or any extraordinary fatigue, to have strength and partners for about half the evening, to dance a little with Edmund, and not a great deal with Mr. Crawford, to see William enjoy himself, and be able to keep away from her aunt Norris, was the height of her ambition, and seemed to comprehend her greatest possibility of happiness. As these were the best of her hopes, they could not always prevail; and in the course of a long morning, spent principally with her two aunts, she was often under the influence of much less sanguine views. William, determined to make this last day a day of thorough enjoyment, was out snipe-shooting; Edmund, she had too much reason to suppose, was at the Parsonage; and left alone to bear the worrying of Mrs. Norris, who was cross because the housekeeper would have her own way with the supper, and whom _she_ could not avoid though the housekeeper might, Fanny was worn down at last to think everything an evil belonging to the ball, and when sent off with a parting worry to dress, moved as languidly towards her own room, and felt as incapable of happiness as if she had been allowed no share in it. As she walked slowly upstairs she thought of yesterday; it had been about the same hour that she had returned from the Parsonage, and found Edmund in the East room. "Suppose I were to find him there again to-day!" said she to herself, in a fond indulgence of fancy. "Fanny," said a voice at that moment near her. Starting and looking up, she saw, across the lobby she had just reached, Edmund himself, standing at the head of a different staircase. He came towards her. "You look tired and fagged, Fanny. You have been walking too far." "No, I have not been out at all." "Then you have had fatigues within doors, which are worse. You had better have gone out." Fanny, not liking to complain, found it easiest to make no answer; and though he looked at her with his usual kindness, she believed he had soon ceased to think of her countenance. He did not appear in spirits: something unconnected with her was probably amiss. They proceeded upstairs together, their rooms being on the same floor above. "I come from Dr. Grant's," said Edmund presently. "You may guess my errand there, Fanny." And he looked so conscious, that Fanny could think but of one errand, which turned her too sick for speech. "I wished to engage Miss Crawford for the two first dances," was the explanation that followed, and brought Fanny to life again, enabling her, as she found she was expected to speak, to utter something like an inquiry as to the result. "Yes," he answered, "she is engaged to me; but" (with a smile that did not sit easy) "she says it is to be the last time that she ever will dance with me. She is not serious. I think, I hope, I am sure she is not serious; but I would rather not hear it. She never has danced with a clergyman, she says, and she never _will_. For my own sake, I could wish there had been no ball just at-I mean not this very week, this very day; to-morrow I leave home." Fanny struggled for speech, and said, "I am very sorry that anything has occurred to distress you. This ought to be a day of pleasure. My uncle meant it so." "Oh yes, yes! and it will be a day of pleasure. It will all end right. I am only vexed for a moment. In fact, it is not that I consider the ball as ill-timed; what does it signify? But, Fanny," stopping her, by taking her hand, and speaking low and seriously, "you know what all this means. You see how it is; and could tell me, perhaps better than I could tell you, how and why I am vexed. Let me talk to you a little. You are a kind, kind listener. I have been pained by her manner this morning, and cannot get the better of it. I know her disposition to be as sweet and faultless as your own, but the influence of her former companions makes her seem-gives to her conversation, to her professed opinions, sometimes a tinge of wrong. She does not _think_ evil, but she speaks it, speaks it in playfulness; and though I know it to be playfulness, it grieves me to the soul." "The effect of education," said Fanny gently. Edmund could not but agree to it. "Yes, that uncle and aunt! They have injured the finest mind; for sometimes, Fanny, I own to you, it does appear more than manner: it appears as if the mind itself was tainted." Fanny imagined this to be an appeal to her judgment, and therefore, after a moment's consideration, said, "If you only want me as a listener, cousin, I will be as useful as I can; but I am not qualified for an adviser. Do not ask advice of _me_. I am not competent." "You are right, Fanny, to protest against such an office, but you need not be afraid. It is a subject on which I should never ask advice; it is the sort of subject on which it had better never be asked; and few, I imagine, do ask it, but when they want to be influenced against their conscience. I only want to talk to you." "One thing more. Excuse the liberty; but take care _how_ you talk to me. Do not tell me anything now, which hereafter you may be sorry for. The time may come-" The colour rushed into her cheeks as she spoke. "Dearest Fanny!" cried Edmund, pressing her hand to his lips with almost as much warmth as if it had been Miss Crawford's, "you are all considerate thought! But it is unnecessary here. The time will never come. No such time as you allude to will ever come. I begin to think it most improbable: the chances grow less and less; and even if it should, there will be nothing to be remembered by either you or me that we need be afraid of, for I can never be ashamed of my own scruples; and if they are removed, it must be by changes that will only raise her character the more by the recollection of the faults she once had. You are the only being upon earth to whom I should say what I have said; but you have always known my opinion of her; you can bear me witness, Fanny, that I have never been blinded. How many a time have we talked over her little errors! You need not fear me; I have almost given up every serious idea of her; but I must be a blockhead indeed, if, whatever befell me, I could think of your kindness and sympathy without the sincerest gratitude." He had said enough to shake the experience of eighteen. He had said enough to give Fanny some happier feelings than she had lately known, and with a brighter look, she answered, "Yes, cousin, I am convinced that _you_ would be incapable of anything else, though perhaps some might not. I cannot be afraid of hearing anything you wish to say. Do not check yourself. Tell me whatever you like." They were now on the second floor, and the appearance of a housemaid prevented any farther conversation. For Fanny's present comfort it was concluded, perhaps, at the happiest moment: had he been able to talk another five minutes, there is no saying that he might not have talked away all Miss Crawford's faults and his own despondence. But as it was, they parted with looks on his side of grateful affection, and with some very precious sensations on hers. She had felt nothing like it for hours. Since the first joy from Mr. Crawford's note to William had worn away, she had been in a state absolutely the reverse; there had been no comfort around, no hope within her. Now everything was smiling. William's good fortune returned again upon her mind, and seemed of greater value than at first. The ball, too-such an evening of pleasure before her! It was now a real animation; and she began to dress for it with much of the happy flutter which belongs to a ball. All went well: she did not dislike her own looks; and when she came to the necklaces again, her good fortune seemed complete, for upon trial the one given her by Miss Crawford would by no means go through the ring of the cross. She had, to oblige Edmund, resolved to wear it; but it was too large for the purpose. His, therefore, must be worn; and having, with delightful feelings, joined the chain and the cross-those memorials of the two most beloved of her heart, those dearest tokens so formed for each other by everything real and imaginary-and put them round her neck, and seen and felt how full of William and Edmund they were, she was able, without an effort, to resolve on wearing Miss Crawford's necklace too. She acknowledged it to be right. Miss Crawford had a claim; and when it was no longer to encroach on, to interfere with the stronger claims, the truer kindness of another, she could do her justice even with pleasure to herself. The necklace really looked very well; and Fanny left her room at last, comfortably satisfied with herself and all about her. Her aunt Bertram had recollected her on this occasion with an unusual degree of wakefulness. It had really occurred to her, unprompted, that Fanny, preparing for a ball, might be glad of better help than the upper housemaid's, and when dressed herself, she actually sent her own maid to assist her; too late, of course, to be of any use. Mrs. Chapman had just reached the attic floor, when Miss Price came out of her room completely dressed, and only civilities were necessary; but Fanny felt her aunt's attention almost as much as Lady Bertram or Mrs. Chapman could do themselves.

On reaching home Fanny went upstairs to deposit this doubtful good of a necklace in a box in the East room, which held all her smaller treasures; but what was her surprise to find her cousin Edmund there, writing at the table! Such a sight was almost as astonishing as it was welcome. "Fanny," said he, leaving his seat, and meeting her with something in his hand, "I beg your pardon. I came to look for you, and was writing to explain my errand. You will find the beginning of a note to yourself; but I can now speak my business, which is merely to beg your acceptance of this trifle-a chain for William's cross. I hope you will like it, Fanny. I tried to consult the simplicity of your taste; but I know you will be kind, and consider it, as it really is, a token of the love of one of your oldest friends." And so saying, he was hurrying away, before Fanny, overpowered by a thousand feelings of pain and pleasure, could speak; but, she then called out, "Oh! cousin, stop a moment, pray stop!" He turned back. "I cannot attempt to thank you," she continued, very agitated; "I feel much more than I can possibly express. Your goodness in thinking of me-" "If that is all you have to say, Fanny," smiling and turning away again. "No, no. I want to consult you." She had now undone the parcel he had given her, and seeing a plain gold chain, perfectly simple and neat, she burst forth, "Oh, this is beautiful indeed! This is precisely what I wished for! It will exactly suit my cross. It comes, too, at such an acceptable moment. Oh, cousin, you do not know how acceptable it is." "My dear Fanny, you feel these things a great deal too much. I am most happy that you like the chain; but your thanks are far beyond the occasion. Believe me, I have no pleasure in the world greater than that of contributing to yours. I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It is without a drawback." Upon such expressions of affection Fanny could have lived an hour without saying another word; but Edmund obliged her to bring down her mind from its heavenly flight by saying, "But what is it that you want to consult me about?" It was about the necklace, which she was now longing to return. She gave the history of her recent visit, and now her raptures might well be over; for Edmund was so delighted with what Miss Crawford had done, that it was some time before Fanny could get him to attend to her plan: he was in a reverie of fond reflection, but when he did understand, he was very decided in opposing what she wished. "Return the necklace! No, my dear Fanny, upon no account. It would mortify her." "But being her brother's present, is not it fair to suppose that she would rather not part with it?" "It makes no difference; for as she was not prevented from offering it on that account, it ought not to prevent you from keeping it. No doubt it is handsomer than my chain, and fitter for a ballroom." "No, it is not handsomer at all, and not half so fit. The chain will agree with William's cross beyond all comparison better than the necklace." "For one night only, Fanny, I am sure you will make the sacrifice rather than give pain to one who has been kind. Wear the necklace to-morrow evening, and let the chain be kept for commoner occasions. This is my advice. I would not have the shadow of a coolness between the two whose intimacy I have been observing with the greatest pleasure, and in whose characters there is so much resemblance in true generosity and natural delicacy. I would not have the shadow of a coolness arise," he repeated, his voice sinking a little, "between the two dearest objects I have on earth." He was gone as he spoke; and Fanny calmed herself as well as she could. She was one of his two dearest-that must support her. But the first! She had never heard him speak so openly before, and though it told her no more than what she had long perceived, it was a stab, for it told of his own views. They were decided. He would marry Miss Crawford. Could she believe Miss Crawford to deserve him, how different would it be-how far more tolerable! But he was deceived in her: he gave her merits which she had not; her faults were what they had always been, but he saw them no longer. Fanny's dejection could only be relieved by fervent prayers for his happiness. It was her duty, and her intention, to try to overcome all that was excessive in her affection for Edmund. To fancy it a loss, a disappointment, was a presumption for which she had not words strong enough. To think of him as Miss Crawford might be justified in thinking, would in her be insanity. To her he could be nothing dearer than a friend. Why did such an idea even occur to her? It ought never to have entered her imagination. She would endeavour to be rational. She was determined to do her duty; but having also the feelings of youth and nature, let her not be wondered at, if, after making all these good resolutions, she seized the scrap of paper on which Edmund had begun writing, as a treasure. Reading with the tenderest emotion these words, "My very dear Fanny, you must do me the favour to accept", she locked it up with the chain, as the dearest part of the gift. It was the only thing approaching to a letter which she had ever received from him; she might never receive another. Two lines more prized had never fallen from the pen of the most distinguished author. There was a felicity in the flow of the first four words, in the arrangement of "My very dear Fanny," which she could have looked at for ever. Having regulated her thoughts and comforted her feelings by this happy mixture of reason and weakness, she was able to go down to her aunt Bertram without any apparent want of spirits. Thursday, the day of enjoyment, came; and opened with more kindness to Fanny than such self-willed, unmanageable days often volunteer, for after breakfast a very friendly note was brought from Mr. Crawford to William, stating that as he found himself obliged to go to London for a few days, he hoped that William would accept a place in his carriage, and dine with him at the Admiral's. The proposal was a very pleasant one to William, who enjoyed the idea of travelling post with four horses, and with such an agreeable friend. Fanny, from a different motive, was pleased; for the original plan was that William should go up by the mail, which would not have allowed him an hour's rest; and though Mr. Crawford's offer would rob her of hours of his company, she was happy to have William spared the fatigue of such a journey. Sir Thomas approved for another reason. His nephew's introduction to Admiral Crawford might be of service. Upon the whole, it was a very joyous note. As for the ball, Fanny had too many fears to have half the enjoyment in anticipation which she ought to have had, or must have been supposed to have by the many young ladies looking forward to the same event. Miss Price was now to make her first appearance, and must be regarded as the queen of the evening. Who could be happier than Miss Price? But Miss Price had not been brought up to the trade of coming out into society; and had she known in what light this ball was considered respecting her, it would very much have lessened her comfort by increasing her fears of doing wrong and being looked at. To dance without being observed, to have strength and partners for about half the evening, to dance a little with Edmund, and not a great deal with Mr. Crawford, to see William enjoy himself, and keep away from her aunt Norris, was the height of her ambition. William, determined to make this a day of thorough enjoyment, went out snipe-shooting; Edmund was at the Parsonage; and Fanny, left alone to bear the worrying of Mrs. Norris, was worn down at last to think everything an evil belonging to the ball. When sent off to dress, she moved languidly and felt incapable of happiness. As she walked slowly upstairs she thought of yesterday; at about the same hour she had returned from the Parsonage, and found Edmund in the East room. "Suppose I were to find him there again to-day!" said she to herself, in a fond indulgence of fancy. "Fanny," said a voice at that moment. Starting and looking up, she saw, across the lobby, Edmund himself. He came towards her. "You look tired and fagged, Fanny. You have been walking too far." "No, I have not been out." "Then you have had fatigues within doors, which are worse." Fanny, not liking to complain, made no answer; and though he looked at her with his usual kindness, she believed he had soon ceased to think of her. He did not appear in spirits. They proceeded upstairs together. "I come from Dr. Grant's," said Edmund presently. "You may guess my errand there, Fanny." And he looked so conscious, that Fanny could think but of one errand, which turned her too sick for speech. "I wished to engage Miss Crawford for the two first dances," was the explanation that followed, and brought Fanny to life again, enabling her to utter something like an inquiry as to the result. "Yes," he answered, "she is engaged to dance with me; but" (with a smile that did not sit easy) "she says it is the last time that she ever will. I think, I hope, she is not serious. She never has danced with a clergyman, she says, and she never will. For my own sake, I could wish there had been no ball just at-I mean not this very day; to-morrow I leave home." Fanny struggled for speech, and said, "I am very sorry that anything has occurred to distress you. This ought to be a day of pleasure. My uncle meant it so." "Oh yes, yes! and it will be a day of pleasure. I am only vexed for a moment. But, Fanny," stopping her, taking her hand, and speaking low and seriously, "you know what all this means. You could tell me, perhaps better than I could tell you, how and why I am vexed. Let me talk to you a little. You are a kind, kind listener. I have been pained by her manner this morning. I know her disposition to be as sweet and faultless as your own, but the influence of her former companions makes her seem-gives to her conversation sometimes a tinge of wrong. She does not think evil, but she speaks it in playfulness; and though I know it to be playfulness, it grieves me to the soul." "The effect of education," said Fanny gently. "Yes, that uncle and aunt! They have injured the finest mind; for sometimes, Fanny, I own to you, it appears as if the mind itself was tainted." Fanny, after a moment, said, "If you only want me as a listener, cousin, I will be as useful as I can; but I am not qualified for an adviser." "You need not be afraid. Fanny. It is a subject on which I should never ask advice. I only want to talk to you." "One thing more. Excuse the liberty; but take care how you talk to me. Do not tell me anything now, which afterwards you may be sorry for. The time may come-" The colour rushed into her cheeks as she spoke. "Dearest Fanny!" cried Edmund, pressing her hand to his lips with almost as much warmth as if it had been Miss Crawford's, "you are all considerate thought! But it is unnecessary. The time will never come. I begin to think it most improbable: the chances grow less and less; and even if it should, there will be nothing to be remembered that we need be afraid of, for I can never be ashamed of my own scruples. You are the only being upon earth to whom I should say what I have said; but you have always known my opinion of her; you can bear me witness, Fanny, that I have never been blinded. How many a time have we talked over her little errors! You need not fear me; I have almost given up every serious idea of her; but I must be a blockhead indeed, if I could think of your kindness and sympathy without the sincerest gratitude." He had said enough to shake the experience of eighteen. He had said enough to give Fanny some happier feelings than she had lately known, and with a brighter look, she answered, "I cannot be afraid of hearing anything you wish to say. Tell me whatever you like." The appearance of a housemaid prevented any farther conversation. For Fanny's comfort it was concluded, perhaps, at the happiest moment: had he been able to talk another five minutes, he might have talked away all Miss Crawford's faults. But as it was, they parted on his side with grateful affection, and with some very precious sensations on hers. Now everything was smiling. William's good fortune returned again to her mind. The ball, too-such an evening of pleasure before her! It was now a real animation; and she began to dress for it with the happy flutter which belongs to a ball. All went well: she did not dislike her own looks; and when she came to the necklaces again, her good fortune seemed complete, for the one given her by Miss Crawford would not go through the ring of the cross. Edmund's therefore, must be worn; and having, with delightful feelings, joined the chain and the cross-those memorials of the two most beloved of her heart-and put them round her neck, she was able to resolve on wearing Miss Crawford's necklace too. She acknowledged it to be right. The necklace really looked very well; and Fanny left her room at last, comfortably satisfied. Her aunt Bertram had recollected her on this occasion with an unusual degree of wakefulness. It had occurred to her, unprompted, that Fanny might be glad of better help than the upper housemaid's, and she actually sent her own maid to assist her; too late, of course, to be of any use. Mrs. Chapman had just reached the attic floor, when Miss Price came out of her room completely dressed; but Fanny felt her aunt's attention almost as much as Lady Bertram or Mrs. Chapman could do themselves.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 27

Mr. Crawford gone, Sir Thomas's next object was that he should be missed; and he entertained great hope that his niece would find a blank in the loss of those attentions which at the time she had felt, or fancied, an evil. She had tasted of consequence in its most flattering form; and he did hope that the loss of it, the sinking again into nothing, would awaken very wholesome regrets in her mind. He watched her with this idea; but he could hardly tell with what success. He hardly knew whether there were any difference in her spirits or not. She was always so gentle and retiring that her emotions were beyond his discrimination. He did not understand her: he felt that he did not; and therefore applied to Edmund to tell him how she stood affected on the present occasion, and whether she were more or less happy than she had been. Edmund did not discern any symptoms of regret, and thought his father a little unreasonable in supposing the first three or four days could produce any. What chiefly surprised Edmund was, that Crawford's sister, the friend and companion who had been so much to her, should not be more visibly regretted. He wondered that Fanny spoke so seldom of _her_, and had so little voluntarily to say of her concern at this separation. Alas! it was this sister, this friend and companion, who was now the chief bane of Fanny's comfort. If she could have believed Mary's future fate as unconnected with Mansfield as she was determined the brother's should be, if she could have hoped her return thither to be as distant as she was much inclined to think his, she would have been light of heart indeed; but the more she recollected and observed, the more deeply was she convinced that everything was now in a fairer train for Miss Crawford's marrying Edmund than it had ever been before. On his side the inclination was stronger, on hers less equivocal. His objections, the scruples of his integrity, seemed all done away, nobody could tell how; and the doubts and hesitations of her ambition were equally got over-and equally without apparent reason. It could only be imputed to increasing attachment. His good and her bad feelings yielded to love, and such love must unite them. He was to go to town as soon as some business relative to Thornton Lacey were completed-perhaps within a fortnight; he talked of going, he loved to talk of it; and when once with her again, Fanny could not doubt the rest. Her acceptance must be as certain as his offer; and yet there were bad feelings still remaining which made the prospect of it most sorrowful to her, independently, she believed, independently of self. In their very last conversation, Miss Crawford, in spite of some amiable sensations, and much personal kindness, had still been Miss Crawford; still shewn a mind led astray and bewildered, and without any suspicion of being so; darkened, yet fancying itself light. She might love, but she did not deserve Edmund by any other sentiment. Fanny believed there was scarcely a second feeling in common between them; and she may be forgiven by older sages for looking on the chance of Miss Crawford's future improvement as nearly desperate, for thinking that if Edmund's influence in this season of love had already done so little in clearing her judgment, and regulating her notions, his worth would be finally wasted on her even in years of matrimony. Experience might have hoped more for any young people so circumstanced, and impartiality would not have denied to Miss Crawford's nature that participation of the general nature of women which would lead her to adopt the opinions of the man she loved and respected as her own. But as such were Fanny's persuasions, she suffered very much from them, and could never speak of Miss Crawford without pain. Sir Thomas, meanwhile, went on with his own hopes and his own observations, still feeling a right, by all his knowledge of human nature, to expect to see the effect of the loss of power and consequence on his niece's spirits, and the past attentions of the lover producing a craving for their return; and he was soon afterwards able to account for his not yet completely and indubitably seeing all this, by the prospect of another visitor, whose approach he could allow to be quite enough to support the spirits he was watching. William had obtained a ten days' leave of absence, to be given to Northamptonshire, and was coming, the happiest of lieutenants, because the latest made, to shew his happiness and describe his uniform. He came; and he would have been delighted to shew his uniform there too, had not cruel custom prohibited its appearance except on duty. So the uniform remained at Portsmouth, and Edmund conjectured that before Fanny had any chance of seeing it, all its own freshness and all the freshness of its wearer's feelings must be worn away. It would be sunk into a badge of disgrace; for what can be more unbecoming, or more worthless, than the uniform of a lieutenant, who has been a lieutenant a year or two, and sees others made commanders before him? So reasoned Edmund, till his father made him the confidant of a scheme which placed Fanny's chance of seeing the second lieutenant of H.M.S. Thrush in all his glory in another light. This scheme was that she should accompany her brother back to Portsmouth, and spend a little time with her own family. It had occurred to Sir Thomas, in one of his dignified musings, as a right and desirable measure; but before he absolutely made up his mind, he consulted his son. Edmund considered it every way, and saw nothing but what was right. The thing was good in itself, and could not be done at a better time; and he had no doubt of it being highly agreeable to Fanny. This was enough to determine Sir Thomas; and a decisive "then so it shall be" closed that stage of the business; Sir Thomas retiring from it with some feelings of satisfaction, and views of good over and above what he had communicated to his son; for his prime motive in sending her away had very little to do with the propriety of her seeing her parents again, and nothing at all with any idea of making her happy. He certainly wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be heartily sick of home before her visit ended; and that a little abstinence from the elegancies and luxuries of Mansfield Park would bring her mind into a sober state, and incline her to a juster estimate of the value of that home of greater permanence, and equal comfort, of which she had the offer. It was a medicinal project upon his niece's understanding, which he must consider as at present diseased. A residence of eight or nine years in the abode of wealth and plenty had a little disordered her powers of comparing and judging. Her father's house would, in all probability, teach her the value of a good income; and he trusted that she would be the wiser and happier woman, all her life, for the experiment he had devised. Had Fanny been at all addicted to raptures, she must have had a strong attack of them when she first understood what was intended, when her uncle first made her the offer of visiting the parents, and brothers, and sisters, from whom she had been divided almost half her life; of returning for a couple of months to the scenes of her infancy, with William for the protector and companion of her journey, and the certainty of continuing to see William to the last hour of his remaining on land. Had she ever given way to bursts of delight, it must have been then, for she was delighted, but her happiness was of a quiet, deep, heart-swelling sort; and though never a great talker, she was always more inclined to silence when feeling most strongly. At the moment she could only thank and accept. Afterwards, when familiarised with the visions of enjoyment so suddenly opened, she could speak more largely to William and Edmund of what she felt; but still there were emotions of tenderness that could not be clothed in words. The remembrance of all her earliest pleasures, and of what she had suffered in being torn from them, came over her with renewed strength, and it seemed as if to be at home again would heal every pain that had since grown out of the separation. To be in the centre of such a circle, loved by so many, and more loved by all than she had ever been before; to feel affection without fear or restraint; to feel herself the equal of those who surrounded her; to be at peace from all mention of the Crawfords, safe from every look which could be fancied a reproach on their account. This was a prospect to be dwelt on with a fondness that could be but half acknowledged. Edmund, too-to be two months from _him_ (and perhaps she might be allowed to make her absence three) must do her good. At a distance, unassailed by his looks or his kindness, and safe from the perpetual irritation of knowing his heart, and striving to avoid his confidence, she should be able to reason herself into a properer state; she should be able to think of him as in London, and arranging everything there, without wretchedness. What might have been hard to bear at Mansfield was to become a slight evil at Portsmouth. The only drawback was the doubt of her aunt Bertram's being comfortable without her. She was of use to no one else; but _there_ she might be missed to a degree that she did not like to think of; and that part of the arrangement was, indeed, the hardest for Sir Thomas to accomplish, and what only _he_ could have accomplished at all. But he was master at Mansfield Park. When he had really resolved on any measure, he could always carry it through; and now by dint of long talking on the subject, explaining and dwelling on the duty of Fanny's sometimes seeing her family, he did induce his wife to let her go; obtaining it rather from submission, however, than conviction, for Lady Bertram was convinced of very little more than that Sir Thomas thought Fanny ought to go, and therefore that she must. In the calmness of her own dressing-room, in the impartial flow of her own meditations, unbiassed by his bewildering statements, she could not acknowledge any necessity for Fanny's ever going near a father and mother who had done without her so long, while she was so useful to herself. And as to the not missing her, which under Mrs. Norris's discussion was the point attempted to be proved, she set herself very steadily against admitting any such thing. Sir Thomas had appealed to her reason, conscience, and dignity. He called it a sacrifice, and demanded it of her goodness and self-command as such. But Mrs. Norris wanted to persuade her that Fanny could be very well spared-_she_ being ready to give up all her own time to her as requested-and, in short, could not really be wanted or missed. "That may be, sister," was all Lady Bertram's reply. "I dare say you are very right; but I am sure I shall miss her very much." The next step was to communicate with Portsmouth. Fanny wrote to offer herself; and her mother's answer, though short, was so kind-a few simple lines expressed so natural and motherly a joy in the prospect of seeing her child again, as to confirm all the daughter's views of happiness in being with her-convincing her that she should now find a warm and affectionate friend in the "mama" who had certainly shewn no remarkable fondness for her formerly; but this she could easily suppose to have been her own fault or her own fancy. She had probably alienated love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could deserve. Now, when she knew better how to be useful, and how to forbear, and when her mother could be no longer occupied by the incessant demands of a house full of little children, there would be leisure and inclination for every comfort, and they should soon be what mother and daughter ought to be to each other. William was almost as happy in the plan as his sister. It would be the greatest pleasure to him to have her there to the last moment before he sailed, and perhaps find her there still when he came in from his first cruise. And besides, he wanted her so very much to see the Thrush before she went out of harbour-the Thrush was certainly the finest sloop in the service-and there were several improvements in the dockyard, too, which he quite longed to shew her. He did not scruple to add that her being at home for a while would be a great advantage to everybody. "I do not know how it is," said he; "but we seem to want some of your nice ways and orderliness at my father's. The house is always in confusion. You will set things going in a better way, I am sure. You will tell my mother how it all ought to be, and you will be so useful to Susan, and you will teach Betsey, and make the boys love and mind you. How right and comfortable it will all be!" By the time Mrs. Price's answer arrived, there remained but a very few days more to be spent at Mansfield; and for part of one of those days the young travellers were in a good deal of alarm on the subject of their journey, for when the mode of it came to be talked of, and Mrs. Norris found that all her anxiety to save her brother-in-law's money was vain, and that in spite of her wishes and hints for a less expensive conveyance of Fanny, they were to travel post; when she saw Sir Thomas actually give William notes for the purpose, she was struck with the idea of there being room for a third in the carriage, and suddenly seized with a strong inclination to go with them, to go and see her poor dear sister Price. She proclaimed her thoughts. She must say that she had more than half a mind to go with the young people; it would be such an indulgence to her; she had not seen her poor dear sister Price for more than twenty years; and it would be a help to the young people in their journey to have her older head to manage for them; and she could not help thinking her poor dear sister Price would feel it very unkind of her not to come by such an opportunity. William and Fanny were horror-struck at the idea. All the comfort of their comfortable journey would be destroyed at once. With woeful countenances they looked at each other. Their suspense lasted an hour or two. No one interfered to encourage or dissuade. Mrs. Norris was left to settle the matter by herself; and it ended, to the infinite joy of her nephew and niece, in the recollection that she could not possibly be spared from Mansfield Park at present; that she was a great deal too necessary to Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram for her to be able to answer it to herself to leave them even for a week, and therefore must certainly sacrifice every other pleasure to that of being useful to them. It had, in fact, occurred to her, that though taken to Portsmouth for nothing, it would be hardly possible for her to avoid paying her own expenses back again. So her poor dear sister Price was left to all the disappointment of her missing such an opportunity, and another twenty years' absence, perhaps, begun. Edmund's plans were affected by this Portsmouth journey, this absence of Fanny's. He too had a sacrifice to make to Mansfield Park as well as his aunt. He had intended, about this time, to be going to London; but he could not leave his father and mother just when everybody else of most importance to their comfort was leaving them; and with an effort, felt but not boasted of, he delayed for a week or two longer a journey which he was looking forward to with the hope of its fixing his happiness for ever. He told Fanny of it. She knew so much already, that she must know everything. It made the substance of one other confidential discourse about Miss Crawford; and Fanny was the more affected from feeling it to be the last time in which Miss Crawford's name would ever be mentioned between them with any remains of liberty. Once afterwards she was alluded to by him. Lady Bertram had been telling her niece in the evening to write to her soon and often, and promising to be a good correspondent herself; and Edmund, at a convenient moment, then added in a whisper, "And _I_ shall write to you, Fanny, when I have anything worth writing about, anything to say that I think you will like to hear, and that you will not hear so soon from any other quarter." Had she doubted his meaning while she listened, the glow in his face, when she looked up at him, would have been decisive. For this letter she must try to arm herself. That a letter from Edmund should be a subject of terror! She began to feel that she had not yet gone through all the changes of opinion and sentiment which the progress of time and variation of circumstances occasion in this world of changes. The vicissitudes of the human mind had not yet been exhausted by her. Poor Fanny! though going as she did willingly and eagerly, the last evening at Mansfield Park must still be wretchedness. Her heart was completely sad at parting. She had tears for every room in the house, much more for every beloved inhabitant. She clung to her aunt, because she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling sobs, because she had displeased him; and as for Edmund, she could neither speak, nor look, nor think, when the last moment came with _him_; and it was not till it was over that she knew he was giving her the affectionate farewell of a brother. All this passed overnight, for the journey was to begin very early in the morning; and when the small, diminished party met at breakfast, William and Fanny were talked of as already advanced one stage.

Mr. Crawford gone, Sir Thomas's next object was that he should be missed; and he hoped that his niece would find a blank in the loss of his attentions, and that her sinking again into nothing would awaken wholesome regrets in her mind. He watched her with this idea; but he could hardly tell with what success. She was always so gentle and retiring that her emotions were beyond him. He did not understand her: and therefore applied to Edmund to tell him whether she were more or less happy than she had been. Edmund did not see any symptoms of regret. What chiefly surprised him was that Crawford's sister, the friend who had been so much to her, should not be missed more. He wondered that Fanny spoke so seldom of her. Alas! it was this sister, this friend, who was now the chief bane of Fanny's comfort. If she could have believed Mary's future fate unconnected with Mansfield, she would have been light of heart indeed; but the more she observed, the more deeply was she convinced that everything was now in a fair train for Miss Crawford's marrying Edmund. His objections, his scruples, seemed all done away, nobody could tell how; and his doubts about her ambition were equally got over-and equally without apparent reason. It could only be through increasing attachment. His good and her bad feelings yielded to love, and such love must unite them. He was to go to town within a fortnight; he loved to talk of going; and when once with her again, Fanny could not doubt the rest. Her acceptance must be as certain as his offer; and yet the prospect of it was most sorrowful to her, independently of self. In their last conversation, Miss Crawford, in spite of much personal kindness, had still been Miss Crawford; still shown a mind led astray and bewildered, and without any suspicion of being so; darkened, yet fancying itself light. She might love, but she did not deserve Edmund by any other sentiment. Fanny believed there was scarcely a second feeling in common between them; and felt that if Edmund's influence had already done so little in regulating her notions, his worth would be finally wasted on her even in years of matrimony. As Fanny was convinced of this, she suffered very much, and could never speak of Miss Crawford without pain. Sir Thomas, meanwhile, still expected to see the effect of the loss of consequence on his niece's spirits. He was soon able to account for his not yet observing this, by the approach of another visitor to lift Fanny's spirits. William had obtained a ten days' leave of absence, and was coming, the happiest of lieutenants, to show his happiness and describe his uniform. He came; and he would have been delighted to show his uniform too, had not cruel custom prohibited its appearance except on duty. So the uniform remained at Portsmouth, and Edmund thought that Fanny would not have any chance of viewing it, before its freshness was worn away; until Sir Thomas formed a scheme which meant Fanny could see the second lieutenant of HMS Thrush in all his glory. This scheme was that she should accompany her brother back to Portsmouth, and spend some time with her own family. Sir Thomas consulted his son, who thought it would be highly agreeable to Fanny; but Sir Thomas had another motive in sending her away, which had nothing at all to do with any idea of making her happy. He certainly wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be heartily sick of home before her visit ended; and hoped a little abstinence from the luxuries of Mansfield Park would sober her mind, and help her to better appreciate Henry Crawford's offer. It was a medicinal project, for he considered that his niece's understanding must at present be diseased. A residence of eight or nine years amidst wealth and plenty had disordered her powers of judging. Her father's house would teach her the value of a good income; and he trusted that she would be the wiser and happier woman all her life, for the experiment he had devised. Had Fanny been at all addicted to raptures, she must have had a strong attack of them when her uncle first made her the offer of visiting the parents, brothers, and sisters, from whom she had been divided almost half her life; of returning to them with William as companion, and continuing to see William while he remained on land. She was indeed delighted, but her happiness was of a quiet, deep, heart-swelling sort. At the moment she could only thank and accept. Afterwards, she could speak to William and Edmund of what she felt; but still there were tender emotions that could not be clothed in words. The remembrance of all her earliest pleasures, and of what she had suffered in being torn from them, came over her with renewed strength, and it seemed as if to be at home again would heal every pain that had grown out of the separation. To be in the centre of such a circle, loved by so many; to feel affection without restraint; to feel herself the equal of those who surrounded her; to be at peace from all mention of the Crawfords. This was a prospect to be dwelt on with fondness. Edmund, too-to be two months from him must do her good. At a distance, unassailed by his looks or his kindness, she should be able to reason herself into a more proper state; she should be able to think of him as in London, and arranging everything there, without wretchedness. What might have been hard to bear at Mansfield was to become a slight evil at Portsmouth. The only drawback was the doubt of her aunt Bertram's being comfortable without her. That part of the arrangement was, indeed, the hardest for Sir Thomas to accomplish. But he was master at Mansfield Park. When he had really resolved on any measure, he could always carry it through; and now by dwelling on the duty of Fanny's sometimes seeing her family, he did induce his wife to let her go. The next step was to communicate with Portsmouth. Fanny wrote to offer herself; and her mother's answer, though short, was so kind as to confirm all the daughter's views of happiness in being with her-convincing her that she should now find a warm friend in the "mama" who had certainly shown no remarkable fondness for her formerly; but this she could easily suppose to have been her own fault. She had probably alienated love by fretfulness, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than one among so many could deserve. Now, when she knew better how to be useful, and when her mother could be no longer occupied by the incessant demands of a house full of little children, there would be leisure for every comfort, and they should soon be what mother and daughter ought to be to each other. William was almost as happy in the plan as his sister. It would be the greatest pleasure to have her there to the last moment before he sailed, and perhaps find her there still when he came in from his first cruise. And besides, he wanted her so very much to see the Thrush before she went out of harbour-the Thrush was certainly the finest sloop in the service-and the dockyard, too, which he quite longed to show her. In addition, her being at home for a while would be a great advantage to everybody. "I do not know how it is," said he; "but we seem to want some of your orderliness at my father's. The house is always in confusion. You will set things going in a better way, I am sure. How right and comfortable it will all be!" For a few hours the young travellers were in a good deal of alarm about their journey: Mrs. Norris found that in spite of her hints for a less expensive conveyance of Fanny, they were to travel post; and when she saw Sir Thomas give William money for the purpose, she was struck with the idea of there being room for a third in the carriage, and suddenly seized with a strong inclination to go with them to see her poor dear sister Price. She proclaimed her thoughts. William and Fanny were horror-struck at the idea. All their comfort would be destroyed. With woeful countenances they looked at each other. Mrs. Norris was left to settle the matter by herself; and it ended, to the infinite joy of her nephew and niece, in the recollection that she could not possibly be spared from Mansfield Park at present. It had, in fact, occurred to her, that though taken to Portsmouth for nothing, it would be hardly possible for her to avoid paying her own expenses back again. So her poor dear sister Price was left to all the disappointment of, perhaps, another twenty years' absence. Edmund's plans were affected by this Portsmouth journey. He had intended, about this time, to be going to London; but he could not leave his father and mother just when everybody else of most importance to their comfort was leaving them. With an effort, felt but not boasted of, he delayed for a week or two longer a journey which he was looking forward to with the hope of its fixing his happiness for ever. He told Fanny of it. She knew so much already, that she must know everything. Fanny was affected, feeling it to be the last time in which Miss Crawford's name would ever be mentioned between them with any liberty. Once afterwards he alluded to her. Lady Bertram had been telling her niece to write to her soon and often, and Edmund added in a whisper, "And I shall write to you, Fanny, when I have anything to say that I think you will like to hear." Had she doubted his meaning, the glow in his face, when she looked up at him, would have been decisive. For this letter she must try to arm herself. That a letter from Edmund should be a subject of terror! She began to feel that the varied trials of the human mind had not yet been exhausted by her. Poor Fanny! though going eagerly, the last evening at Mansfield Park must still be wretched. She had tears for every room in the house, and every beloved inhabitant. She clung to her aunt, because she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling sobs, because she had displeased him; and as for Edmund, she could neither speak, nor look, nor think; and it was not till it was over that she knew he was giving her the affectionate farewell of a brother. The journey began very early in the morning; and when the diminished party met at breakfast, William and Fanny were talked of as already advanced one stage.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 37

The young people were pleased with each other from the first. On each side there was much to attract, and their acquaintance soon promised as early an intimacy as good manners would warrant. Miss Crawford's beauty did her no disservice with the Miss Bertrams. They were too handsome themselves to dislike any woman for being so too, and were almost as much charmed as their brothers with her lively dark eye, clear brown complexion, and general prettiness. Had she been tall, full formed, and fair, it might have been more of a trial: but as it was, there could be no comparison; and she was most allowably a sweet, pretty girl, while they were the finest young women in the country. Her brother was not handsome: no, when they first saw him he was absolutely plain, black and plain; but still he was the gentleman, with a pleasing address. The second meeting proved him not so very plain: he was plain, to be sure, but then he had so much countenance, and his teeth were so good, and he was so well made, that one soon forgot he was plain; and after a third interview, after dining in company with him at the Parsonage, he was no longer allowed to be called so by anybody. He was, in fact, the most agreeable young man the sisters had ever known, and they were equally delighted with him. Miss Bertram's engagement made him in equity the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen in love with. Maria's notions on the subject were more confused and indistinct. She did not want to see or understand. "There could be no harm in her liking an agreeable man-everybody knew her situation-Mr. Crawford must take care of himself." Mr. Crawford did not mean to be in any danger! the Miss Bertrams were worth pleasing, and were ready to be pleased; and he began with no object but of making them like him. He did not want them to die of love; but with sense and temper which ought to have made him judge and feel better, he allowed himself great latitude on such points. "I like your Miss Bertrams exceedingly, sister," said he, as he returned from attending them to their carriage after the said dinner visit; "they are very elegant, agreeable girls." "So they are indeed, and I am delighted to hear you say it. But you like Julia best." "Oh yes! I like Julia best." "But do you really? for Miss Bertram is in general thought the handsomest." "So I should suppose. She has the advantage in every feature, and I prefer her countenance; but I like Julia best; Miss Bertram is certainly the handsomest, and I have found her the most agreeable, but I shall always like Julia best, because you order me." "I shall not talk to you, Henry, but I know you _will_ like her best at last." "Do not I tell you that I like her best _at_ _first_?" "And besides, Miss Bertram is engaged. Remember that, my dear brother. Her choice is made." "Yes, and I like her the better for it. An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done." "Why, as to that, Mr. Rushworth is a very good sort of young man, and it is a great match for her." "But Miss Bertram does not care three straws for him; _that_ is your opinion of your intimate friend. _I_ do not subscribe to it. I am sure Miss Bertram is very much attached to Mr. Rushworth. I could see it in her eyes, when he was mentioned. I think too well of Miss Bertram to suppose she would ever give her hand without her heart." "Mary, how shall we manage him?" "We must leave him to himself, I believe. Talking does no good. He will be taken in at last." "But I would not have him _taken_ _in_; I would not have him duped; I would have it all fair and honourable." "Oh dear! let him stand his chance and be taken in. It will do just as well. Everybody is taken in at some period or other." "Not always in marriage, dear Mary." "In marriage especially. With all due respect to such of the present company as chance to be married, my dear Mrs. Grant, there is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry. Look where I will, I see that it _is_ so; and I feel that it _must_ be so, when I consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves." "Ah! You have been in a bad school for matrimony, in Hill Street." "My poor aunt had certainly little cause to love the state; but, however, speaking from my own observation, it is a manoeuvring business. I know so many who have married in the full expectation and confidence of some one particular advantage in the connexion, or accomplishment, or good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived, and been obliged to put up with exactly the reverse. What is this but a take in?" "My dear child, there must be a little imagination here. I beg your pardon, but I cannot quite believe you. Depend upon it, you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere-and those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves." "Well done, sister! I honour your _esprit_ _du_ _corps_. When I am a wife, I mean to be just as staunch myself; and I wish my friends in general would be so too. It would save me many a heartache." "You are as bad as your brother, Mary; but we will cure you both. Mansfield shall cure you both, and without any taking in. Stay with us, and we will cure you." The Crawfords, without wanting to be cured, were very willing to stay. Mary was satisfied with the Parsonage as a present home, and Henry equally ready to lengthen his visit. He had come, intending to spend only a few days with them; but Mansfield promised well, and there was nothing to call him elsewhere. It delighted Mrs. Grant to keep them both with her, and Dr. Grant was exceedingly well contented to have it so: a talking pretty young woman like Miss Crawford is always pleasant society to an indolent, stay-at-home man; and Mr. Crawford's being his guest was an excuse for drinking claret every day. The Miss Bertrams' admiration of Mr. Crawford was more rapturous than anything which Miss Crawford's habits made her likely to feel. She acknowledged, however, that the Mr. Bertrams were very fine young men, that two such young men were not often seen together even in London, and that their manners, particularly those of the eldest, were very good. _He_ had been much in London, and had more liveliness and gallantry than Edmund, and must, therefore, be preferred; and, indeed, his being the eldest was another strong claim. She had felt an early presentiment that she _should_ like the eldest best. She knew it was her way. Tom Bertram must have been thought pleasant, indeed, at any rate; he was the sort of young man to be generally liked, his agreeableness was of the kind to be oftener found agreeable than some endowments of a higher stamp, for he had easy manners, excellent spirits, a large acquaintance, and a great deal to say; and the reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this. Miss Crawford soon felt that he and his situation might do. She looked about her with due consideration, and found almost everything in his favour: a park, a real park, five miles round, a spacious modern-built house, so well placed and well screened as to deserve to be in any collection of engravings of gentlemen's seats in the kingdom, and wanting only to be completely new furnished-pleasant sisters, a quiet mother, and an agreeable man himself-with the advantage of being tied up from much gaming at present by a promise to his father, and of being Sir Thomas hereafter. It might do very well; she believed she should accept him; and she began accordingly to interest herself a little about the horse which he had to run at the B-- races. These races were to call him away not long after their acquaintance began; and as it appeared that the family did not, from his usual goings on, expect him back again for many weeks, it would bring his passion to an early proof. Much was said on his side to induce her to attend the races, and schemes were made for a large party to them, with all the eagerness of inclination, but it would only do to be talked of. And Fanny, what was _she_ doing and thinking all this while? and what was _her_ opinion of the newcomers? Few young ladies of eighteen could be less called on to speak their opinion than Fanny. In a quiet way, very little attended to, she paid her tribute of admiration to Miss Crawford's beauty; but as she still continued to think Mr. Crawford very plain, in spite of her two cousins having repeatedly proved the contrary, she never mentioned _him_. The notice, which she excited herself, was to this effect. "I begin now to understand you all, except Miss Price," said Miss Crawford, as she was walking with the Mr. Bertrams. "Pray, is she out, or is she not? I am puzzled. She dined at the Parsonage, with the rest of you, which seemed like being _out_; and yet she says so little, that I can hardly suppose she _is_." Edmund, to whom this was chiefly addressed, replied, "I believe I know what you mean, but I will not undertake to answer the question. My cousin is grown up. She has the age and sense of a woman, but the outs and not outs are beyond me." "And yet, in general, nothing can be more easily ascertained. The distinction is so broad. Manners as well as appearance are, generally speaking, so totally different. Till now, I could not have supposed it possible to be mistaken as to a girl's being out or not. A girl not out has always the same sort of dress: a close bonnet, for instance; looks very demure, and never says a word. You may smile, but it is so, I assure you; and except that it is sometimes carried a little too far, it is all very proper. Girls should be quiet and modest. The most objectionable part is, that the alteration of manners on being introduced into company is frequently too sudden. They sometimes pass in such very little time from reserve to quite the opposite-to confidence! _That_ is the faulty part of the present system. One does not like to see a girl of eighteen or nineteen so immediately up to every thing-and perhaps when one has seen her hardly able to speak the year before. Mr. Bertram, I dare say _you_ have sometimes met with such changes." "I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you are at. You are quizzing me and Miss Anderson." "No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what you mean. I am quite in the dark. But I _will_ quiz you with a great deal of pleasure, if you will tell me what about." "Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite so far imposed on. You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing an altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly so. The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them the other day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson. The circumstance was precisely as this lady has represented it. When Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his sister was not _out_, and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with only her and a little girl or two in the room, the governess being sick or run away, and the mother in and out every moment with letters of business, and I could hardly get a word or a look from the young lady-nothing like a civil answer-she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then _out_. I met her at Mrs. Holford's, and did not recollect her. She came up to me, claimed me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance; and talked and laughed till I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has heard the story." "And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I dare say, than does credit to Miss Anderson. It is too common a fault. Mothers certainly have not yet got quite the right way of managing their daughters. I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong." "Those who are showing the world what female manners _should_ be," said Mr. Bertram gallantly, "are doing a great deal to set them right." "The error is plain enough," said the less courteous Edmund; "such girls are ill brought up. They are given wrong notions from the beginning. They are always acting upon motives of vanity, and there is no more real modesty in their behaviour _before_ they appear in public than afterwards." "I do not know," replied Miss Crawford hesitatingly. "Yes, I cannot agree with you there. It is certainly the modestest part of the business. It is much worse to have girls not out give themselves the same airs and take the same liberties as if they were, which I have seen done. That is worse than anything-quite disgusting!" "Yes, _that_ is very inconvenient indeed," said Mr. Bertram. "It leads one astray; one does not know what to do. The close bonnet and demure air you describe so well (and nothing was ever juster), tell one what is expected; but I got into a dreadful scrape last year from the want of them. I went down to Ramsgate for a week with a friend last September, just after my return from the West Indies. My friend Sneyd-you have heard me speak of Sneyd, Edmund-his father, and mother, and sisters, were there, all new to me. When we reached Albion Place they were out; we went after them, and found them on the pier: Mrs. and the two Miss Sneyds, with others of their acquaintance. I made my bow in form; and as Mrs. Sneyd was surrounded by men, attached myself to one of her daughters, walked by her side all the way home, and made myself as agreeable as I could; the young lady perfectly easy in her manners, and as ready to talk as to listen. I had not a suspicion that I could be doing anything wrong. They looked just the same: both well-dressed, with veils and parasols like other girls; but I afterwards found that I had been giving all my attention to the youngest, who was not _out_, and had most excessively offended the eldest. Miss Augusta ought not to have been noticed for the next six months; and Miss Sneyd, I believe, has never forgiven me." "That was bad indeed. Poor Miss Sneyd. Though I have no younger sister, I feel for her. To be neglected before one's time must be very vexatious; but it was entirely the mother's fault. Miss Augusta should have been with her governess. Such half-and-half doings never prosper. But now I must be satisfied about Miss Price. Does she go to balls? Does she dine out every where, as well as at my sister's?" "No," replied Edmund; "I do not think she has ever been to a ball. My mother seldom goes into company herself, and dines nowhere but with Mrs. Grant, and Fanny stays at home with _her_." "Oh! then the point is clear. Miss Price is not out."

The young people were pleased with each other from the first. The Miss Bertrams were too handsome themselves to dislike any woman for being so too, and were as much charmed as their brothers with Miss Crawford's lively dark eye, clear brown complexion, and general prettiness. Had she been tall, full formed, and fair, it might have been more of a trial: but as it was, there could be no comparison; and she was allowably a sweet, pretty girl, while they were the finest young women in the country. Her brother was not handsome: no, he was absolutely plain; but still a gentleman, with a pleasing address. The second meeting proved him not so very plain: he was so expressive, and so well made, that one soon forgot he was plain; and after a third interview, he was no longer allowed to be called so by anybody. He was, in fact, the most agreeable young man the sisters had ever known. Miss Bertram's engagement made him the property of Julia, of which Julia was fully aware; and before he had been at Mansfield a week, she was quite ready to be fallen in love with. Maria's notions on the subject were more confused. She did not want to see or understand. "There could be no harm in her liking an agreeable man-everybody knew her situation-Mr. Crawford must take care of himself." Mr. Crawford did not mean to be in any danger! the Miss Bertrams were worth pleasing, and he began with no object but of making them like him. He did not want them to die of love; but he allowed himself great latitude on such points. "I like your Miss Bertrams exceedingly, sister," said he, as they returned from a dinner visit; "very elegant, agreeable girls." "I am delighted to hear you say it. But you like Julia best." "Oh yes! I like Julia best." "But do you really? for Miss Bertram is in general thought the handsomest." "Miss Bertram is certainly the handsomest, and I have found her the most agreeable, but I shall always like Julia best, because you order me." "I shall not talk to you, Henry, but I know you will like her best at last." "Do not I tell you that I like her best at first?" "And besides, Miss Bertram is engaged. Remember that, my dear brother." "Yes, and I like her the better for it. An engaged woman is always more agreeable. She feels that she may exert her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with her: no harm can be done." "Mr. Rushworth is a very good sort of man, and it is a great match." "But Miss Bertram does not care three straws for him; that is your opinion. I do not subscribe to it. I am sure Miss Bertram is very much attached to Mr. Rushworth. I could see it in her eyes, when he was mentioned. I think too well of Miss Bertram to suppose she would ever give her hand without her heart." "Mary, how shall we manage him?" "Talking does no good. He will be taken in at last." "But I would not have him taken in; I would not have him duped." "Oh dear! let him stand his chance and be taken in. Everybody is taken in at some time or other." "Not always in marriage, dear Mary." "In marriage especially. With all due respect, my dear Mrs. Grant, there is not one in a hundred who is not taken in when they marry. It is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves." "Ah! You have been in a bad school for matrimony, in Hill Street." "My poor aunt had certainly little cause to love the state; but I know many who have married in the expectation of some good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived, and been obliged to put up with exactly the reverse. What is this but a take in?" "My dear child, I cannot quite believe you. You see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more deceived than the parties themselves." "Well done, sister! When I am a wife, I mean to be just as staunch myself." "You are as bad as your brother, Mary; but stay with us, and Mansfield shall cure you both, without any taking in." The Crawfords were very willing to stay. Mary was satisfied with the Parsonage as a home, and Henry equally ready to lengthen his visit. He had come, intending to spend only a few days; but Mansfield promised well. It delighted Mrs. Grant to keep them both, and Dr. Grant was well contented to have the society of a pretty young woman like Miss Crawford; while Mr. Crawford's being his guest was an excuse for drinking claret every day. Miss Crawford acknowledged that the Mr. Bertrams were very fine young men, and their manners, particularly those of the eldest, were very good. He had been much in London, and had more liveliness and gallantry than Edmund, and must, therefore, be preferred; and, indeed, his being the eldest was another strong claim. She had felt a presentiment that she should like the eldest best. She knew it was her way. Tom Bertram was the sort of young man to be generally liked, for he had easy manners, excellent spirits, a large acquaintance, and a great deal to say; and the reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this. Miss Crawford soon felt that he and his situation might do. She looked about her, and found almost everything in his favour: a real park, five miles round, a spacious modern-built house, well placed and well-screened, and wanting only to be completely new furnished-pleasant sisters, a quiet mother, and an agreeable man himself-with the advantages of being prevented from gambling by a promise to his father, and of being Sir Thomas hereafter. It might do very well; she believed she should accept him; and she began accordingly to interest herself about the horse which he was going to run at the races. These races were to call him away soon; and as the family did not expect him back for many weeks, it would bring his passion to an early proof. Much was said on his side to induce her to attend the races, and eager schemes were made for a large party, but it was no more than talk. And Fanny, what was she doing all this while? and what was her opinion of the newcomers? Few young ladies of eighteen could be less called on to speak their opinion than Fanny. In a quiet way, she paid her tribute to Miss Crawford's beauty; but she continued to think Mr. Crawford very plain, in spite of her two cousins having proved the contrary. "Pray, is Miss Price out, or not?" said Miss Crawford, as she was walking with the Mr. Bertrams. "I am puzzled. She dined at the Parsonage, with the rest of you, which seemed like being out; and yet she says so little, that I can hardly suppose she is." Edmund replied, "I will not undertake to answer. My cousin has the age and sense of a woman, but the outs and not outs are beyond me." "And yet, in general, nothing can be more easily ascertained. Till now, I could not have supposed it possible to be mistaken as to a girl's being out or not. A girl not out has always the same sort of dress: looks very demure, and never says a word. You may smile, but it is so, I assure you; and it is very proper. Girls should be quiet and modest. But the alteration of manners on being introduced into company is frequently too sudden. They sometimes pass in such very little time from reserve to confidence! One does not like to see a girl of eighteen so immediately up to everything when she was hardly able to speak the year before. Mr. Bertram, I dare say you have met with such changes." "I have, but this is hardly fair. You are quizzing me and Miss Anderson." "No, indeed. I do not know who you mean. But I will quiz you gladly, if you will tell me what about." "Ah! You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing an altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson. When he first introduced me to his family, his sister was not out, and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with the mother in and out every moment, and I could hardly get a word from the young lady-she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then out. She came up to me, claimed me as an acquaintance, and talked and laughed till I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must be the jest of the room, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has heard the story." "A very pretty story. It is too common a fault. Mothers certainly have not got quite the right way of managing their daughters. I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong." "Those who show the world what female manners should be," said Mr. Bertram gallantly, "are doing much to set them right." "The error is plain enough," said the less courteous Edmund; "such girls are ill brought up. They are given wrong notions from the beginning. There is no more real modesty in their behaviour before they appear in public than afterwards." "I do not know," replied Miss Crawford hesitatingly. "I cannot agree. It is much worse to have girls not out give themselves the same airs as if they were. That is quite disgusting!" "Yes, very inconvenient indeed," said Mr. Bertram. "It leads one astray. The demure air tells one what is expected; but I got into a dreadful scrape last year. I went down to Ramsgate with a friend last September. My friend Sneyd-you have heard me speak of Sneyd, Edmund-his father, mother, and sisters were there, all new to me. We went to meet them, and found them on the pier: I made my bow, and attached myself to one of Mrs Sneyd's daughters, walked by her side, and made myself agreeable; the young lady perfectly easy in her manners, and as ready to talk as to listen. I had not a suspicion that I was doing anything wrong. They looked just the same: but I afterwards found that I had been giving all my attention to the youngest, who was not out, and had excessively offended the eldest. Miss Sneyd has never forgiven me." "Poor Miss Sneyd. I feel for her; but it was the mother's fault. But now I must be satisfied about Miss Price. Does she go to balls? Does she dine out everywhere?" "No," replied Edmund; "I do not think Fanny has ever been to a ball. She stays at home with my mother." "Oh! then the point is clear. Miss Price is not out."

Mansfield Park

Chapter 5

The day at Sotherton, with all its imperfections, afforded the Miss Bertrams much more agreeable feelings than were derived from the letters from Antigua, which soon afterwards reached Mansfield. It was much pleasanter to think of Henry Crawford than of their father; and to think of their father in England again within a certain period, which these letters obliged them to do, was a most unwelcome exercise. November was the black month fixed for his return. Sir Thomas wrote of it with as much decision as experience and anxiety could authorise. His business was so nearly concluded as to justify him in proposing to take his passage in the September packet, and he consequently looked forward with the hope of being with his beloved family again early in November. Maria was more to be pitied than Julia; for to her the father brought a husband, and the return of the friend most solicitous for her happiness would unite her to the lover, on whom she had chosen that happiness should depend. It was a gloomy prospect, and all she could do was to throw a mist over it, and hope when the mist cleared away she should see something else. It would hardly be _early_ in November, there were generally delays, a bad passage or _something_; that favouring _something_ which everybody who shuts their eyes while they look, or their understandings while they reason, feels the comfort of. It would probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November was three months off. Three months comprised thirteen weeks. Much might happen in thirteen weeks. Sir Thomas would have been deeply mortified by a suspicion of half that his daughters felt on the subject of his return, and would hardly have found consolation in a knowledge of the interest it excited in the breast of another young lady. Miss Crawford, on walking up with her brother to spend the evening at Mansfield Park, heard the good news; and though seeming to have no concern in the affair beyond politeness, and to have vented all her feelings in a quiet congratulation, heard it with an attention not so easily satisfied. Mrs. Norris gave the particulars of the letters, and the subject was dropt; but after tea, as Miss Crawford was standing at an open window with Edmund and Fanny looking out on a twilight scene, while the Miss Bertrams, Mr. Rushworth, and Henry Crawford were all busy with candles at the pianoforte, she suddenly revived it by turning round towards the group, and saying, "How happy Mr. Rushworth looks! He is thinking of November." Edmund looked round at Mr. Rushworth too, but had nothing to say. "Your father's return will be a very interesting event." "It will, indeed, after such an absence; an absence not only long, but including so many dangers." "It will be the forerunner also of other interesting events: your sister's marriage, and your taking orders." "Yes." "Don't be affronted," said she, laughing, "but it does put me in mind of some of the old heathen heroes, who, after performing great exploits in a foreign land, offered sacrifices to the gods on their safe return." "There is no sacrifice in the case," replied Edmund, with a serious smile, and glancing at the pianoforte again; "it is entirely her own doing." "Oh yes I know it is. I was merely joking. She has done no more than what every young woman would do; and I have no doubt of her being extremely happy. My other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand." "My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria's marrying." "It is fortunate that your inclination and your father's convenience should accord so well. There is a very good living kept for you, I understand, hereabouts." "Which you suppose has biassed me?" "But _that_ I am sure it has not," cried Fanny. "Thank you for your good word, Fanny, but it is more than I would affirm myself. On the contrary, the knowing that there was such a provision for me probably did bias me. Nor can I think it wrong that it should. There was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life. I was in safe hands. I hope I should not have been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too conscientious to have allowed it. I have no doubt that I was biased, but I think it was blamelessly." "It is the same sort of thing," said Fanny, after a short pause, "as for the son of an admiral to go into the navy, or the son of a general to be in the army, and nobody sees anything wrong in that. Nobody wonders that they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best, or suspects them to be less in earnest in it than they appear." "No, my dear Miss Price, and for reasons good. The profession, either navy or army, is its own justification. It has everything in its favour: heroism, danger, bustle, fashion. Soldiers and sailors are always acceptable in society. Nobody can wonder that men are soldiers and sailors." "But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of preferment may be fairly suspected, you think?" said Edmund. "To be justified in your eyes, he must do it in the most complete uncertainty of any provision." "What! take orders without a living! No; that is madness indeed; absolute madness." "Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living nor without? No; for you certainly would not know what to say. But I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from your own argument. As he cannot be influenced by those feelings which you rank highly as temptation and reward to the soldier and sailor in their choice of a profession, as heroism, and noise, and fashion, are all against him, he ought to be less liable to the suspicion of wanting sincerity or good intentions in the choice of his." "Oh! no doubt he is very sincere in preferring an income ready made, to the trouble of working for one; and has the best intentions of doing nothing all the rest of his days but eat, drink, and grow fat. It is indolence, Mr. Bertram, indeed. Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish-read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine." "There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character. I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle's table." "I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. Though _I_ have not seen much of the domestic lives of clergymen, it is seen by too many to leave any deficiency of information." "Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or (smiling) of something else. Your uncle, and his brother admirals, perhaps knew little of clergymen beyond the chaplains whom, good or bad, they were always wishing away." "Poor William! He has met with great kindness from the chaplain of the Antwerp," was a tender apostrophe of Fanny's, very much to the purpose of her own feelings if not of the conversation. "I have been so little addicted to take my opinions from my uncle," said Miss Crawford, "that I can hardly suppose-and since you push me so hard, I must observe, that I am not entirely without the means of seeing what clergymen are, being at this present time the guest of my own brother, Dr. Grant. And though Dr. Grant is most kind and obliging to me, and though he is really a gentleman, and, I dare say, a good scholar and clever, and often preaches good sermons, and is very respectable, _I_ see him to be an indolent, selfish _bon_ _vivant_, who must have his palate consulted in everything; who will not stir a finger for the convenience of any one; and who, moreover, if the cook makes a blunder, is out of humour with his excellent wife. To own the truth, Henry and I were partly driven out this very evening by a disappointment about a green goose, which he could not get the better of. My poor sister was forced to stay and bear it." "I do not wonder at your disapprobation, upon my word. It is a great defect of temper, made worse by a very faulty habit of self-indulgence; and to see your sister suffering from it must be exceedingly painful to such feelings as yours. Fanny, it goes against us. We cannot attempt to defend Dr. Grant." "No," replied Fanny, "but we need not give up his profession for all that; because, whatever profession Dr. Grant had chosen, he would have taken a-not a good temper into it; and as he must, either in the navy or army, have had a great many more people under his command than he has now, I think more would have been made unhappy by him as a sailor or soldier than as a clergyman. Besides, I cannot but suppose that whatever there may be to wish otherwise in Dr. Grant would have been in a greater danger of becoming worse in a more active and worldly profession, where he would have had less time and obligation-where he might have escaped that knowledge of himself, the _frequency_, at least, of that knowledge which it is impossible he should escape as he is now. A man-a sensible man like Dr. Grant, cannot be in the habit of teaching others their duty every week, cannot go to church twice every Sunday, and preach such very good sermons in so good a manner as he does, without being the better for it himself. It must make him think; and I have no doubt that he oftener endeavours to restrain himself than he would if he had been anything but a clergyman." "We cannot prove to the contrary, to be sure; but I wish you a better fate, Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man whose amiableness depends upon his own sermons; for though he may preach himself into a good-humour every Sunday, it will be bad enough to have him quarrelling about green geese from Monday morning till Saturday night." "I think the man who could often quarrel with Fanny," said Edmund affectionately, "must be beyond the reach of any sermons." Fanny turned farther into the window; and Miss Crawford had only time to say, in a pleasant manner, "I fancy Miss Price has been more used to deserve praise than to hear it"; when, being earnestly invited by the Miss Bertrams to join in a glee, she tripped off to the instrument, leaving Edmund looking after her in an ecstasy of admiration of all her many virtues, from her obliging manners down to her light and graceful tread. "There goes good-humour, I am sure," said he presently. "There goes a temper which would never give pain! How well she walks! and how readily she falls in with the inclination of others! joining them the moment she is asked. What a pity," he added, after an instant's reflection, "that she should have been in such hands!" Fanny agreed to it, and had the pleasure of seeing him continue at the window with her, in spite of the expected glee; and of having his eyes soon turned, like hers, towards the scene without, where all that was solemn, and soothing, and lovely, appeared in the brilliancy of an unclouded night, and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods. Fanny spoke her feelings. "Here's harmony!" said she; "here's repose! Here's what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only can attempt to describe! Here's what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene." "I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny. It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal." "_You_ taught me to think and feel on the subject, cousin." "I had a very apt scholar. There's Arcturus looking very bright." "Yes, and the Bear. I wish I could see Cassiopeia." "We must go out on the lawn for that. Should you be afraid?" "Not in the least. It is a great while since we have had any star-gazing." "Yes; I do not know how it has happened." The glee began. "We will stay till this is finished, Fanny," said he, turning his back on the window; and as it advanced, she had the mortification of seeing him advance too, moving forward by gentle degrees towards the instrument, and when it ceased, he was close by the singers, among the most urgent in requesting to hear the glee again. Fanny sighed alone at the window till scolded away by Mrs. Norris's threats of catching cold.

The day at Sotherton, with all its imperfections, gave the Miss Bertrams much more agreeable feelings than the letters from Antigua, which soon afterwards reached Mansfield. It was much pleasanter to think of Henry Crawford than of their father. November was the black month fixed for his return. Sir Thomas's business being nearly concluded, he proposed to sail in the September packet, and looked forward to being with his beloved family again early in November. Maria was more to be pitied than Julia; for to her the father brought a husband, and the return of the friend most anxious for her happiness would unite her to the lover, on whom she had chosen that happiness should depend. It was a gloomy prospect, and all she could do was to throw a mist over it, and hope that when the mist cleared away she should see something else. It would hardly be early in November, there were generally delays; it would probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November was thirteen weeks off. Much might happen in thirteen weeks. Sir Thomas would have been deeply mortified by his daughters' feelings, and would hardly have found consolation in another young lady's interest. Miss Crawford heard the good news with attention. After tea, as she was standing at a window with Edmund and Fanny looking out on a twilight scene, while the Miss Bertrams, Mr. Rushworth, and Henry Crawford were all busy at the pianoforte, she suddenly turned round towards the group, saying, "How happy Mr. Rushworth looks! He is thinking of November." Edmund looked round at Mr. Rushworth too, but had nothing to say. "Your father's return will be a very interesting event." "It will, indeed." "It will be the forerunner of other interesting events: your sister's marriage, and your taking orders." "Yes." "Don't be affronted," said she, laughing, "but it does put me in mind of some old heathen heroes, who, after great exploits in a foreign land, offered sacrifices to the gods on their safe return." "There is no sacrifice in the case," replied Edmund, with a serious smile, and glancing at the pianoforte again; "it is entirely her own doing." "Oh yes. I was joking. She has done no more than what every young woman would do; and I have no doubt of her being extremely happy. The other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand." "My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria's marrying." "It is fortunate that your wish and your father's convenience should accord so well. There is a very good living kept for you, I understand." "Which you suppose has biased me?" "I am sure it has not," cried Fanny. "Thank you, Fanny, but it is more than I would affirm myself. On the contrary, knowing that there was such a provision probably did bias me. Nor can I think it wrong that it should. I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life. I have no doubt that I was biased, but I think it was blamelessly." "It is the same sort of thing," said Fanny, "as for the son of an admiral to go into the navy, or the son of a general to be in the army, and nobody sees anything wrong in that. Nobody wonders that they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best." "No, my dear Miss Price, and for reasons good. The profession, either navy or army, is its own justification. It has everything in its favour: heroism, danger, bustle, fashion. Soldiers and sailors are always acceptable in society. Nobody can wonder that men are soldiers and sailors." "But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of preferment may be suspected, you think?" said Edmund. "To be justified in your eyes, he must do it in complete uncertainty of any provision." "What! take orders without a living! No; that is madness indeed." "Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living nor without? No; for you certainly would not know what to say. But I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from your own argument. As heroism, and noise, and fashion, cannot tempt him, he ought not to be suspected of lacking sincerity in his choice." "Oh! no doubt he is very sincere in preferring an income ready made, to the trouble of working for one; and has the best intentions of doing nothing all his days but eat, drink, and grow fat. It is indolence, Mr. Bertram; a want of ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to be agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish. His curate does all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine." "There are such clergymen, no doubt, but they are not so common as you suppose. I suspect that in this comprehensive censure, you are judging from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that you can have much knowledge of the clergy. You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle's table." "I speak what is the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. The lives of clergymen are seen by too many to leave any deficiency of information." "Where any body of educated men are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or (smiling) of something else. Your uncle, and his brother admirals, perhaps knew little of clergymen beyond the chaplains whom they were always wishing away." "Poor William! He has met with great kindness from the chaplain of the Antwerp," was a tender remark of Fanny's, very much to the purpose of her own feelings if not of the conversation. "I do not take my opinions from my uncle," said Miss Crawford, "and I can see what clergymen are, being the guest of Dr. Grant. And though Dr. Grant is most kind and obliging to me, and though he is clever, and often preaches good sermons, I see him to be an indolent, selfish bon vivant, who must have his palate consulted in everything; who will not stir a finger for the convenience of any one; and who, moreover, if the cook makes a blunder, is out of humour with his excellent wife. Henry and I were driven out this very evening by a disappointment about a green goose, which he could not get the better of. My poor sister was forced to stay and bear it." "I do not wonder at your disapprobation. It is a great defect of temper, and to see your sister suffering from it must be exceedingly painful. Fanny, it goes against us. We cannot attempt to defend Dr. Grant." "No," replied Fanny, "but whatever profession Dr. Grant had chosen, he would have taken a-not a good temper into it; and in the navy or army, I think more would have been made unhappy by him than as a clergyman. Besides, in a more worldly profession, he might have escaped that knowledge of himself, which it is impossible he should escape now. A man cannot teach others their duty every week and preach such very good sermons as he does, without being the better for it himself. It must make him think." "We cannot prove to the contrary, to be sure; but I wish you a better fate, Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man whose amiableness depends upon his own sermons; for though he may preach himself into a good-humour every Sunday, it is still bad enough to have him quarrelling about green geese from Monday till Saturday night." "I think the man who could quarrel with Fanny," said Edmund affectionately, "must be beyond the reach of any sermons." Fanny turned away; and Miss Crawford had only time to say pleasantly, "I fancy Miss Price has been more used to deserve praise than to hear it"; when, being invited by the Miss Bertrams to join in a glee, she tripped off to the instrument, leaving Edmund looking after her in an ecstasy of admiration of her many virtues, from her obliging manners to her graceful tread. "There goes good-humour, I am sure," said he. "There goes a temper which would never give pain! How well she walks! and how readily she pleases others! What a pity that she should have been in such hands!" Fanny agreed, and had the pleasure of seeing him continue at the window with her, in spite of the expected glee; and of having his eyes turned, like hers, outside, where a solemn, soothing, and lovely scene appeared in the brilliancy of an unclouded night. Fanny spoke her feelings. "Here's harmony!" said she; "here's repose! Here's what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only can attempt to describe! Here's what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene." "I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny. They are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel as you do." "You taught me to think and feel on the subject, cousin." "I had a very apt scholar. There's Arcturus looking very bright." "Yes, and the Bear. I wish I could see Cassiopeia." "We must go out on the lawn for that. Should you be afraid?" "Not in the least. It is a great while since we have had any star-gazing." "Yes; I do not know how it has happened." The glee began. "We will stay till this is finished, Fanny," said he, turning his back on the window; and as it advanced, she had the mortification of seeing him advance too, moving forward by gentle degrees towards the instrument. When it ceased, he was close by the singers, among the most urgent in requesting to hear the glee again. Fanny sighed alone at the window, till scolded away by Mrs. Norris's threats of catching cold.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 11

The Prices were just setting off for church the next day when Mr. Crawford appeared again. He came, not to stop, but to join them; he was asked to go with them to the Garrison chapel, which was exactly what he had intended, and they all walked thither together. The family were now seen to advantage. Nature had given them no inconsiderable share of beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever. Her poor mother now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram's sister as she was but too apt to look. It often grieved her to the heart to think of the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother, as handsome as Lady Bertram, and some years her junior, should have an appearance so much more worn and faded, so comfortless, so slatternly, so shabby. But Sunday made her a very creditable and tolerably cheerful-looking Mrs. Price, coming abroad with a fine family of children, feeling a little respite of her weekly cares, and only discomposed if she saw her boys run into danger, or Rebecca pass by with a flower in her hat. In chapel they were obliged to divide, but Mr. Crawford took care not to be divided from the female branch; and after chapel he still continued with them, and made one in the family party on the ramparts. Mrs. Price took her weekly walk on the ramparts every fine Sunday throughout the year, always going directly after morning service and staying till dinner-time. It was her public place: there she met her acquaintance, heard a little news, talked over the badness of the Portsmouth servants, and wound up her spirits for the six days ensuing. Thither they now went; Mr. Crawford most happy to consider the Miss Prices as his peculiar charge; and before they had been there long, somehow or other, there was no saying how, Fanny could not have believed it, but he was walking between them with an arm of each under his, and she did not know how to prevent or put an end to it. It made her uncomfortable for a time, but yet there were enjoyments in the day and in the view which would be felt. The day was uncommonly lovely. It was really March; but it was April in its mild air, brisk soft wind, and bright sun, occasionally clouded for a minute; and everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other on the ships at Spithead and the island beyond, with the ever-varying hues of the sea, now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts with so fine a sound, produced altogether such a combination of charms for Fanny, as made her gradually almost careless of the circumstances under which she felt them. Nay, had she been without his arm, she would soon have known that she needed it, for she wanted strength for a two hours' saunter of this kind, coming, as it generally did, upon a week's previous inactivity. Fanny was beginning to feel the effect of being debarred from her usual regular exercise; she had lost ground as to health since her being in Portsmouth; and but for Mr. Crawford and the beauty of the weather would soon have been knocked up now. The loveliness of the day, and of the view, he felt like herself. They often stopt with the same sentiment and taste, leaning against the wall, some minutes, to look and admire; and considering he was not Edmund, Fanny could not but allow that he was sufficiently open to the charms of nature, and very well able to express his admiration. She had a few tender reveries now and then, which he could sometimes take advantage of to look in her face without detection; and the result of these looks was, that though as bewitching as ever, her face was less blooming than it ought to be. She _said_ she was very well, and did not like to be supposed otherwise; but take it all in all, he was convinced that her present residence could not be comfortable, and therefore could not be salutary for her, and he was growing anxious for her being again at Mansfield, where her own happiness, and his in seeing her, must be so much greater. "You have been here a month, I think?" said he. "No; not quite a month. It is only four weeks to-morrow since I left Mansfield." "You are a most accurate and honest reckoner. I should call that a month." "I did not arrive here till Tuesday evening." "And it is to be a two months' visit, is not?" "Yes. My uncle talked of two months. I suppose it will not be less." "And how are you to be conveyed back again? Who comes for you?" "I do not know. I have heard nothing about it yet from my aunt. Perhaps I may be to stay longer. It may not be convenient for me to be fetched exactly at the two months' end." After a moment's reflection, Mr. Crawford replied, "I know Mansfield, I know its way, I know its faults towards _you_. I know the danger of your being so far forgotten, as to have your comforts give way to the imaginary convenience of any single being in the family. I am aware that you may be left here week after week, if Sir Thomas cannot settle everything for coming himself, or sending your aunt's maid for you, without involving the slightest alteration of the arrangements which he may have laid down for the next quarter of a year. This will not do. Two months is an ample allowance; I should think six weeks quite enough. I am considering your sister's health," said he, addressing himself to Susan, "which I think the confinement of Portsmouth unfavourable to. She requires constant air and exercise. When you know her as well as I do, I am sure you will agree that she does, and that she ought never to be long banished from the free air and liberty of the country. If, therefore" (turning again to Fanny), "you find yourself growing unwell, and any difficulties arise about your returning to Mansfield, without waiting for the two months to be ended, _that_ must not be regarded as of any consequence, if you feel yourself at all less strong or comfortable than usual, and will only let my sister know it, give her only the slightest hint, she and I will immediately come down, and take you back to Mansfield. You know the ease and the pleasure with which this would be done. You know all that would be felt on the occasion." Fanny thanked him, but tried to laugh it off. "I am perfectly serious," he replied, "as you perfectly know. And I hope you will not be cruelly concealing any tendency to indisposition. Indeed, you shall _not_; it shall not be in your power; for so long only as you positively say, in every letter to Mary, 'I am well,' and I know you cannot speak or write a falsehood, so long only shall you be considered as well." Fanny thanked him again, but was affected and distressed to a degree that made it impossible for her to say much, or even to be certain of what she ought to say. This was towards the close of their walk. He attended them to the last, and left them only at the door of their own house, when he knew them to be going to dinner, and therefore pretended to be waited for elsewhere. "I wish you were not so tired," said he, still detaining Fanny after all the others were in the house-"I wish I left you in stronger health. Is there anything I can do for you in town? I have half an idea of going into Norfolk again soon. I am not satisfied about Maddison. I am sure he still means to impose on me if possible, and get a cousin of his own into a certain mill, which I design for somebody else. I must come to an understanding with him. I must make him know that I will not be tricked on the south side of Everingham, any more than on the north: that I will be master of my own property. I was not explicit enough with him before. The mischief such a man does on an estate, both as to the credit of his employer and the welfare of the poor, is inconceivable. I have a great mind to go back into Norfolk directly, and put everything at once on such a footing as cannot be afterwards swerved from. Maddison is a clever fellow; I do not wish to displace him, provided he does not try to displace _me_; but it would be simple to be duped by a man who has no right of creditor to dupe me, and worse than simple to let him give me a hard-hearted, griping fellow for a tenant, instead of an honest man, to whom I have given half a promise already. Would it not be worse than simple? Shall I go? Do you advise it?" "I advise! You know very well what is right." "Yes. When you give me your opinion, I always know what is right. Your judgment is my rule of right." "Oh, no! do not say so. We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be. Good-bye; I wish you a pleasant journey to-morrow." "Is there nothing I can do for you in town?" "Nothing; I am much obliged to you." "Have you no message for anybody?" "My love to your sister, if you please; and when you see my cousin, my cousin Edmund, I wish you would be so good as to say that I suppose I shall soon hear from him." "Certainly; and if he is lazy or negligent, I will write his excuses myself." He could say no more, for Fanny would be no longer detained. He pressed her hand, looked at her, and was gone. _He_ went to while away the next three hours as he could, with his other acquaintance, till the best dinner that a capital inn afforded was ready for their enjoyment, and _she_ turned in to her more simple one immediately. Their general fare bore a very different character; and could he have suspected how many privations, besides that of exercise, she endured in her father's house, he would have wondered that her looks were not much more affected than he found them. She was so little equal to Rebecca's puddings and Rebecca's hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with such accompaniments of half-cleaned plates, and not half-cleaned knives and forks, that she was very often constrained to defer her heartiest meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and buns. After being nursed up at Mansfield, it was too late in the day to be hardened at Portsmouth; and though Sir Thomas, had he known all, might have thought his niece in the most promising way of being starved, both mind and body, into a much juster value for Mr. Crawford's good company and good fortune, he would probably have feared to push his experiment farther, lest she might die under the cure. Fanny was out of spirits all the rest of the day. Though tolerably secure of not seeing Mr. Crawford again, she could not help being low. It was parting with somebody of the nature of a friend; and though, in one light, glad to have him gone, it seemed as if she was now deserted by everybody; it was a sort of renewed separation from Mansfield; and she could not think of his returning to town, and being frequently with Mary and Edmund, without feelings so near akin to envy as made her hate herself for having them. Her dejection had no abatement from anything passing around her; a friend or two of her father's, as always happened if he was not with them, spent the long, long evening there; and from six o'clock till half-past nine, there was little intermission of noise or grog. She was very low. The wonderful improvement which she still fancied in Mr. Crawford was the nearest to administering comfort of anything within the current of her thoughts. Not considering in how different a circle she had been just seeing him, nor how much might be owing to contrast, she was quite persuaded of his being astonishingly more gentle and regardful of others than formerly. And, if in little things, must it not be so in great? So anxious for her health and comfort, so very feeling as he now expressed himself, and really seemed, might not it be fairly supposed that he would not much longer persevere in a suit so distressing to her?

The Prices were just setting off for church the next day when Mr. Crawford appeared. He was asked to go with them to the Garrison chapel, which was exactly what he had intended, and they all walked there together. The family were now seen to advantage. Nature had given them no inconsiderable share of beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever. Her poor mother now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram's sister. It often grieved her that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother, as handsome as Lady Bertram, should have an appearance so much more worn and shabby. But Sunday made her a very creditable Mrs. Price, with a fine family of children. In chapel they were obliged to divide, but Mr. Crawford took care not to be divided from the female branch; and after chapel he continued with them, and joined the family party on the ramparts. Mrs. Price took her weekly walk on the ramparts every fine Sunday throughout the year. There she met her acquaintance, heard a little news, talked over the badness of the Portsmouth servants, and wound up her spirits for the six days. Thither they now went; Mr. Crawford most happy to consider the Miss Prices as his charge; and before they had been there long, somehow or other, there was no saying how, he was walking between them with an arm of each under his. Fanny did not know how to put an end to it. It made her uncomfortable, but yet there were enjoyments in the day. Everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such a fine March sky, with the ever-varying hues of the sea, now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts; and produced altogether such a combination of charms for Fanny, as made her almost careless of the circumstances under which she felt them. Had she been without his arm, she would soon have known that she needed it, for she lacked strength for a two hours' saunter. Fanny was beginning to feel the effect of being debarred from her usual regular exercise; she had lost ground as to health since her being in Portsmouth. They often stopped some minutes to look and admire; and considering he was not Edmund, Fanny had to allow that he was open to the charms of nature, and very well able to express his admiration. She had a few tender reveries now and then, during which he could sometimes look in her face without detection; and he concluded that, though as bewitching as ever, her face was less blooming than it ought to be. She said she was very well; but he was convinced that her residence could not be comfortable, and he was growing anxious for her being again at Mansfield. "You have been here a month, I think?" said he. "No; not quite. It is four weeks to-morrow." "You are a most accurate reckoner. I should call that a month. It is to be a two months' visit, is not?" "Yes. My uncle talked of two months." "And how are you to be conveyed back again?" "I do not know. I have heard nothing about it yet. Perhaps it may not be convenient for me to be fetched exactly at the two months' end." After reflection, Mr. Crawford replied, "I know Mansfield, I know its faults towards you. I am aware that you may be left here week after week, if Sir Thomas cannot organize it without involving the slightest alteration of the arrangements which he has laid down for the next quarter of a year. This will not do. Two months is plenty; I should think six weeks quite enough. I am considering your sister's health," said he, addressing Susan. "She requires constant air and exercise, and ought never to be long banished from the free air of the country. If, therefore" (turning again to Fanny), "you find yourself growing unwell, and any difficulties arise about your returning, if you feel yourself at all less strong or comfortable than usual, and will only let my sister know it, give her only the slightest hint, she and I will immediately come down, and take you back to Mansfield. You know the pleasure with which this would be done." Fanny thanked him, but tried to laugh it off. "I am perfectly serious," he replied, "as you know. And I hope you will not conceal any indisposition. Indeed, so long as you positively say, in every letter to Mary, 'I am well,' since I know you cannot speak a falsehood, so long only shall you be considered well." Fanny thanked him again, but was affected and distressed to a great degree. This was towards the close of their walk. He left them at the door of their own house. "I wish you were not so tired," said he, detaining Fanny after the others were gone in-"I wish I left you in stronger health. Is there anything I can do for you in town? I have half an idea of going into Norfolk again soon. I am not satisfied about Maddison. I am sure he still means to impose on me if possible. The mischief such a man does on an estate, both to the credit of his employer and the welfare of the poor, is inconceivable. I have a great mind to go back into Norfolk directly. Shall I go? Do you advise it?" "I advise! You know very well what is right." "Yes. When you give me your opinion, I always know what is right." "Oh, no! do not say so. We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be. Good-bye; I wish you a pleasant journey." "Is there nothing I can do for you in London?" "Nothing; I am much obliged to you." "Have you no message for anybody?" "My love to your sister, if you please; and when you see my cousin, my cousin Edmund, I wish you would be so good as to say that I suppose I shall soon hear from him." "Certainly; and if he is lazy or negligent, I will write his excuses myself." He could say no more. He pressed her hand, looked at her, and was gone. Could he have suspected how many privations, besides that of exercise, she endured in her father's house, he would have wondered that her looks were not more affected. She was so little equal to Rebecca's puddings and Rebecca's hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with half-cleaned plates, and not even half-cleaned knives and forks, that she very often deferred her heartiest meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and buns. Though Sir Thomas might have thought his niece in the most promising way of being starved into valuing Mr. Crawford's company, he would probably have feared to push his experiment farther, lest she might die under the cure. Fanny was out of spirits all the rest of the day. It was parting with somebody of the nature of a friend; and though, in one light, glad to have him gone, it seemed as if she was now deserted by everybody. It was a sort of renewed separation from Mansfield; and she could not think of his being in town with Mary and Edmund without feelings so close to envy as made her hate herself for having them. Her dejection had no relief from anything around her; a friend or two of her father's spent the long, long evening there; and from six o'clock till half-past nine, there was little intermission of noise or grog. She was very low. The wonderful improvement which she fancied in Mr. Crawford was the nearest to comfort of anything in her thoughts. Not considering how much might be owing to contrast, she was quite persuaded of his being astonishingly more gentle and regardful of others than formerly. And, if in little things, must it not be so in great? So anxious for her health and comfort as he seemed, might she not suppose that he would not much longer persevere in a suit so distressing to her?

Mansfield Park

Chapter 42

It had been a miserable party, each of the three believing themselves most miserable. Mrs. Norris, however, as most attached to Maria, was really the greatest sufferer. Maria was her first favourite, the dearest of all; the match had been her own contriving, as she had been wont with such pride of heart to feel and say, and this conclusion of it almost overpowered her. She was an altered creature, quieted, stupefied, indifferent to everything that passed. The being left with her sister and nephew, and all the house under her care, had been an advantage entirely thrown away; she had been unable to direct or dictate, or even fancy herself useful. When really touched by affliction, her active powers had been all benumbed; and neither Lady Bertram nor Tom had received from her the smallest support or attempt at support. She had done no more for them than they had done for each other. They had been all solitary, helpless, and forlorn alike; and now the arrival of the others only established her superiority in wretchedness. Her companions were relieved, but there was no good for _her_. Edmund was almost as welcome to his brother as Fanny to her aunt; but Mrs. Norris, instead of having comfort from either, was but the more irritated by the sight of the person whom, in the blindness of her anger, she could have charged as the daemon of the piece. Had Fanny accepted Mr. Crawford this could not have happened. Susan too was a grievance. She had not spirits to notice her in more than a few repulsive looks, but she felt her as a spy, and an intruder, and an indigent niece, and everything most odious. By her other aunt, Susan was received with quiet kindness. Lady Bertram could not give her much time, or many words, but she felt her, as Fanny's sister, to have a claim at Mansfield, and was ready to kiss and like her; and Susan was more than satisfied, for she came perfectly aware that nothing but ill-humour was to be expected from aunt Norris; and was so provided with happiness, so strong in that best of blessings, an escape from many certain evils, that she could have stood against a great deal more indifference than she met with from the others. She was now left a good deal to herself, to get acquainted with the house and grounds as she could, and spent her days very happily in so doing, while those who might otherwise have attended to her were shut up, or wholly occupied each with the person quite dependent on them, at this time, for everything like comfort; Edmund trying to bury his own feelings in exertions for the relief of his brother's, and Fanny devoted to her aunt Bertram, returning to every former office with more than former zeal, and thinking she could never do enough for one who seemed so much to want her. To talk over the dreadful business with Fanny, talk and lament, was all Lady Bertram's consolation. To be listened to and borne with, and hear the voice of kindness and sympathy in return, was everything that could be done for her. To be otherwise comforted was out of the question. The case admitted of no comfort. Lady Bertram did not think deeply, but, guided by Sir Thomas, she thought justly on all important points; and she saw, therefore, in all its enormity, what had happened, and neither endeavoured herself, nor required Fanny to advise her, to think little of guilt and infamy. Her affections were not acute, nor was her mind tenacious. After a time, Fanny found it not impossible to direct her thoughts to other subjects, and revive some interest in the usual occupations; but whenever Lady Bertram _was_ fixed on the event, she could see it only in one light, as comprehending the loss of a daughter, and a disgrace never to be wiped off. Fanny learnt from her all the particulars which had yet transpired. Her aunt was no very methodical narrator, but with the help of some letters to and from Sir Thomas, and what she already knew herself, and could reasonably combine, she was soon able to understand quite as much as she wished of the circumstances attending the story. Mrs. Rushworth had gone, for the Easter holidays, to Twickenham, with a family whom she had just grown intimate with: a family of lively, agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit, for to _their_ house Mr. Crawford had constant access at all times. His having been in the same neighbourhood Fanny already knew. Mr. Rushworth had been gone at this time to Bath, to pass a few days with his mother, and bring her back to town, and Maria was with these friends without any restraint, without even Julia; for Julia had removed from Wimpole Street two or three weeks before, on a visit to some relations of Sir Thomas; a removal which her father and mother were now disposed to attribute to some view of convenience on Mr. Yates's account. Very soon after the Rushworths' return to Wimpole Street, Sir Thomas had received a letter from an old and most particular friend in London, who hearing and witnessing a good deal to alarm him in that quarter, wrote to recommend Sir Thomas's coming to London himself, and using his influence with his daughter to put an end to the intimacy which was already exposing her to unpleasant remarks, and evidently making Mr. Rushworth uneasy. Sir Thomas was preparing to act upon this letter, without communicating its contents to any creature at Mansfield, when it was followed by another, sent express from the same friend, to break to him the almost desperate situation in which affairs then stood with the young people. Mrs. Rushworth had left her husband's house: Mr. Rushworth had been in great anger and distress to _him_ (Mr. Harding) for his advice; Mr. Harding feared there had been _at_ _least_ very flagrant indiscretion. The maidservant of Mrs. Rushworth, senior, threatened alarmingly. He was doing all in his power to quiet everything, with the hope of Mrs. Rushworth's return, but was so much counteracted in Wimpole Street by the influence of Mr. Rushworth's mother, that the worst consequences might be apprehended. This dreadful communication could not be kept from the rest of the family. Sir Thomas set off, Edmund would go with him, and the others had been left in a state of wretchedness, inferior only to what followed the receipt of the next letters from London. Everything was by that time public beyond a hope. The servant of Mrs. Rushworth, the mother, had exposure in her power, and supported by her mistress, was not to be silenced. The two ladies, even in the short time they had been together, had disagreed; and the bitterness of the elder against her daughter-in-law might perhaps arise almost as much from the personal disrespect with which she had herself been treated as from sensibility for her son. However that might be, she was unmanageable. But had she been less obstinate, or of less weight with her son, who was always guided by the last speaker, by the person who could get hold of and shut him up, the case would still have been hopeless, for Mrs. Rushworth did not appear again, and there was every reason to conclude her to be concealed somewhere with Mr. Crawford, who had quitted his uncle's house, as for a journey, on the very day of her absenting herself. Sir Thomas, however, remained yet a little longer in town, in the hope of discovering and snatching her from farther vice, though all was lost on the side of character. _His_ present state Fanny could hardly bear to think of. There was but one of his children who was not at this time a source of misery to him. Tom's complaints had been greatly heightened by the shock of his sister's conduct, and his recovery so much thrown back by it, that even Lady Bertram had been struck by the difference, and all her alarms were regularly sent off to her husband; and Julia's elopement, the additional blow which had met him on his arrival in London, though its force had been deadened at the moment, must, she knew, be sorely felt. She saw that it was. His letters expressed how much he deplored it. Under any circumstances it would have been an unwelcome alliance; but to have it so clandestinely formed, and such a period chosen for its completion, placed Julia's feelings in a most unfavourable light, and severely aggravated the folly of her choice. He called it a bad thing, done in the worst manner, and at the worst time; and though Julia was yet as more pardonable than Maria as folly than vice, he could not but regard the step she had taken as opening the worst probabilities of a conclusion hereafter like her sister's. Such was his opinion of the set into which she had thrown herself. Fanny felt for him most acutely. He could have no comfort but in Edmund. Every other child must be racking his heart. His displeasure against herself she trusted, reasoning differently from Mrs. Norris, would now be done away. _She_ should be justified. Mr. Crawford would have fully acquitted her conduct in refusing him; but this, though most material to herself, would be poor consolation to Sir Thomas. Her uncle's displeasure was terrible to her; but what could her justification or her gratitude and attachment do for him? His stay must be on Edmund alone. She was mistaken, however, in supposing that Edmund gave his father no present pain. It was of a much less poignant nature than what the others excited; but Sir Thomas was considering his happiness as very deeply involved in the offence of his sister and friend; cut off by it, as he must be, from the woman whom he had been pursuing with undoubted attachment and strong probability of success; and who, in everything but this despicable brother, would have been so eligible a connexion. He was aware of what Edmund must be suffering on his own behalf, in addition to all the rest, when they were in town: he had seen or conjectured his feelings; and, having reason to think that one interview with Miss Crawford had taken place, from which Edmund derived only increased distress, had been as anxious on that account as on others to get him out of town, and had engaged him in taking Fanny home to her aunt, with a view to his relief and benefit, no less than theirs. Fanny was not in the secret of her uncle's feelings, Sir Thomas not in the secret of Miss Crawford's character. Had he been privy to her conversation with his son, he would not have wished her to belong to him, though her twenty thousand pounds had been forty. That Edmund must be for ever divided from Miss Crawford did not admit of a doubt with Fanny; and yet, till she knew that he felt the same, her own conviction was insufficient. She thought he did, but she wanted to be assured of it. If he would now speak to her with the unreserve which had sometimes been too much for her before, it would be most consoling; but _that_ she found was not to be. She seldom saw him: never alone. He probably avoided being alone with her. What was to be inferred? That his judgment submitted to all his own peculiar and bitter share of this family affliction, but that it was too keenly felt to be a subject of the slightest communication. This must be his state. He yielded, but it was with agonies which did not admit of speech. Long, long would it be ere Miss Crawford's name passed his lips again, or she could hope for a renewal of such confidential intercourse as had been. It _was_ long. They reached Mansfield on Thursday, and it was not till Sunday evening that Edmund began to talk to her on the subject. Sitting with her on Sunday evening-a wet Sunday evening-the very time of all others when, if a friend is at hand, the heart must be opened, and everything told; no one else in the room, except his mother, who, after hearing an affecting sermon, had cried herself to sleep, it was impossible not to speak; and so, with the usual beginnings, hardly to be traced as to what came first, and the usual declaration that if she would listen to him for a few minutes, he should be very brief, and certainly never tax her kindness in the same way again; she need not fear a repetition; it would be a subject prohibited entirely: he entered upon the luxury of relating circumstances and sensations of the first interest to himself, to one of whose affectionate sympathy he was quite convinced. How Fanny listened, with what curiosity and concern, what pain and what delight, how the agitation of his voice was watched, and how carefully her own eyes were fixed on any object but himself, may be imagined. The opening was alarming. He had seen Miss Crawford. He had been invited to see her. He had received a note from Lady Stornaway to beg him to call; and regarding it as what was meant to be the last, last interview of friendship, and investing her with all the feelings of shame and wretchedness which Crawford's sister ought to have known, he had gone to her in such a state of mind, so softened, so devoted, as made it for a few moments impossible to Fanny's fears that it should be the last. But as he proceeded in his story, these fears were over. She had met him, he said, with a serious-certainly a serious-even an agitated air; but before he had been able to speak one intelligible sentence, she had introduced the subject in a manner which he owned had shocked him. "'I heard you were in town,' said she; 'I wanted to see you. Let us talk over this sad business. What can equal the folly of our two relations?' I could not answer, but I believe my looks spoke. She felt reproved. Sometimes how quick to feel! With a graver look and voice she then added, 'I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister's expense.' So she began, but how she went on, Fanny, is not fit, is hardly fit to be repeated to you. I cannot recall all her words. I would not dwell upon them if I could. Their substance was great anger at the _folly_ of each. She reprobated her brother's folly in being drawn on by a woman whom he had never cared for, to do what must lose him the woman he adored; but still more the folly of poor Maria, in sacrificing such a situation, plunging into such difficulties, under the idea of being really loved by a man who had long ago made his indifference clear. Guess what I must have felt. To hear the woman whom-no harsher name than folly given! So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvass it! No reluctance, no horror, no feminine, shall I say, no modest loathings? This is what the world does. For where, Fanny, shall we find a woman whom nature had so richly endowed? Spoilt, spoilt!" After a little reflection, he went on with a sort of desperate calmness. "I will tell you everything, and then have done for ever. She saw it only as folly, and that folly stamped only by exposure. The want of common discretion, of caution: his going down to Richmond for the whole time of her being at Twickenham; her putting herself in the power of a servant; it was the detection, in short-oh, Fanny! it was the detection, not the offence, which she reprobated. It was the imprudence which had brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother to give up every dearer plan in order to fly with her." He stopt. "And what," said Fanny (believing herself required to speak), "what could you say?" "Nothing, nothing to be understood. I was like a man stunned. She went on, began to talk of you; yes, then she began to talk of you, regretting, as well she might, the loss of such a-. There she spoke very rationally. But she has always done justice to you. 'He has thrown away,' said she, 'such a woman as he will never see again. She would have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.' My dearest Fanny, I am giving you, I hope, more pleasure than pain by this retrospect of what might have been-but what never can be now. You do not wish me to be silent? If you do, give me but a look, a word, and I have done." No look or word was given. "Thank God," said he. "We were all disposed to wonder, but it seems to have been the merciful appointment of Providence that the heart which knew no guile should not suffer. She spoke of you with high praise and warm affection; yet, even here, there was alloy, a dash of evil; for in the midst of it she could exclaim, 'Why would not she have him? It is all her fault. Simple girl! I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage, and Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other object. He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth again. It would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in yearly meetings at Sotherton and Everingham.' Could you have believed it possible? But the charm is broken. My eyes are opened." "Cruel!" said Fanny, "quite cruel. At such a moment to give way to gaiety, to speak with lightness, and to you! Absolute cruelty." "Cruelty, do you call it? We differ there. No, hers is not a cruel nature. I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there being such feelings; in a perversion of mind which made it natural to her to treat the subject as she did. She was speaking only as she had been used to hear others speak, as she imagined everybody else would speak. Hers are not faults of temper. She would not voluntarily give unnecessary pain to any one, and though I may deceive myself, I cannot but think that for me, for my feelings, she would-. Hers are faults of principle, Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind. Perhaps it is best for me, since it leaves me so little to regret. Not so, however. Gladly would I submit to all the increased pain of losing her, rather than have to think of her as I do. I told her so." "Did you?" "Yes; when I left her I told her so." "How long were you together?" "Five-and-twenty minutes. Well, she went on to say that what remained now to be done was to bring about a marriage between them. She spoke of it, Fanny, with a steadier voice than I can." He was obliged to pause more than once as he continued. "'We must persuade Henry to marry her,' said she; 'and what with honour, and the certainty of having shut himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. Fanny he must give up. I do not think that even _he_ could now hope to succeed with one of her stamp, and therefore I hope we may find no insuperable difficulty. My influence, which is not small shall all go that way; and when once married, and properly supported by her own family, people of respectability as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a certain degree. In some circles, we know, she would never be admitted, but with good dinners, and large parties, there will always be those who will be glad of her acquaintance; and there is, undoubtedly, more liberality and candour on those points than formerly. What I advise is, that your father be quiet. Do not let him injure his own cause by interference. Persuade him to let things take their course. If by any officious exertions of his, she is induced to leave Henry's protection, there will be much less chance of his marrying her than if she remain with him. I know how he is likely to be influenced. Let Sir Thomas trust to his honour and compassion, and it may all end well; but if he get his daughter away, it will be destroying the chief hold.'" After repeating this, Edmund was so much affected that Fanny, watching him with silent, but most tender concern, was almost sorry that the subject had been entered on at all. It was long before he could speak again. At last, "Now, Fanny," said he, "I shall soon have done. I have told you the substance of all that she said. As soon as I could speak, I replied that I had not supposed it possible, coming in such a state of mind into that house as I had done, that anything could occur to make me suffer more, but that she had been inflicting deeper wounds in almost every sentence. That though I had, in the course of our acquaintance, been often sensible of some difference in our opinions, on points, too, of some moment, it had not entered my imagination to conceive the difference could be such as she had now proved it. That the manner in which she treated the dreadful crime committed by her brother and my sister (with whom lay the greater seduction I pretended not to say), but the manner in which she spoke of the crime itself, giving it every reproach but the right; considering its ill consequences only as they were to be braved or overborne by a defiance of decency and impudence in wrong; and last of all, and above all, recommending to us a compliance, a compromise, an acquiescence in the continuance of the sin, on the chance of a marriage which, thinking as I now thought of her brother, should rather be prevented than sought; all this together most grievously convinced me that I had never understood her before, and that, as far as related to mind, it had been the creature of my own imagination, not Miss Crawford, that I had been too apt to dwell on for many months past. That, perhaps, it was best for me; I had less to regret in sacrificing a friendship, feelings, hopes which must, at any rate, have been torn from me now. And yet, that I must and would confess that, could I have restored her to what she had appeared to me before, I would infinitely prefer any increase of the pain of parting, for the sake of carrying with me the right of tenderness and esteem. This is what I said, the purport of it; but, as you may imagine, not spoken so collectedly or methodically as I have repeated it to you. She was astonished, exceedingly astonished-more than astonished. I saw her change countenance. She turned extremely red. I imagined I saw a mixture of many feelings: a great, though short struggle; half a wish of yielding to truths, half a sense of shame, but habit, habit carried it. She would have laughed if she could. It was a sort of laugh, as she answered, 'A pretty good lecture, upon my word. Was it part of your last sermon? At this rate you will soon reform everybody at Mansfield and Thornton Lacey; and when I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary into foreign parts.' She tried to speak carelessly, but she was not so careless as she wanted to appear. I only said in reply, that from my heart I wished her well, and earnestly hoped that she might soon learn to think more justly, and not owe the most valuable knowledge we could any of us acquire, the knowledge of ourselves and of our duty, to the lessons of affliction, and immediately left the room. I had gone a few steps, Fanny, when I heard the door open behind me. 'Mr. Bertram,' said she. I looked back. 'Mr. Bertram,' said she, with a smile; but it was a smile ill-suited to the conversation that had passed, a saucy playful smile, seeming to invite in order to subdue me; at least it appeared so to me. I resisted; it was the impulse of the moment to resist, and still walked on. I have since, sometimes, for a moment, regretted that I did not go back, but I know I was right, and such has been the end of our acquaintance. And what an acquaintance has it been! How have I been deceived! Equally in brother and sister deceived! I thank you for your patience, Fanny. This has been the greatest relief, and now we will have done." And such was Fanny's dependence on his words, that for five minutes she thought they _had_ done. Then, however, it all came on again, or something very like it, and nothing less than Lady Bertram's rousing thoroughly up could really close such a conversation. Till that happened, they continued to talk of Miss Crawford alone, and how she had attached him, and how delightful nature had made her, and how excellent she would have been, had she fallen into good hands earlier. Fanny, now at liberty to speak openly, felt more than justified in adding to his knowledge of her real character, by some hint of what share his brother's state of health might be supposed to have in her wish for a complete reconciliation. This was not an agreeable intimation. Nature resisted it for a while. It would have been a vast deal pleasanter to have had her more disinterested in her attachment; but his vanity was not of a strength to fight long against reason. He submitted to believe that Tom's illness had influenced her, only reserving for himself this consoling thought, that considering the many counteractions of opposing habits, she had certainly been _more_ attached to him than could have been expected, and for his sake been more near doing right. Fanny thought exactly the same; and they were also quite agreed in their opinion of the lasting effect, the indelible impression, which such a disappointment must make on his mind. Time would undoubtedly abate somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a sort of thing which he never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with any other woman who could-it was too impossible to be named but with indignation. Fanny's friendship was all that he had to cling to.

It had been a miserable group at Mansfield. Mrs. Norris, as most attached to Maria, was really the greatest sufferer. Maria was her first favourite; the match had been her own contriving, and this conclusion of it almost overpowered her. She was an altered creature, quiet, stupefied, indifferent to everything that passed. She had been unable to direct or dictate, or even fancy herself useful. When really afflicted, her active powers had been all benumbed; and neither Lady Bertram nor Tom had received from her the smallest support. She had done no more for them than they had done for each other. They had been all solitary, helpless, and forlorn alike. Her companions were now relieved, but there was no good for her. Edmund was almost as welcome to his brother as Fanny was to her aunt; but Mrs. Norris was irritated by the sight of the person whom, in blind anger, she could have blamed as the daemon of the piece. Had Fanny accepted Mr. Crawford this could not have happened. Susan too was a grievance. Mrs. Norris had not spirits to notice her much, but she felt her as a spy, an intruder, and everything most odious. By her other aunt, Susan was received with quiet kindness. Lady Bertram could not give her many words, but she was ready to kiss and like her; and Susan was satisfied; for she was so happy in her escape from many certain evils, that she could have stood against a great deal more indifference than she met with. She was now left a good deal to herself, to get acquainted with the house and grounds as she could, and spent her days very happily in so doing, while those who might otherwise have attended to her were shut up, or wholly occupied with each other; Edmund trying to bury his own feelings in exertions for the relief of his brother's, and Fanny devoted to her aunt Bertram, and thinking she could never do enough for one who seemed so much to want her. To talk over the dreadful business with Fanny, talk and lament, was all Lady Bertram's consolation. To listen and give her kindness and sympathy in return, was all that could be done for her. The case admitted of no other comfort. Lady Bertram did not think deeply, but, guided by Sir Thomas, she thought justly on all important points; and she saw, therefore, in all its enormity, what had happened, and neither endeavoured herself, nor required Fanny to advise her, to think little of guilt and infamy. After a time, Fanny found it possible to direct her thoughts to other subjects, and revive some interest in her usual occupations; but whenever Lady Bertram thought of the event, she could see it only in one light, as comprehending the loss of a daughter, and a disgrace never to be wiped off. Fanny learnt from her all the particulars; and with the help of some letters to and from Sir Thomas, she was soon able to understand quite as much as she wished of the circumstances attending the story. Mrs. Rushworth had gone, for the Easter holidays, to Twickenham, with a family whom she had grown intimate with: a family of lively, agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit, for to their house Mr. Crawford had constant access at all times. Mr. Rushworth had been gone at this time to Bath, to pass a few days with his mother, and bring her back to town, and Maria was with these friends without any restraint, without even Julia; for Julia had removed from Wimpole Street two or three weeks before, on a visit to some relations of Sir Thomas; a removal which her father and mother were now disposed to attribute to Mr. Yates's account. Very soon after the Rushworths' return to Wimpole Street, Sir Thomas had received a letter from an old friend in London, who hearing and witnessing a good deal to alarm him in that quarter, wrote to advise Sir Thomas to come to London himself, and use his influence with his daughter to put an end to the intimacy which was already exposing her to unpleasant remarks, and evidently making Mr. Rushworth uneasy. Sir Thomas was preparing to act upon this letter, when it was followed by another, sent express from the same friend, to break to him the almost desperate situation in which affairs then stood. Mrs. Rushworth had left her husband's house: Mr. Rushworth had been in great anger and distress to him (Mr. Harding) for his advice; Mr. Harding feared there had been at least very flagrant indiscretion. The maidservant of Mrs. Rushworth, senior, threatened alarmingly. He was doing all in his power to quiet everything, with the hope of Mrs. Rushworth's return, but was so much counteracted in Wimpole Street by the influence of Mr. Rushworth's mother, that the worst consequences might be feared. This dreadful communication could not be kept from the rest of the family. Sir Thomas set off with Edmund, and the others had been left in a state of wretchedness, made worse by the receipt of the next letters from London. Everything was by that time public beyond a hope. The servant of Mrs. Rushworth, the mother, had exposure in her power, and supported by her mistress, was not to be silenced. The two Mrs. Rushworths, even in the short time they had been together, had disagreed; the bitterness of the elder against her daughter-in-law arising as much from the personal disrespect with which she had been treated as from her feelings for her son. She was unmanageable. But had she been less obstinate, the case would still have been hopeless, for Maria did not appear again, and there was every reason to conclude her to be concealed somewhere with Mr. Crawford, who had quitted his uncle's house on the very day of her absenting herself. Sir Thomas, however, remained a little longer in town, in the hope of discovering and snatching her from further vice, though all was lost on the side of character. His present state Fanny could hardly bear to think of. There was only one of his children who was not at this time a source of misery to him. Tom's illness had been so heightened by the shock of his sister's conduct, that even Lady Bertram had been struck by the difference, and all her alarms were regularly sent off to her husband; and Julia's elopement, the additional blow, though its force had been deadened at the moment, must, she knew, be sorely felt. His letters expressed how much he deplored it. Under any circumstances it would have been an unwelcome alliance; but to have it so clandestinely formed, and at such a time, placed Julia in a most unfavourable light. He called it a bad thing, done in the worst manner, and at the worst time; and though Julia's act was more pardonable than Maria's, as folly rather than vice, he regarded it as probable that her state would end up like her sister's. Such was his opinion of the set into which she had thrown herself. Fanny felt for him most acutely. He could have no comfort but in Edmund. Every other child must be racking his heart. His displeasure against herself, she trusted, would now be done away. She should be justified in refusing Mr. Crawford; but this, though important to herself, would be poor consolation to Sir Thomas. What could her justification or her attachment do for him? His support must be Edmund alone. She was mistaken, however, in supposing that Edmund gave his father no present pain. It was of a less poignant nature than that caused by the others; but Sir Thomas considered Edmund's happiness as very deeply involved, cut off, as he must be, from the woman whom he had been pursuing with undoubted attachment and strong probability of success; and who, in everything but her despicable brother, would have been so eligible a connexion. He was aware of what Edmund must be suffering, when they were in town. He had guessed his feelings; and, having reason to think that one interview with Miss Crawford had taken place, from which Edmund derived only increased distress, had been anxious on that account to get him out of town, and had engaged him in taking Fanny home to her aunt, with a view to his relief no less than theirs. Sir Thomas was not in the secret of Miss Crawford's character. Had he been privy to her conversation with his son, he would not have wished her to belong to him, though her twenty thousand pounds had been forty. Fanny had no doubt that Edmund must be for ever divided from Miss Crawford; and yet, till she knew that he felt the same, her own conviction was not enough. She thought he did, but she wanted to be assured of it. If he would now speak to her, it would be most consoling; but that was not to be. She seldom saw him: never alone. He probably avoided being alone with her, his own affliction being too keenly felt to be communicated. This must be his state. He yielded, but with agonies which did not admit of speech. Long would it be before Miss Crawford's name passed his lips again. It was long. They reached Mansfield on Thursday, and it was not till Sunday that Edmund began to talk to her on the subject. Sitting with her on a wet Sunday evening-the very time when the heart must be opened, and everything told; no one else in the room, except his mother, who was asleep, it was impossible not to speak. And so, with the declaration that if she would listen to him for a few minutes, he should be very brief, and never tax her kindness in the same way again; he entered upon the luxury of relating circumstances and sensations of the first interest to himself, to one of whose affectionate sympathy he was quite convinced. How Fanny listened, with what curiosity and concern, what pain and what delight, how carefully her own eyes were fixed on any object but himself, may be imagined. The opening was alarming. He had seen Miss Crawford. He had received a note from Lady Stornaway begging him to call; and regarding it as what must be the last, last interview of friendship, and imagining the shame and wretchedness which Crawford's sister ought to have felt, he had gone to her in such a softened and devoted state of mind, as made it impossible to Fanny's fears that it should be the last. But as he proceeded in his story, these fears were over. She had met him, he said, with a serious, even an agitated air; but before he had been able to speak one sentence, she had introduced the subject in a manner which had shocked him. "'I heard you were in town,' said she; 'I wanted to see you. Let us talk over this sad business. What can equal the folly of our two relations?' I could not answer, but I believe my looks spoke. She felt reproved. Sometimes how quick to feel! With a graver look she then added, 'I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister's expense.' So she began, but how she went on, Fanny, is hardly fit to be repeated to you. I cannot recall all her words. I would not dwell upon them if I could. Their substance was great anger at the folly of each. Her brother's folly in being drawn on by a woman whom he had never cared for, to do what must lose him the woman he adored; but still more the folly of poor Maria, in sacrificing such a situation, under the idea of being really loved by a man who had long ago made his indifference clear. Guess what I must have felt. To hear the woman whom-no harsher name than folly given, and so coolly! No reluctance, no horror, no modest loathings? This is what the world does. For where, Fanny, shall we find a woman whom nature had so richly endowed? Spoilt, spoilt!" After a little reflection, he went on with a sort of desperate calmness. "I will tell you everything, and then have done for ever. She saw it only as folly, and that folly stamped only by exposure. The want of caution: Maria's putting herself in the power of a servant; it was the detection, in short-oh, Fanny! it was the detection, not the offence, which she deplored. It was the imprudence which had brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother to give up every dearer plan in order to fly with her." He stopped. "And what," said Fanny (believing herself required to speak), "what could you say?" "Nothing. I was like a man stunned. She began to talk of you; regretting, as well she might, the loss of such a-. There she spoke very rationally. But she has always done justice to you. 'He has thrown away,' said she, 'such a woman as he will never see again. She would have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.' My dearest Fanny, I am giving you, I hope, more pleasure than pain by this retrospect of what might have been-but never can be now. You do not wish me to be silent? If you do, give me but a look, a word, and I have done." No look or word was given. "Thank God," said he. "It seems to have been the merciful gift of Providence that the heart which knew no guile should not suffer. She spoke of you with high praise and warm affection; yet, even here, there was a dash of evil; for in the midst of it she exclaimed, 'Why would not she have him? It is all her fault. Simple girl! I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage, and Henry would have been too happy and busy to want any other object. He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth again. It would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in yearly meetings at Sotherton and Everingham.' Could you have believed it possible? But the charm is broken. My eyes are opened." "Cruel!" said Fanny, "quite cruel. At such a moment to speak with lightness, and to you! Absolute cruelty." "Cruelty, do you call it? We differ there. No, hers is not a cruel nature. I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there being such feelings; in a perversion of mind which made it natural to her to treat the subject as she did. She was speaking only as she had been used to hear others speak, as she imagined everybody else would speak. Hers are not faults of temper. Hers are faults of principle, Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, damaged mind. Perhaps it is best for me, since it leaves me so little to regret. Not so, however. Gladly would I submit to all the increased pain of losing her, rather than have to think of her as I do. When I left her, I told her so." "How long were you together?" "Five-and-twenty minutes. She went on to say that what remained now to be done was to bring about a marriage between them. She spoke of it, Fanny, with a steadier voice than I can." He was obliged to pause more than once as he continued. "'We must persuade Henry to marry her,' said she; 'and what with honour, and the certainty of having shut himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. Fanny he must give up. I do not think that even he could now hope to succeed with one of her stamp. My influence shall all go that way; and when once married, and properly supported by her own family, respectable as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a certain degree. In some circles, we know, she would never be admitted, but there will always be those who will be glad of her acquaintance; and there is more liberality on those points than formerly. What I advise is, that your father be quiet. Persuade him to let things take their course. If by any interference of his, she is induced to leave Henry's protection, there will be much less chance of his marrying her than if she remain with him. I know how he is likely to be influenced. Let Sir Thomas trust to Henry's honour and compassion, and it may all end well; but if he get his daughter away, it will be destroying the chief hold.'" After repeating this, Edmund was so much affected that Fanny, watching him with silent, but most tender concern, was almost sorry that the subject had been entered on at all. It was long before he could speak again. At last, "Now, Fanny," said he, "I shall soon have done. I have told you the substance of all that she said. As soon as I could speak, I replied that I had not supposed it possible, coming in such a state of mind into that house as I had done, that anything could occur to make me suffer more, but that she had been inflicting deeper wounds in almost every sentence. That though I had been aware of some difference in our opinions, I had not imagined that the difference could be such as she had now proved it. That the manner in which she treated the dreadful crime committed, giving it every reproach but the right; considering its ill consequences only as they were to be braved by a defiance of decency; and last of all, recommending to us a compliance, an acquiescence in the continuance of the sin, on the chance of a marriage which, thinking as I now thought of her brother, should rather be prevented than sought; all this together most grievously convinced me that I had never understood her before, and that it had been the creature of my own imagination, not Miss Crawford, that I had been dwelling on for many months past. That, perhaps, it was best for me; I had less to regret in sacrificing feelings and hopes which must be torn from me now. And yet, I confessed that, could I have restored her to what she had appeared to me before, I would infinitely prefer any increase of the pain of parting, for the sake of carrying with me the right of tenderness and esteem. "This is the purport of what I said; but, as you may imagine, not spoken so collectedly as I have repeated it to you. She was astonished-more than astonished. She turned extremely red. I imagined I saw a mixture of many feelings: a great, though short struggle; half a wish of yielding to truths, half a sense of shame; but habit, habit carried it. She would have laughed if she could. She answered, 'A pretty good lecture, upon my word. Was it part of your last sermon? At this rate you will soon reform everybody at Mansfield; and when I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated preacher, or as a missionary into foreign parts.' She tried to speak carelessly, but she was not so careless as she wanted to appear. I said that from my heart I wished her well, and earnestly hoped that she might learn to think more justly, and not owe the most valuable knowledge any of us could acquire, the knowledge of ourselves and of our duty, to the lessons of affliction. I immediately left the room. I had gone a few steps, Fanny, when I heard the door open behind me. I looked back. 'Mr. Bertram,' said she, with a smile; but it was a smile ill-suited to the conversation that had passed, a saucy playful smile, seeming to invite in order to subdue me; at least it appeared so to me. I resisted; and still walked on. I have since, sometimes, for a moment, regretted that I did not go back, but I know I was right, and such has been the end of our acquaintance. And what an acquaintance has it been! How have I been deceived! I thank you for your patience, Fanny. This has been the greatest relief, and now we will have done." And for five minutes she thought they had done. Then, however, it all came on again, or something very like it, and nothing less than Lady Bertram's rousing up could really close such a conversation. Till then, they continued to talk of Miss Crawford, and how she had attached him, and how delightful nature had made her, and how excellent she would have been, had she fallen into good hands earlier. Fanny, now at liberty to speak openly, felt justified in adding to his knowledge of her real character, by some hint of what share his brother's state of health might have in her wish for a reconciliation. This was not an agreeable idea. Nature resisted it for a while. It would have been a vast deal pleasanter to have had her more disinterested in her attachment; but his vanity was not strong enough to fight long against reason. He submitted to believe that Tom's illness had influenced her, only consoling himself with the thought that considering the counteractions of opposing habits, she had certainly been more attached to him than could have been expected, and for his sake been more near doing right. Fanny thought exactly the same; and they were also quite agreed in their opinion of the lasting and indelible impression which such a disappointment must make on his mind. Time would undoubtedly lessen his sufferings, but still it was something which he never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with any other woman who could-but that was impossible. Fanny's friendship was all he had to cling to.

Mansfield Park

Chapter 47

Miss Crawford's uneasiness was much lightened by this conversation, and she walked home again in spirits which might have defied almost another week of the same small party in the same bad weather, had they been put to the proof; but as that very evening brought her brother down from London again in quite, or more than quite, his usual cheerfulness, she had nothing farther to try her own. His still refusing to tell her what he had gone for was but the promotion of gaiety; a day before it might have irritated, but now it was a pleasant joke-suspected only of concealing something planned as a pleasant surprise to herself. And the next day _did_ bring a surprise to her. Henry had said he should just go and ask the Bertrams how they did, and be back in ten minutes, but he was gone above an hour; and when his sister, who had been waiting for him to walk with her in the garden, met him at last most impatiently in the sweep, and cried out, "My dear Henry, where can you have been all this time?" he had only to say that he had been sitting with Lady Bertram and Fanny. "Sitting with them an hour and a half!" exclaimed Mary. But this was only the beginning of her surprise. "Yes, Mary," said he, drawing her arm within his, and walking along the sweep as if not knowing where he was: "I could not get away sooner; Fanny looked so lovely! I am quite determined, Mary. My mind is entirely made up. Will it astonish you? No: you must be aware that I am quite determined to marry Fanny Price." The surprise was now complete; for, in spite of whatever his consciousness might suggest, a suspicion of his having any such views had never entered his sister's imagination; and she looked so truly the astonishment she felt, that he was obliged to repeat what he had said, and more fully and more solemnly. The conviction of his determination once admitted, it was not unwelcome. There was even pleasure with the surprise. Mary was in a state of mind to rejoice in a connexion with the Bertram family, and to be not displeased with her brother's marrying a little beneath him. "Yes, Mary," was Henry's concluding assurance. "I am fairly caught. You know with what idle designs I began; but this is the end of them. I have, I flatter myself, made no inconsiderable progress in her affections; but my own are entirely fixed." "Lucky, lucky girl!" cried Mary, as soon as she could speak; "what a match for her! My dearest Henry, this must be my _first_ feeling; but my _second_, which you shall have as sincerely, is, that I approve your choice from my soul, and foresee your happiness as heartily as I wish and desire it. You will have a sweet little wife; all gratitude and devotion. Exactly what you deserve. What an amazing match for her! Mrs. Norris often talks of her luck; what will she say now? The delight of all the family, indeed! And she has some _true_ friends in it! How _they_ will rejoice! But tell me all about it! Talk to me for ever. When did you begin to think seriously about her?" Nothing could be more impossible than to answer such a question, though nothing could be more agreeable than to have it asked. "How the pleasing plague had stolen on him" he could not say; and before he had expressed the same sentiment with a little variation of words three times over, his sister eagerly interrupted him with, "Ah, my dear Henry, and this is what took you to London! This was your business! You chose to consult the Admiral before you made up your mind." But this he stoutly denied. He knew his uncle too well to consult him on any matrimonial scheme. The Admiral hated marriage, and thought it never pardonable in a young man of independent fortune. "When Fanny is known to him," continued Henry, "he will doat on her. She is exactly the woman to do away every prejudice of such a man as the Admiral, for she is exactly such a woman as he thinks does not exist in the world. She is the very impossibility he would describe, if indeed he has now delicacy of language enough to embody his own ideas. But till it is absolutely settled-settled beyond all interference, he shall know nothing of the matter. No, Mary, you are quite mistaken. You have not discovered my business yet." "Well, well, I am satisfied. I know now to whom it must relate, and am in no hurry for the rest. Fanny Price! wonderful, quite wonderful! That Mansfield should have done so much for-that _you_ should have found your fate in Mansfield! But you are quite right; you could not have chosen better. There is not a better girl in the world, and you do not want for fortune; and as to her connexions, they are more than good. The Bertrams are undoubtedly some of the first people in this country. She is niece to Sir Thomas Bertram; that will be enough for the world. But go on, go on. Tell me more. What are your plans? Does she know her own happiness?" "No." "What are you waiting for?" "For-for very little more than opportunity. Mary, she is not like her cousins; but I think I shall not ask in vain." "Oh no! you cannot. Were you even less pleasing-supposing her not to love you already (of which, however, I can have little doubt)-you would be safe. The gentleness and gratitude of her disposition would secure her all your own immediately. From my soul I do not think she would marry you _without_ love; that is, if there is a girl in the world capable of being uninfluenced by ambition, I can suppose it her; but ask her to love you, and she will never have the heart to refuse." As soon as her eagerness could rest in silence, he was as happy to tell as she could be to listen; and a conversation followed almost as deeply interesting to her as to himself, though he had in fact nothing to relate but his own sensations, nothing to dwell on but Fanny's charms. Fanny's beauty of face and figure, Fanny's graces of manner and goodness of heart, were the exhaustless theme. The gentleness, modesty, and sweetness of her character were warmly expatiated on; that sweetness which makes so essential a part of every woman's worth in the judgment of man, that though he sometimes loves where it is not, he can never believe it absent. Her temper he had good reason to depend on and to praise. He had often seen it tried. Was there one of the family, excepting Edmund, who had not in some way or other continually exercised her patience and forbearance? Her affections were evidently strong. To see her with her brother! What could more delightfully prove that the warmth of her heart was equal to its gentleness? What could be more encouraging to a man who had her love in view? Then, her understanding was beyond every suspicion, quick and clear; and her manners were the mirror of her own modest and elegant mind. Nor was this all. Henry Crawford had too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles in a wife, though he was too little accustomed to serious reflection to know them by their proper name; but when he talked of her having such a steadiness and regularity of conduct, such a high notion of honour, and such an observance of decorum as might warrant any man in the fullest dependence on her faith and integrity, he expressed what was inspired by the knowledge of her being well principled and religious. "I could so wholly and absolutely confide in her," said he; "and _that_ is what I want." Well might his sister, believing as she really did that his opinion of Fanny Price was scarcely beyond her merits, rejoice in her prospects. "The more I think of it," she cried, "the more am I convinced that you are doing quite right; and though I should never have selected Fanny Price as the girl most likely to attach you, I am now persuaded she is the very one to make you happy. Your wicked project upon her peace turns out a clever thought indeed. You will both find your good in it." "It was bad, very bad in me against such a creature; but I did not know her then; and she shall have no reason to lament the hour that first put it into my head. I will make her very happy, Mary; happier than she has ever yet been herself, or ever seen anybody else. I will not take her from Northamptonshire. I shall let Everingham, and rent a place in this neighbourhood; perhaps Stanwix Lodge. I shall let a seven years' lease of Everingham. I am sure of an excellent tenant at half a word. I could name three people now, who would give me my own terms and thank me." "Ha!" cried Mary; "settle in Northamptonshire! That is pleasant! Then we shall be all together." When she had spoken it, she recollected herself, and wished it unsaid; but there was no need of confusion; for her brother saw her only as the supposed inmate of Mansfield parsonage, and replied but to invite her in the kindest manner to his own house, and to claim the best right in her. "You must give us more than half your time," said he. "I cannot admit Mrs. Grant to have an equal claim with Fanny and myself, for we shall both have a right in you. Fanny will be so truly your sister!" Mary had only to be grateful and give general assurances; but she was now very fully purposed to be the guest of neither brother nor sister many months longer. "You will divide your year between London and Northamptonshire?" "Yes." "That's right; and in London, of course, a house of your own: no longer with the Admiral. My dearest Henry, the advantage to you of getting away from the Admiral before your manners are hurt by the contagion of his, before you have contracted any of his foolish opinions, or learned to sit over your dinner as if it were the best blessing of life! _You_ are not sensible of the gain, for your regard for him has blinded you; but, in my estimation, your marrying early may be the saving of you. To have seen you grow like the Admiral in word or deed, look or gesture, would have broken my heart." "Well, well, we do not think quite alike here. The Admiral has his faults, but he is a very good man, and has been more than a father to me. Few fathers would have let me have my own way half so much. You must not prejudice Fanny against him. I must have them love one another." Mary refrained from saying what she felt, that there could not be two persons in existence whose characters and manners were less accordant: time would discover it to him; but she could not help _this_ reflection on the Admiral. "Henry, I think so highly of Fanny Price, that if I could suppose the next Mrs. Crawford would have half the reason which my poor ill-used aunt had to abhor the very name, I would prevent the marriage, if possible; but I know you: I know that a wife you _loved_ would be the happiest of women, and that even when you ceased to love, she would yet find in you the liberality and good-breeding of a gentleman." The impossibility of not doing everything in the world to make Fanny Price happy, or of ceasing to love Fanny Price, was of course the groundwork of his eloquent answer. "Had you seen her this morning, Mary," he continued, "attending with such ineffable sweetness and patience to all the demands of her aunt's stupidity, working with her, and for her, her colour beautifully heightened as she leant over the work, then returning to her seat to finish a note which she was previously engaged in writing for that stupid woman's service, and all this with such unpretending gentleness, so much as if it were a matter of course that she was not to have a moment at her own command, her hair arranged as neatly as it always is, and one little curl falling forward as she wrote, which she now and then shook back, and in the midst of all this, still speaking at intervals to _me_, or listening, and as if she liked to listen, to what I said. Had you seen her so, Mary, you would not have implied the possibility of her power over my heart ever ceasing." "My dearest Henry," cried Mary, stopping short, and smiling in his face, "how glad I am to see you so much in love! It quite delights me. But what will Mrs. Rushworth and Julia say?" "I care neither what they say nor what they feel. They will now see what sort of woman it is that can attach me, that can attach a man of sense. I wish the discovery may do them any good. And they will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness. They will be angry," he added, after a moment's silence, and in a cooler tone; "Mrs. Rushworth will be very angry. It will be a bitter pill to her; that is, like other bitter pills, it will have two moments' ill flavour, and then be swallowed and forgotten; for I am not such a coxcomb as to suppose her feelings more lasting than other women's, though _I_ was the object of them. Yes, Mary, my Fanny will feel a difference indeed: a daily, hourly difference, in the behaviour of every being who approaches her; and it will be the completion of my happiness to know that I am the doer of it, that I am the person to give the consequence so justly her due. Now she is dependent, helpless, friendless, neglected, forgotten." "Nay, Henry, not by all; not forgotten by all; not friendless or forgotten. Her cousin Edmund never forgets her." "Edmund! True, I believe he is, generally speaking, kind to her, and so is Sir Thomas in his way; but it is the way of a rich, superior, long-worded, arbitrary uncle. What can Sir Thomas and Edmund together do, what _do_ they do for her happiness, comfort, honour, and dignity in the world, to what I _shall_ do?"

Miss Crawford's uneasiness was much lightened by this conversation, and she walked home in better spirits. As that very evening brought her brother down from London again in his usual cheerfulness, she had nothing farther to dismay her. He still refused to tell her what he had gone for; the day before it might have irritated, but now it was a pleasant joke-she suspected him of concealing some surprise to herself. The next day did bring a surprise to her. Henry had said he would just go and ask the Bertrams how they did, and be back in ten minutes, but he was gone above an hour. When his sister, who had been waiting for him impatiently, cried out, "My dear Henry, where can you have been all this time?" he said that he had been sitting with Lady Bertram and Fanny. "For an hour and a half!" exclaimed Mary. "Yes, Mary," said he, drawing her arm within his: "I could not get away sooner; Fanny looked so lovely! I am quite determined, Mary. My mind is entirely made up. You must be aware that I am quite determined to marry Fanny Price." The surprise was now complete; for his sister had never suspected his having any such views; and she looked so astonished that he was obliged to repeat what he had said. The surprise was not unwelcome. There was even pleasure with it. Mary was in a state of mind to rejoice in a connexion with the Bertram family, and to be not displeased with her brother's marrying a little beneath him. "Yes, Mary," was Henry's assurance. "I am fairly caught. You know with what idle designs I began; but this is the end of them. I have, I flatter myself, made progress in her affections; but my own are entirely fixed." "Lucky, lucky girl!" cried Mary; "what a match for her! I approve your choice from my soul. You will have a sweet little wife; all gratitude and devotion. Exactly what you deserve. What an amazing match for her! How her family will rejoice! But tell me all about it! When did you begin to think seriously about her?" Nothing could be more impossible, yet more agreeable, than to answer such a question. "How the pleasing plague had stolen on him" he could not say. "Ah, my dear Henry, this is what took you to London! You chose to consult the Admiral before you made up your mind." But this he stoutly denied; the Admiral hated marriage. "When Fanny is known to him," continued Henry, "he will dote on her. She is exactly the woman to do away every prejudice of such a man as the Admiral. But till it is absolutely settled, he shall know nothing of the matter. No, Mary, you have not discovered my business yet." "Well, I am satisfied. I know now to whom it must relate, and am in no hurry for the rest. Fanny Price! quite wonderful! You could not have chosen better. There is not a better girl in the world; and as to her connexions, she is niece to Sir Thomas Bertram: that is enough. But go on. Tell me more. Does she know her own happiness?" "No." "What are you waiting for?" "For very little more than opportunity. Mary, she is not like her cousins; but I think I shall not ask in vain." "Oh no! you cannot. Even supposing her not to love you already (of which, however, I have little doubt)-you would be safe. Her gentleness and gratitude would secure her immediately. I do not think she would marry you without love; but ask her to love you, and she will never have the heart to refuse." A conversation followed almost as deeply interesting to her as to himself, though he had in fact nothing to relate but his own sensations, nothing to dwell on but Fanny's charms. Fanny's beauty, Fanny's graces of manner and goodness of heart, were the exhaustless theme. Her temper he had good reason to depend on. He had often seen it tried. Was there one of the family, excepting Edmund, who had not in some way exercised her patience? Her affections were evidently strong. To see her with her brother! Then, her understanding was quick and clear; and her manners were the mirror of her modest and elegant mind. Nor was this all. Henry Crawford had too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles in a wife, though he might not know them by their proper name; but when he talked of her having a steadiness of conduct, and a high notion of honour and decorum, he expressed what was inspired by the knowledge of her being well principled and religious. "I could so wholly and absolutely confide in her," said he; "and that is what I want." Well might his sister rejoice in Fanny's prospects. "I am convinced that you are doing right; and though I should never have selected Fanny Price as the girl to attach you, I am now persuaded she is the very one to make you happy. Your wicked project upon her peace turns out a clever thought indeed. You will both find your good in it." "It was bad, very bad in me against such a creature; but I did not know her then; and I will make her very happy, Mary; happier than she has ever yet been. I will not take her from Northamptonshire. I shall let Everingham, and rent a place in this neighbourhood." "Ha!" cried Mary; "settle in Northamptonshire! That is pleasant! Then we shall be all together." When she had spoken it, she recollected herself, and wished it unsaid; but her brother saw her only as the inmate of Mansfield parsonage, and invited her in the kindest manner to his own house. "You must give us more than half your time," said he. "I cannot admit Mrs. Grant to have an equal claim with Fanny and myself. Fanny will be so truly your sister!" Mary gave grateful assurances; but she was now very fully purposed to be the guest of neither brother nor sister many months longer. "In London, of course, you will have a house of your own: no longer with the Admiral. My dearest Henry, the advantage to you of getting away from the Admiral before your manners are hurt by contagion of his; before you have contracted any of his foolish opinions, or learned to sit over your dinner as if it were the best blessing of life! Your marrying early may be the saving of you. To have seen you grow like the Admiral would have broken my heart." "Well, well, we do not think alike here. The Admiral has his faults, but he is a very good man, and has been more than a father to me. Few fathers would have let me have my own way half so much. You must not prejudice Fanny against him. I must have them love one another." Mary refrained from saying that two people could not be less alike; but she could not help remarking, "Henry, if I supposed the next Mrs. Crawford were to be treated like my poor aunt, the Admiral's wife, I would prevent the marriage; but I know you. I know that a wife you loved would be the happiest of women, and that even when you ceased to love, she would still find in you the good-breeding of a gentleman." The impossibility of ceasing to love Fanny Price was of course his eloquent answer. "Had you seen her this morning, Mary, attending with such sweetness and patience to all the demands of her aunt's stupidity, her colour beautifully heightened as she leant over her work, with such unpretending gentleness, one little curl of hair falling forward as she wrote, which she now and then shook back; and in the midst of all this, still listening to what I said. Had you seen her so, Mary, you would not have thought her power over my heart could ever cease." "My dearest Henry," cried Mary, "how glad I am to see you so much in love! But what will Mrs. Rushworth and Julia say?" "I care not. They will now see what sort of woman it is that can attach me, that can attach a man of sense. I wish the discovery may do them good. They will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness. They will be angry," he added, after a moment's silence, and in a cooler tone; "Mrs. Rushworth will be very angry. It will be a bitter pill to her; that is, it will have two moments' ill flavour, and then be swallowed and forgotten; for I do not suppose her feelings more lasting than other women's. My Fanny will feel a difference in the behaviour of everyone who approaches her; and I will be happy to know that I am the doer of it. Now she is dependent, friendless, neglected, forgotten." "Nay, Henry, not by all. Her cousin Edmund never forgets her." "Edmund! True, I believe he is generally kind to her, and so is Sir Thomas in his way; but it is the way of a rich, superior, long-worded uncle. What can Sir Thomas and Edmund do for her happiness, comfort, honour, and dignity, compared to what I shall do?"

Mansfield Park

Chapter 30

"Through cross to crown!--And though thy spirit's life Trials untold assail with giant strength, Good cheer! good cheer! Soon ends the bitter strife, And thou shalt reign in peace with Christ at length." KOSEGARTEN. "Ay sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to need Thee on that road; But woe being come, the soul is dumb, that crieth not on 'God.'" MRS. BROWNING. That afternoon she walked swiftly to the Higgins's house. Mary was looking out for her, with a half-distrustful face. Margaret smiled into her eyes to re-assure her. They passed quickly through the house-place, upstairs, and into the quiet presence of the dead. Then Margaret was glad that she had come. The face, so often weary with pain, so restless with troublous thoughts, had now the faint soft smile of eternal rest upon it. The slow tears gathered into Margaret's eyes, but a deep calm entered into her soul. And that was death! It looked more peaceful than life. All beautiful scriptures came into her mind. "They rest from their labours." "The weary are at rest." "He giveth his beloved sleep." Slowly, slowly Margaret turned away from the bed. Mary was humbly sobbing in the back-ground. They went downstairs without a word. Resting his hand upon the house-table, Nicholas Higgins stood in the midst of the floor; his great eyes startled open by the news he had heard, as he came along the court, from many busy tongues. His eyes were dry and fierce; studying the reality of her death; bringing himself to understand that her place should know her no more. For she had been sickly, dying so long, that he had persuaded himself she would not die; that she would "pull through." Margaret felt as if she had no business to be there, familiarly acquainting herself with the surroundings of death, which he, the father, had only just learnt. There had been a pause of an instant on the steep crooked stair, when she first saw him; but now she tried to steal past his abstracted gaze, and to leave him in the solemn circle of his household misery. Mary sat down on the first chair she came to, and throwing her apron over her head, began to cry. The noise appeared to rouse him. He took sudden hold of Margaret's arm, and held her till he could gather words to speak. His throat seemed dry; they came up thick, and choked, and hoarse: "Were yo' with her? Did yo' see her die?" "No!" replied Margaret, standing still with the utmost patience, now she found herself perceived. It was some time before he spoke again, but he kept his hold on her arm. "All men must die," said he at last, with a strange sort of gravity, which first suggested to Margaret the idea that he had been drinking--not enough to intoxicate himself, but enough to make his thoughts bewildered. "But she were younger than me." Still he pondered over the event, not looking at Margaret, though he grasped her tight. Suddenly, he looked up at her with a wild searching inquiry in his glance. "Yo're sure and certain she's dead--not in a dwam, a faint? she's been so before, often." "She is dead," replied Margaret. She felt no fear in speaking to him, though he hurt her arm with his gripe, and wild gleams came across the stupidity of his eyes. "She is dead!" she said. He looked at her still with that searching look, which seemed to fade out of his eyes as he gazed. Then he suddenly let go his hold of Margaret, and, throwing his body half across the table, he shook it and every piece of furniture in the room, with his violent sobs. Mary came trembling towards him. "Get thee gone!--get thee gone!" he cried, striking wildly and blindly at her. "What do I care for thee?" Margaret took her hand and held it softly in hers. He tore his hair, he beat his head against the hard wood, then he lay exhausted and stupid. Still his daughter and Margaret did not move. Mary trembled from head to foot. At last--it might have been a quarter of an hour, it might have been an hour--he lifted himself up. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and he seemed to have forgotten that any one was by; he scowled at the watchers when he saw them. He shook himself heavily, gave them one more sullen look, spoke never a word, but made for the door. "Oh, father, father!" said Mary, throwing herself upon his arm,--"not to-night! Any night but to-night. Oh, help me! he's going out to drink again! Father, I'll not leave yo'. Yo' may strike, but I'll not leave yo'. She told me last of all to keep yo' fro' drink!" But Margaret stood in the doorway, silent yet commanding. He looked up at her defyingly. "It's my own house. Stand out o' the way, wench, or I'll make yo'!" He had shaken off Mary with violence; he looked ready to strike Margaret. But she never moved a feature--never took her deep, serious eyes off him. He stared back on her with gloomy fierceness. If she had stirred hand or foot, he would have thrust her aside with even more violence than he had used to his own daughter, whose face was bleeding from her fall against a chair. "What are yo' looking at me in that way for?" asked he at last, daunted and awed by her severe calm. "If yo' think for to keep me from going what gait I choose, because she loved yo'--and in my own house, too, where I never asked yo' to come, yo're mista'en. It's very hard upon a man that he can't go to the only comfort left." Margaret felt that he acknowledged her power. What could she do next? He had seated himself on a chair, close to the door; half-conquered half-resenting; intending to go out as soon as she left her position, but unwilling to use the violence he had threatened not five minutes before. Margaret laid her hand on his arm. "Come with me," she said. "Come and see her!" The voice in which she spoke was very low and solemn; but there was no fear or doubt expressed in it, either of him or of his compliance. He sullenly rose up. He stood uncertain, with dogged irresolution upon his face. She waited him there; quietly and patiently waited for his time to move. He had a strange pleasure in making her wait; but at last he moved towards the stairs. She and he stood by the corpse. "Her last words to Mary were, 'Keep my father fro' drink.'" "It canna hurt her now," muttered he. "Nought can hurt her now." Then, raising his voice to a wailing cry, he went on: "We may quarrel and fall out--we may make peace and be friends--we may clem to skin and bone--and nought o' all our griefs will ever touch her more. Hoo's had her portion on 'em. What wi' hard work first, and sickness at last, hoo' led the life of a dog. And to die without knowing one good piece o' rejoicing in all her days! Nay, wench, whatever hoo said, hoo can know nought about it now, and I mun ha' a sup o' drink just to steady me again sorrow." "No," said Margaret, softening with his softened manner. "You shall not. If her life has been what you say, at any rate she did not fear death as some do. Oh, you should have heard her speak of the life to come--the life hidden with God, that she is now gone to." He shook his head, glancing sideways up at Margaret as he did so. His pale haggard face struck her painfully. "You are sorely tried. Where have you been all day--not at work?" "Not at work, sure enough," said he, with a short, grim laugh. "Not at what you call work. I were at the Committee, till I were sickened out wi' trying to make fools hear reason. I were fetched to Boucher's wife afore seven this morning. She's bed-fast, but she were raving and raging to know where her dunner-headed brute of a chap was, as if I'd to keep him--as if he were fit to be ruled by me. The d--d fool, who has put his foot in all our plans! And I've walked my feet sore wi' going about for to see men who wouldn't be seen, now the law is raised against us. And I were sore-hearted, too, which is worse than sore-footed; and if I did see a friend who ossed to treat me, I never knew hoo lay a-dying here. Bess, lass, thou'd believe me, thou wouldst--wouldstn't thou?" turning to the poor dumb form with wild appeal. "I am sure," said Margaret, "I am sure you did not know; it was quite sudden. But, now, you see, it would be different; you do know; you do see her lying there; you hear what she said with her last breath. You will not go?" No answer. In fact, where was he to look for comfort? "Come home with me," said she at last, with a bold venture, half trembling at her own proposal as she made it. "At least you shall have some comfortable food, which I'm sure you need." "Yo'r father's a parson?" asked he, with a sudden turn in his ideas. "He was," said Margaret, shortly. "I'll go and take a dish o' tea with him, since yo've asked me. I've many a thing I often wished to say to a parson, and I'm not particular as to whether he's preaching now, or not." Margaret was perplexed; his drinking tea with her father, who would be totally unprepared for his visitor--her mother so ill--seemed utterly out of the question; and yet, if she drew back now, it would be worse than ever--sure to drive him to the gin-shop. She thought that if she could only get him to their own house, it was so great a step gained that she would trust to the chapter of accidents for the next. "Good-bye, ou'd wench! We've parted company at last, we have! But thou'st been a blessin' to thy father ever sin' thou wert born. Bless thy white lips, lass,--they've a smile on 'em now! and I'm glad to see it once again, though I'm lone and forlorn for evermore." He stooped down and fondly kissed his daughter; covered up her face, and turned to follow Margaret. She had hastily gone down stairs to tell Mary of the arrangement; to say it was the only place she could think of to keep him from the gin-palace; to urge Mary to come too, for her heart smote her at the idea of leaving the poor affectionate girl alone. But Mary had friends amongst the neighbours, she said, who would come in and sit a bit with her; it was all right; but father-- He was there by them or she would have spoken more. He had shaken off his emotion, as if he was ashamed of having ever given way to it; and had even o'erleaped himself so much that he assumed a sort of bitter mirth, like the crackling of thorns under a pot. "I'm going to take my tea wi' her father, I am." But he slouched his cap low down over his brow as he went out into the street, and looked neither to the right nor to the left, while he tramped along by Margaret's side; he feared being upset by the words, still more the looks, of sympathising neighbours. So he and Margaret walked in silence. As he got near the street in which he knew she lived, he looked down at his clothes, his hands, his shoes. "I should m'appen ha' cleaned mysel', first." It certainly would have been desirable, but Margaret assured him he should be allowed to go into the yard, and have soap and towel provided; she would not let him slip out of her hands just then. While he followed the house-servant along the passage, and through the kitchen, stepping cautiously on every dark mark in the pattern of the oil-cloth, in order to conceal his dirty foot-prints, Margaret ran upstairs. She met Dixon on the landing. "How is mamma?--where is papa?" Missus was tired, and gone into her own room. She had wanted to go to bed, but Dixon had persuaded her to lie down on the sofa, and have her tea brought to her there; it would be better than getting restless by being too long in bed. So far, so good. But where was Mr. Hale? In the drawing-room. Margaret went in half breathless with the hurried story she had to tell. Of course, she told it incompletely; and her father was rather "taken aback" by the idea of the drunken weaver awaiting him in his quiet study, with whom he was expected to drink tea, and on whose behalf Margaret was anxiously pleading. The meek, kind-hearted Mr. Hale would have readily tried to console him in his grief, but, unluckily, the point Margaret dwelt upon most forcibly was the fact of his having been drinking, and her having brought him home with her as a last expedient to keep him from the gin-shop. One little event had come out of another so naturally that Margaret was hardly conscious of what she had done, till she saw the slight look of repugnance on her father's face. "Oh, papa! he really is a man you will not dislike--if you won't be shocked to begin with." "But, Margaret, to bring a drunken man home--and your mother so ill!" Margaret's countenance fell. "I am sorry, papa. He is very quiet--he is not tipsy at all. He was only rather strange at first, but that might be the shock of poor Bessy's death." Margaret's eyes filled with tears. Mr. Hale took hold of her sweet pleading face in both his hands, and kissed her forehead. "It is all right, dear. I'll go and make him as comfortable as I can, and do you attend to your mother. Only, if you can come in and make a third in the study, I shall be glad." "Oh, yes--thank you." But as Mr. Hale was leaving the room, she ran after him. "Papa--you must not wonder at what he says: he's an----, I mean he does not believe much in what we do." "Oh dear! a drunken infidel weaver!" said Mr. Hale to himself, in dismay. But to Margaret he only said, "If your mother goes to sleep, be sure you come directly." Margaret went into her mother's room. Mrs. Hale lifted herself up from a doze. "When did you write to Frederick, Margaret? Yesterday, or the day before?" "Yesterday, mamma." "Yesterday, and the letter went?" "Yes. I took it myself." "Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be recognized! If he should be taken! If he should be executed, after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety! I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being tried." "Oh, mamma, don't be afraid. There will be some risk, no doubt; but we will lessen it as much as ever we can. And it is so little! Now, if we were at Helstone, there would be twenty--a hundred times as much. There, everybody would remember him; and if there was a stranger known to be in the house, they would be sure to guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares for us enough to notice what we do. Dixon will keep the door like a dragon--won't you, Dixon--while he is here?" "They'll be clever if they come in past me!" said Dixon, showing her teeth at the bare idea. "And he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!" "Poor fellow!" echoed Mrs. Hale. "But I almost wish you had not written. Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again, Margaret?" "I'm afraid it would, mamma," said Margaret, remembering the urgency with which she had entreated him to come directly, if he wished to see his mother alive. "I always dislike that doing things in such a hurry," said Mrs. Hale. Margaret was silent. "Come now, ma'am," said Dixon, with a kind of cheerful authority, "you know seeing Master Frederick is just the very thing of all others you're longing for. And I'm glad Miss Margaret wrote off straight, without shilly-shallying. I've had a great mind to do it myself. And we'll keep him snug, depend upon it. There's only Martha in the house that would not do a good deal to save him on a pinch; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother just at that very time. She's been saying once or twice she should like to go, for her mother has had a stroke since she came here; only she didn't like to ask. But I'll see about her being safe off, as soon as we know when he comes, God bless him! So take your tea, ma'am, in comfort, and trust to me." Mrs. Hale did trust in Dixon more than in Margaret. Dixon's words quieted her for the time. Margaret poured out the tea in silence, trying to think of something agreeable to say; but her thoughts made answer something like Daniel O'Rourke, when the man-in-the moon asked him to get off his reaping-hook. "The more you ax us, the more we won't stir." The more she tried to think of something--anything besides the danger to which Frederick would be exposed--the more closely her imagination clung to the unfortunate idea presented to her. Her mother prattled with Dixon, and seemed to have utterly forgotten the possibility of Frederick being tried and executed--utterly forgotten that at her wish, if by Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger. Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities, miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a frightful flame at last. Margaret was glad when, her filial duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the study. She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on. In the first place, the decorous, kind-hearted, simple, old-fashioned gentleman, had unconsciously called out, by his own refinement and courteousness of manner, all the latent courtesy in the other. Mr. Hale treated all his fellow-creatures alike: it never entered into his head to make any difference because of their rank. He placed a chair for Nicholas; stood up till he, at Mr. Hale's request, took a seat; and called him, invariably, "Mr. Higgins," instead of the curt "Nicholas" or "Higgins," to which the "drunken infidel weaver" had been accustomed. But Nicholas was neither an habitual drunkard nor a thorough infidel. He drank to drown care, as he would have himself expressed it: and he was infidel so far as he had never yet found any form of faith to which he could attach himself, heart and soul. Margaret was a little surprised, and very much pleased, when she found her father and Higgins in earnest conversation--each speaking with gentle politeness to the other, however their opinions might clash. Nicholas--clean, tidied (if only at the pump-trough), and quiet spoken--was a new creature to her, who had only seen him in the rough independence of his own hearthstone. He had "slicked" his hair down with the fresh water; he had adjusted his neck-handkerchief, and borrowed an odd candle-end to polish his clogs with; and there he sat, enforcing some opinion on her father, with a strong Darkshire accent, it is true, but with a lowered voice, and a good, earnest composure on his face. Her father, too, was interested in what his companion was saying. He looked round as she came in, smiled, and quietly gave her his chair, and then sat down afresh as quickly as possible, and with a little bow of apology to his guest for the interruption. Higgins nodded to her as a sign of greeting; and she softly adjusted her working materials on the table, and prepared to listen. "As I was a-saying, sir, I reckon yo'd not ha' much belief in yo' if yo' lived here,--if yo'd been bred here. I ax your pardon if I use wrong words; but what I mean by belief just now, is a-thinking on sayings and maxims and promises made by folk yo' never saw, about the things and the life yo' never saw, nor no one else. Now, yo' say these are true things, and true sayings, and a true life. I just say, where's the proof? There's many and many a one wiser, and scores better learned than I am around me,--folk who've had time to think on these things,--while my time has had to be gi'en up to getting my bread. Well, I sees these people. Their lives is pretty much open to me. They're real folk. They don't believe i' the Bible,--not they. They may say they do, for form's sake; but Lord, sir, d'ye think their first cry i' th' morning is, 'What shall I do to get hold on eternal life?' or 'What shall I do to fill my purse this blessed day? Where shall I go? What bargains shall I strike?' The purse and the gold and the notes is real things; things as can be felt and touched; them's realities; and eternal life is all a talk, very fit for--I ax your pardon, sir; yo'r a parson out o' work, I believe. Well! I'll never speak disrespectful of a man in the same fix as I'm in mysel. But I'll just ax yo' another question, sir, and I dunnot want yo' to answer it, only to put in yo'r pipe, and smoke it, afore yo' go for to set down us, who only believe in what we see, as fools and noddies. If salvation, and life to come, and what not, was true--not in men's words, but in men's hearts' core--dun yo' not think they'd din us wi' it as they do wi' political 'conomy? They're mighty anxious to come round us wi' that piece o' wisdom; but t'other would be a greater convarsion, if it were true." "But the masters have nothing to do with your religion. All that they are connected with you in is trade,--so they think,--and all that it concerns them, therefore, to rectify your opinions in is the science of trade." "I'm glad, sir," said Higgins, with a curious wink of his eye, "that yo' put in, 'so they think.' I'd ha' thought yo' a hyprocrite, I'm afeard, if yo' hadn't, for all yo'r a parson, or rayther because yo'r a parson. Yo' see, if yo'd spoken o' religion as a thing that, if it was true, it didn't concern all men to press on all men's attention, above everything else in this 'varsal earth, I should ha' thought yo' a knave for to be a parson; and I'd rather think yo' a fool than a knave. No offence, I hope, sir." "None at all. You consider me mistaken, and I consider you far more fatally mistaken. I don't expect to convince you in a day,--not in one conversation; but let us know each other, and speak freely to each other about these things, and the truth will prevail. I should not believe in God if I did not believe that. Mr. Higgins, I trust, whatever else you have given up, you believe"--(Mr. Hale's voice dropped low in reverence)--"you believe in Him." Nicholas Higgins suddenly stood straight, stiff up. Margaret started to her feet,--for she thought, by the working of his face, he was going into convulsions. Mr. Hale looked at her dismayed. At last Higgins found words: "Man! I could fell yo' to the ground for tempting me. Whatten business have yo' to try me wi' your doubts? Think o' her lying theere, after the life hoo's led; and think then how yo'd deny me the one sole comfort left--that there is a God, and that He set her her life. I dunnot believe she'll ever live again," said he, sitting down, and drearily going on, as if to the unsympathising fire. "I dunnot believe in any other life than this, in which she dreed such trouble, and had such never-ending care; and I cannot bear to think it were all a set o' chances, that might ha' been altered wi' a breath o' wind. There's many a time when I've thought I didna believe in God, but I've never put it fair out before me in words, as many men do. I may ha' laughed at those who did, to brave it out like--but I have looked round at after, to see if He heard me, if so be there was a He; but to-day, when I'm left desolate, I wunnot listen to yo' wi' yo'r questions, and yo'r doubts. There's but one thing steady and quiet i' all this reeling world, and, reason or no reason, I'll cling to that. It's a' very well for happy folk"---- Margaret touched his arm very softly. She had not spoken before, nor had he heard her rise. "Nicholas, we do not want to reason; you misunderstand my father. We do not reason--we believe; and so do you. It is the one sole comfort in such times." He turned round and caught her hand. "Ay! it is, it is"--(brushing away the tears with the back of his hand).--"But yo' know, she's lying dead at home; and I'm welly dazed wi' sorrow, and at times I hardly know what I'm saying. It's as if speeches folk ha' made--clever and smart things as I've thought at the time--come up now my heart's welly brossen. Th' strike's failed as well; dun yo' know that, miss? I were coming whoam to ask her, like a beggar as I am, for a bit o' comfort i' that trouble; and I were knocked down by one who telled me she were dead--just dead. That were all; but that were enough for me." Mr. Hale blew his nose, and got up to snuff the candles in order to conceal his emotion. "He's not an infidel, Margaret; how could you say so?" muttered he reproachfully. "I've a good mind to read him the fourteenth chapter of Job." "Not yet, papa, I think. Perhaps not at all. Let us ask him about the strike, and give him all the sympathy he needs, and hoped to have from poor Bessy." So they questioned and listened. The workmen's calculations were based (like too many of the masters') on false premises. They reckoned on their fellow-men as if they possessed the calculable powers of machines, no more, no less; no allowance for human passions getting the better of reason, as in the case of Boucher and the rioters; and believing that the representations of their injuries would have the same effect on strangers far away, as the injuries (fancied or real) had upon themselves. They were consequently surprised and indignant at the poor Irish, who had allowed themselves to be imported and brought over to take their places. This indignation was tempered in some degree, by contempt for "them Irishers," and by pleasure at the idea of the bungling way in which they would set to work, and perplex their new masters with their ignorance and stupidity, strange exaggerated stories of which were already spreading through the town. But the most cruel cut of all was that of the Milton workmen, who had defied and disobeyed the commands of the Union to keep the peace, whatever came; who had originated discord in the camp, and spread the panic of the law being arrayed against them. "And so the strike is at an end," said Margaret. "Ay, miss. It's save as save can. Th' factory doors will need open wide to-morrow to let in all who'll be axing for work; if it's only just to show they'd nought to do wi' a measure, which if we'd been made o' th' right stuff would ha' brought wages up to a point they'n not been at this ten year." "You'll get work, shan't you?" asked Margaret. "You're a famous workman, are not you?" "Hamper'll let me work at his mill, when he cuts off his right hand--not before, and not after," said Nicholas, quietly. Margaret was silenced and sad. "About the wages," said Mr. Hale. "You'll not be offended, but I think you make some sad mistakes. I should like to read you some remarks in a book I have." He got up and went to his bookshelves. "Yo' needn't trouble yoursel', sir," said Nicholas. "Their book-stuff goes in at one ear and out at t'other. I can make nought on't. Afore Hamper and me had this split, th' overlooker telled him I were stirring up th' men to ask for higher wages; and Hamper met me one day in th' yard. He'd a thin book i' his hand, and says he, 'Higgins, I'm told you're one o' those damned fools that think you can get higher wages for asking for 'em; ay, and keep 'em up too, when you've forced 'em up. Now, I'll give yo' a chance and try if yo've any sense in yo.' Here's a book written by a friend o' mine, and if yo'll read it yo'll see how wages find their own level, without either masters or men having aught to do with them; except the men cut their own throats wi' striking, like the confounded noodles they are.' Well, now, sir, I put it to yo,' being a parson, and having been in th' preaching line, and having had to try and bring folk o'er to what yo' thought was a right way o' thinking--did yo' begin by calling 'em fools and such like, or didn't yo' rayther give 'em such kind words at first, to make 'em ready for to listen and be convinced, if they could; and in yo'r preaching, did yo' stop every now and then, and say, half to them and half to yo'rsel,' 'But yo'r such a pack o' fools, that I've a strong notion it's no use my trying to put sense into yo'?' I were not i' th' best state, I'll own, for taking in what Hamper's friend had to say--I were so vexed at the way it were put to me;--but I thought, 'Come, I'll see what these chaps has got to say, and try if it's them or me as is th' noodle.' So I took th' book and tugged at it; but, Lord bless yo', it went on about capital and labour, and labour and capital, till it fair sent me off to sleep. I ne'er could rightly fix i' my mind which was which; and it spoke on 'em as if they was vartues or vices; and what I wanted for to know were the rights o' men, whether they were rich or poor--so be they only were men." "But for all that," said Mr. Hale, "and granting to the full the offensiveness, the folly, the unchristianness of Mr. Hamper's way of speaking to you in recommending his friend's book, yet if it told you what he said it did, that wages find their own level, and that the most successful strike can only force them up for a moment, to sink in far greater proportion afterwards, in consequence of that very strike, the book would have told you the truth." "Well, sir," said Higgins, rather doggedly; "it might, or it might not. There's two opinions go to settling that point. But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's great truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and not truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words. If yo', sir, or any other knowledgable, patient man comes to me, and says he'll larn me what the words mean, and not blow me up if I'm a bit stupid, or forget how one thing hangs on another--why, in time I may get to see the truth of it; or I may not. I'll not be bound to say I shall end in thinking the same as any man. And I'm not one who think truth can be shaped out in words, all neat and clean, as th' men at th' foundry cut out sheet-iron. Same bones won't go down wi' every one. It'll stick here i' this man's throat, and there i' t'others. Let alone that, when down, it may be too strong for this one, too weak for that. Folk who sets up to doctor th' world wi' their truth, mun suit different for different minds; and be a bit tender i' th' way of giving it too, or the poor sick fools may spit it out i' their faces. Now Hamper first gi'es me a box on my ear, and then he throws his big bolus at me, and says he reckons it'll do me no good, I'm such a fool, but there it is." "I wish some of the kindest and wisest of the masters would meet some of you men, and have a good talk on these things; it would, surely, be the best way of getting over your difficulties, which, I do believe, arise from your ignorance--excuse me, Mr. Higgins--on subjects which it is for the mutual interests of both masters and men should be well understood by both. I wonder"--(half to his daughter), "if Mr. Thornton might not be induced to do such thing?" "Remember, papa," said she in a very low voice, "what he said one day,--about governments, you know." She was unwilling to make any clearer allusion to the conversation they had held on the mode of governing work-people--by giving men intelligence enough to rule themselves, or by a wise despotism on the part of the master--for she saw that Higgins had caught Mr. Thornton's name, if not the whole of the speech: indeed, he began to speak of him. "Thornton! He's the chap as wrote off at once for these Irishers; and led to th' riot that ruined th' strike. Even Hamper wi' all his bullying, would ha' waited a while--but it's a word and a blow wi' Thornton. And, now, when th' Union would ha' thanked him for following up th' chase after Boucher, and them chaps as went right again our commands, it's Thornton who steps forrard and coolly says that, as th' strike's at an end, he, as party injured, doesn't want to press the charge again the rioters. I thought he'd ha' carried his point, and had his revenge in an open way; but says he (one in court telled me his very words) 'they are well known; they will find the natural punishment of their conduct, in the difficulty they will meet wi' in getting employment. That will be severe enough.' I only wish they'd cotched Boucher, and had him up before Hamper. I see th' oud tiger setting on him! would he ha' let him off? Not he!" "Mr. Thornton was right," said Margaret. "You are angry against Boucher, Nicholas; or else you would be the first to see, that where the natural punishment would be severe enough for the offence, any farther punishment would be something like revenge." "My daughter is no great friend of Mr. Thornton's," said Mr. Hale, smiling at Margaret; while she, as red as any carnation, began to work with double diligence, "but I believe what she says is the truth. I like him for it." "Well, sir, this strike has been a weary bit o' business to me; and yo'll not wonder if I'm a bit put out wi' seeing it fail, just for a few men who would na suffer in silence, and aou'd out, brave and firm." "You forget!" said Margaret. "I don't know much of Boucher; but the only time I saw him it was not his own sufferings he spoke of, but those of his sick wife--his little children." "True! but he were not made of iron himsel'. He'd ha' cried out for his own sorrows, next. He were not one to bear." "How came he into the Union?" asked Margaret innocently. "You don't seem to have much respect for him; nor gained much good from having him in." Higgins's brow clouded. He was silent for a minute or two. Then he said, shortly enough: "It's not for me to speak o' th' Union. What they does they does. Them that is of a trade mun hang together; and if they're not willing to take their chance along wi' th' rest, th' Union has ways and means." Mr. Hale saw that Higgins was vexed at the turn the conversation had taken, and was silent. Not so Margaret, though she saw Higgins's feeling as clearly as he did. By instinct she felt that if he could but be brought to express himself in plain words, something clear would be gained on which to argue for the right and the just. "And what are the Union's ways and means?" He looked up at her, as if on the point of dogged resistance to her wish for information. But her calm face, fixed on his, patient and trustful, compelled him to answer. "Well! If a man doesn't belong to th' Union, them as works next looms as orders not to speak to him--if he's sorry or ill it's a' the same; he's out o' bounds; he's none o' us; he comes among us, he works among us, but he's none o' us. I' some places them's fined who speaks to him. Yo' try that, miss; try living a year or two among them as looks away if yo' look at 'em; try working within two yards o' crowds o' men, who, yo' know, have a grinding grudge at yo' in their hearts--to whom if yo' say yo'r glad, not an eye brightens, nor a lip moves,--to whom if your heart's heavy, yo' can never say nought, because they'll ne'er take notice on your sighs or sad looks (and a man's no man who'll groan out loud 'bout folk asking him what's the matter?)--just yo' try that, miss--ten hours for three hundred days, and yo'll know a bit what the Union is." "Why!" said Margaret, "what tyranny this is! Nay, Higgins, I don't care one straw for your anger. I know you can't be angry with me if you would, and I must tell you the truth: that I never read, in all the history I have read, of a more slow, lingering torture than this. And you belong to the Union! And you talk of the tyranny of the masters!" "Nay," said Higgins, "yo' may say what yo' like. The dead stand between yo' and every angry word o' mine. D'ye think I forget who's lying _there_, and how hoo loved yo'? And it's th' masters as has made us sin, if th' Union is a sin. Not this generation maybe, but their fathers. Their fathers ground our fathers to the very dust; ground us to powder! Parson! I reckon I've heerd my mother read out a text, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and th' chidren's teeth are set on edge.' Its so wi' them. In those days of sore oppression th' Unions began; it were a necessity. It's a necessity now, according to me. It's a withstanding of injustice, past, present, or to come. It may be like war; along wi' it come crimes; but I think it were a greater crime to let it alone. Our only chance is binding men together in one common interest; and if some are cowards and some are fools, they mun come along and join the great march, whose only strength is in numbers." "Oh!" said Mr. Hale, sighing, "your Union in itself would be beautiful, glorious--it would be Christianity itself--if it were but for an end which affected the good of all, instead of that of merely one class as opposed to another." "I reckon it's time for me to be going, sir," said Higgins, as the clock struck ten. "Home?" said Margaret very softly. He understood her, and took her offered hand. "Home, miss. Yo' may trust me, tho' I am one o' th' Union." "I do trust you most thoroughly, Nicholas." "Stay!" said Mr. Hale, hurrying to the bookshelves. "Mr. Higgins! I'm sure you'll join us in family prayer?" Higgins looked at Margaret, doubtfully. Her grave sweet eyes met his; there was no compulsion, only deep interest in them. He did not speak, but he kept his place. Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.

That afternoon she walked swiftly to the Higginses' house. Mary was looking out for her, with a half-distrustful face. They passed quickly through the house, and upstairs into the quiet presence of the dead. Then Margaret was glad that she had come. The face, often so restless and weary with pain, had now the faint soft smile of eternal rest. The tears gathered in Margaret's eyes, but a deep calm entered her soul. And that was death! It looked more peaceful than life. The beautiful scriptures came into her mind: 'They rest from their labours.' 'He giveth His beloved sleep.' Slowly she turned away from the bed. Mary was sobbing in the background. They went downstairs without a word. Nicholas Higgins stood by the table. He had just heard the news. His eyes were dry and fierce; he was studying the reality of her death; bringing himself to understand that she was gone. For she had been dying so long that he had persuaded himself that she would pull through. Margaret felt as if she had no business to be there. She tried to steal past his abstracted gaze, and to leave him in the solemn circle of his household misery. Mary sat down, and throwing her apron over her head, began to cry. The noise roused him. He took sudden hold of Margaret's arm; his words came up thick, and choked, and hoarse: 'Were yo' with her? Did yo' see her die?' 'No,' replied Margaret. It was some time before he spoke again, but he kept his hold on her arm. 'All men must die,' said he at last, with a strange gravity, which suggested to Margaret that he had been drinking, just enough to make his thoughts bewildered. 'But she were younger than me.' He pondered, and then suddenly looked up at Margaret with wild inquiry. 'Yo're sure she's dead - not in a faint? She's been so before, often.' 'She is dead,' replied Margaret. He gave her that searching look, until it seemed to fade out of his eyes. Then he let go of her, and throwing his body half across the table, he shook it with his violent sobs. Mary came trembling towards him. 'Get thee gone! - get thee gone!' he cried, striking blindly at her. 'What do I care for thee?' Margaret took her hand, and held it softly. He tore his hair, he beat his head against the wood, then lay exhausted and stupid. His daughter and Margaret did not move. Mary trembled from head to foot. At last he lifted himself up. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and he seemed to have forgotten the watchers; he scowled when he saw them. Shaking himself heavily, he gave them one more sullen look, and made for the door. 'Oh, father, father!' said Mary, throwing herself upon his arm - 'not tonight! Any night but tonight. Oh, help me! he's going out to drink again! Father, she told me last of all to keep yo' fro' drink!' He shook her off violently so that she fell against a chair. But Margaret stood in the doorway, silent yet commanding. 'It's my own house. Stand out o' the way, wench, or I'll make yo'!' He looked ready to strike her. But she never moved - never took her deep, serious eyes off him. He stared back fiercely. If she had stirred, he would have thrust her aside with even more violence than he had used on his daughter, whose face was bleeding from her fall. 'Why are yo' looking at me in that way?' asked he at last. 'If yo' think for to keep me from going where I choose - and in my own house, where I never asked yo' to come, yo're mistaken. It's very hard upon a man that he can't go to the only comfort left.' Margaret felt that he acknowledged her power. What could she do next? He sat on a chair near the door; half-conquered, half-resenting; intending to go out as soon as she moved. Margaret laid her hand on his arm. 'Come with me,' she said. 'Come and see her!' Her voice was low and solemn; but there was no fear or doubt in it. He sullenly rose up, with dogged irresolution upon his face. She waited. He had a strange pleasure in making her wait; but at last he moved towards the stairs. They stood by the corpse. 'Her last words to Mary were, "Keep my father fro' drink."' 'It canna hurt her now,' muttered he. 'Nought can hurt her now.' Then, in a wail, he went on: 'We may quarrel - we may make peace - we may clem to skin and bone - and nought will ever touch her more. What wi' hard work and sickness, hoo's led the life of a dog. And to die without knowing one joy in all her days! Nay, wench, whatever hoo said, hoo can know nought about it now, and I must ha' a drink just to steady me.' 'No,' said Margaret gently. 'You shall not. If her life has been what you say, at any rate she did not fear death. Oh, you should have heard her speak of the life to come - the life hidden with God, that she is now gone to.' He shook his head. His pale, haggard face struck her painfully. 'You are sorely tired. Where have you been all day - not at work?' 'No,' said he, with a short, grim laugh. 'Not at what you call work. I were at the Committee, till I were sickened wi' trying to make fools hear reason. I were fetched to Boucher's wife afore seven this morning. She's bed-fast, but she were raving to know where her dunder-headed brute of a chap was - as if he were ruled by me. The d__d fool, who has put his foot in all our plans! And I never knew hoo lay a-dying here.' 'It was quite sudden,' said Margaret. 'But now you do know; you do see her lying there; you hear what she said with her last breath. You will not go?' No answer. Where was he to look for comfort? 'Come home with me,' said she at last, boldly, yet half trembling. 'At least you shall have some good food, which I'm sure you need.' 'Your father's a parson?' 'He was,' said Margaret, shortly. 'I'll go and take a dish o' tea with him, since yo've asked me. I've many a thing I often wished to say to a parson.' Margaret was perplexed; his drinking tea with her father, who would be totally unprepared for his visitor - her mother so ill - seemed out of the question; yet if she drew back now, it would be sure to drive him to the gin-shop. But if she could only get him to their house, it would be a great step gained. 'Goodbye, ou'd wench! Thou'st been a blessin' to thy father ever sin' thou wert born. Bless thy white lips, lass - they've a smile on 'em now! and I'm glad to see it, though I'm forlorn for evermore.' He stooped down and fondly kissed his daughter; covered up her face, and turned to follow Margaret. She had hastily gone downstairs to tell Mary of the arrangement, and to urge her come too, for her heart smote her at the idea of leaving the poor girl alone. But Mary had friends among the neighbours, she said, who would come and sit with her. When Nicholas joined them, he had shaken off his emotion; and had even assumed a sort of bitter mirth. 'I'm going to take my tea wi' her father, I am!' But he slouched his cap low over his brow as he went out into the street, and looked neither to right nor to left, lest he should see sympathising neighbours. They walked in silence. As they drew near her home, he looked down at his clothes, his hands, and shoes. 'I should 'appen ha' cleaned mysel' first?' Margaret assured him he might go into the yard, and have soap and towel provided; she could not let him slip out of her hands just then. While he followed the house-servant along the passage, stepping cautiously on every dark mark in the pattern of the oil-cloth, to conceal his dirty foot-prints, Margaret ran upstairs to find Dixon. 'How is mamma? Where is papa?' Missus was tired, and had wanted to go to bed, but Dixon had persuaded her to lie down on the sofa in her room, and have her tea brought to her there. So far, so good. But where was Mr. Hale? In the drawing-room. Margaret went in half breathless with her hurried story. Her father was rather taken aback by the idea of the drunken weaver awaiting him in his quiet study, with whom he was expected to drink tea. The meek, kind-hearted Mr. Hale would have readily tried to console him in his grief, but unluckily, Margaret dwelt on the fact of his having been drinking, and said she had brought him home with her as a last resort to keep him from the gin-shop. She was hardly conscious of what she had done, till she saw the look of repugnance on her father's face. 'Oh, papa! he really is a man you will not dislike.' 'But, Margaret, to bring a drunken man home - and your mother so ill!' Her face fell. 'I am sorry, papa. He is very quiet - not tipsy at all. He was only rather strange at first, but that might be the shock of poor Bessy's death.' Margaret's eyes filled with tears. Mr. Hale took her sweet pleading face in both his hands, and kissed her forehead. 'It is all right, dear. I'll go and make him as comfortable as I can, and you attend to your mother. Only, if you can come and make a third in the study, I shall be glad.' 'Oh, yes - thank you.' But as Mr. Hale was leaving the room, she ran after him: 'Papa - you must not wonder at what he says: he's an - I mean he does not believe in much of what we do.' 'Oh dear! a drunken infidel weaver!' thought Mr. Hale, in dismay. But to Margaret he only said, 'If your mother goes to sleep, be sure you come directly.' Margaret went into her mother's room. Mrs. Hale lifted herself up from a doze. 'When did you write to Frederick, Margaret? Yesterday, or the day before?' 'Yesterday, mamma.' 'And the letter went?' 'Yes. I took it myself.' 'Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be recognised and taken! If he should be executed! I keep dreaming that he is caught and being tried.' 'Mamma, don't be afraid. There will be some risk, no doubt; but very little! At Helstone, there would be a hundred times as much. Everybody would remember him, and if a stranger stayed in the house, they would guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares enough to notice. Dixon will keep the door like a dragon - and he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!' 'Poor fellow!' echoed Mrs. Hale. 'But I almost wish you had not written. Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again, Margaret?' 'I'm afraid it would, mamma,' said Margaret, remembering the urgency with which she had begged him to come directly. 'I always dislike doing things in such a hurry,' said Mrs. Hale. Margaret was silent. 'Come now, ma'am,' said Dixon, with cheerful authority, 'you know seeing Master Frederick is the very thing of all others you're longing for! And I'm glad Miss Margaret wrote off straight, without shilly-shallying. We'll keep him snug, depend upon it. There's only Martha in the house that does not know him; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother just at that very time, as she's been asking to. So take your tea, ma'am, and trust to me.' Mrs. Hale did trust in Dixon more than in Margaret. Dixon's words quieted her for the time. Margaret poured out the tea in silence, trying to think of something agreeable to say; but the more she tried to think of something besides the danger to which Frederick would be exposed, the more her imagination clung to the unfortunate idea. Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities as a rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks alight on something combustible, they smoulder, and then burst into a frightful flame. Margaret was glad when she could go down into the study. She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on. There, the kind-hearted, simple, old-fashioned gentleman had unconsciously called out, by his own courteous manner, all the latent courtesy in the other. Mr. Hale treated all his fellow-creatures alike: it never entered into his head to make any difference because of their rank. He placed a chair for Nicholas to sit on, and called him 'Mr. Higgins,' instead of the curt 'Nicholas' or 'Higgins,' to which the 'drunken infidel weaver' had been accustomed. But Nicholas was neither an habitual drunkard nor a thorough infidel. He drank only to drown care: and he was infidel so far as he had never yet found any form of faith to which he could attach himself. Margaret was a little surprised, and very much pleased, when she found her father and Higgins in earnest conversation - each speaking with gentle politeness, however their opinions might clash. Nicholas, clean and quiet spoken, was a new creature to her. He had slicked his hair down with water; he had adjusted his neckerchief, and polished his clogs; and there he sat, giving some opinion, with a strong Darkshire accent, it is true, but with a lowered voice, and earnest composure on his face. Her father was interested in what his companion was saying. He looked round as she came in, smiled, and quietly gave her his chair, with a little bow of apology to his guest for the interruption. Higgins nodded in greeting; and she got out her sewing, and prepared to listen. 'As I was a-sayin, sir, I reckon yo'd not ha' much belief if yo' lived here. I ax your pardon if I use wrong words; but what I mean by belief, is a-thinking on sayings and promises made by folk yo' never saw, about the things and the life yo' never saw. Now, yo' say these are true things, and true sayings. I just say, where's the proof? There's many a one wiser and better learned than I am - folk who've had time to think on these things. Well, I sees these people. They don't believe i' the Bible - not they. They may say they do, for form's sake; but Lord, sir, d'ye think their first cry i' th' morning is, "What shall I do to get eternal life?" or "What shall I do to fill my purse this blessed day? What bargains shall I strike?" The purse and the gold is real things; them's realities; and eternal life is all talk. 'I'll just ax yo another question, sir, and I dunnot want yo to answer it, only to think about it afore yo' set us down as fools and noddies. If salvation, and life to come, was true - dun yo' not think they'd din us wi' it as they do wi' political 'conomy? They're mighty anxious to come round us wi' that piece o' wisdom; but t'other would be a greater convarsion, if it were true.' 'But the masters have nothing to do with your religion. All that they are concerned with is trade - so they think - and all that concerns them, therefore, is to tell you the science of trade.' 'I'm glad, sir,' said Higgins, 'that yo' put in, "so they think." I'd ha' thought yo' a hypocrite if yo' hadn't. Yo' see, if yo'd spoken o' religion as a thing that, if it was true, it didn't concern all men to press on all men's attention, I should ha' thought yo' a knave for to be a parson; and I'd rather think yo' a fool than a knave. No offence, I hope, sir.' 'None at all. You consider me mistaken, and I consider you far more fatally mistaken. I don't expect to convince you in a day; but let us know each other, and speak freely to each other about these things, and the truth will prevail. I should not believe in God if I did not believe that. Mr. Higgins, I trust, whatever else you have given up, you believe in Him.' Nicholas Higgins suddenly stood straight up. At last he found words: 'Man! I could fell yo' to the ground for tempting me. What business have yo' to try me wi' your doubts? Think o' her lying there, after the life hoo's led, and think then how yo'd deny me the one sole comfort left - that there is a God, and that He set her life. I dunnot believe she'll ever live again,' said he, sitting down drearily. 'I dunnot believe in any other life than this, in which she had such never-ending care; and I cannot bear to think it were all a set o' chances. There's many a time when I've thought I didna believe in God, but I've never put it fair out in words. And today, when I'm left desolate, I wunnot listen to your questions, and your doubts. There's but one thing steady and quiet i' all this reeling world, and, reason or no reason, I'll cling to that.' Margaret touched his arm very softly. 'Nicholas, you misunderstand my father. We do not reason - we believe; and so do you. It is the only comfort in such times.' He turned round and caught her hand. 'Ay! it is, it is - (brushing away tears with the back of his hand). 'But yo' know, she's lying dead at home and I'm dazed wi' sorrow, and hardly know what I'm saying. Th' strike's failed as well; dun yo' know that, miss? I were coming home to ask for a bit o' comfort i' that trouble; and I were knocked down by one who telled me she were dead.' Mr. Hale blew his nose, and got up to snuff the candles. 'He's not an infidel, Margaret; how could you say so?' he muttered. 'I've a good mind to read him the fourteenth chapter of Job.' 'Not yet, papa. Let us ask him about the strike, and give him all the sympathy he needs.' So they questioned and listened. The workmen's calculations were based on false premises. They had made no allowance for passions getting the better of reason, as in the case of Boucher and the rioters. They were surprised and indignant that the poor Irish, rather than sympathising with them, had allowed themselves to be brought over to take their places. This indignation was tempered, in some degree, by contempt and pleasure at the idea of the bungling way in which the Irishmen would work, and perplex their new masters with their ignorance and stupidity - exaggerated stories of which were already spreading. But the most cruel cut was that of the Milton workmen, who had disobeyed the Union's commands to keep the peace; who had made discord in the camp, and caused the law to be arrayed against them. 'And so the strike is at an end,' said Margaret. 'Ay, miss. Th' factory doors will open wide tomorrow to let in all who'll be axing for work.' 'You'll get work, won't you?' she asked. 'Hamper'll cut off his right hand before he lets me work at his mill,' said Nicholas quietly. Margaret was silenced and sad. 'About the wages,' said Mr. Hale. 'You'll not be offended, but I think you make some mistakes. I should like to read to you from a book I have.' He went to his book-shelves. 'Yo' needn't trouble yoursel', sir,' said Nicholas. 'Their book-stuff goes in at one ear and out at t'other. I can make nought on't. Afore Hamper and me had this split, th' overlooker telled him I were stirring up the men to ask for higher wages; and Hamper met me one day in th' yard, with a thin book i' his hand. "Higgins," says he, "I'm told you're one of those damned fools that think you can get higher wages for asking for 'em. Now, here's a book written by a friend o' mine, and in it yo'll see how wages find their own level, without either masters or men having aught to do with them; unless the men cut their own throats wi' striking, like the confounded noodles they are." 'Well, now, sir, I put it to yo', having been in th' preaching line - did yo' begin by calling people fools, or didn't yo' rayther give 'em some kind words at first, to make 'em ready for to listen? And in your preaching, did yo' stop and say, "But you're such a pack o' fools, that it's no use my trying to put sense into yo'?" I were vexed, I'll own; but I thought, "Come, I'll see what these chaps has got to say, and try if it's them or me as is th' noodle." So I took th' book and tugged at it; but, Lord bless yo', it went on about capital and labour, and labour and capital, till it fair sent me off to sleep. What I wanted for to know were the rights o' men, whether rich or poor.' 'But for all that,' said Mr. Hale, 'and granting to the full the unchristian offensiveness and folly of Mr. Hamper's way of speaking to you, yet if that book told you that wages find their own level, and that the most successful strike can only force them up temporarily, it would have told you the truth.' 'Well, sir,' said Higgins, rather doggedly; 'it might, or it might not. But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words. If yo', sir, or any other knowledgable, patient man can teach me what the words mean, and not blow me up if I'm a bit stupid - why, in time I may get to see the truth of it; or I may not. I'm not one who thinks truth can be shaped all neat and clean, as th' men at th' foundry cut out sheet-iron. Same bones won't go down wi' everyone. It'll stick here i' this man's throat, and there i' t'other's. And folk who sets up to doctor th' world wi' their truth must be a bit tender in th' way of giving it too. Now Hamper gives me a box on my ear, and then he throws his words at me like a pill, and says he reckons it'll do me no good, I'm such a fool, but there it is.' 'I wish some of the kindest and wisest of the masters would meet some of you men, and have a good talk on these things. It would, surely, be the best way of getting over your difficulties, which I believe arise from your ignorance - excuse me, Mr. Higgins - on subjects which both masters and men need to understand. I wonder' (half to his daughter), 'if Mr. Thornton might not be induced to do such a thing?' 'Remember, papa,' said she in a very low voice, 'what he said once - about governments, you know.' Higgins had caught Mr. Thornton's name. 'Thornton! He's the chap as wrote off at once for these Irishers; and led to th' riot that ruined th' strike. Even Hamper, wi' all his bullying, would ha' waited - but it's a word and a blow wi' Thornton. And now it's Thornton who steps forrard and coolly says that, as th' strike's at an end, he doesn't want to press charges against the rioters. I thought he'd had more pluck. I thought he'd want his revenge; but says he, "they are well known; they will find their punishment in the difficulty of getting employment. That will be severe enough." I only wish they'd cotched Boucher, and had him up before Hamper. I see th' oud tiger setting on him! would he ha' let him off? Not he!' 'Mr. Thornton was right,' said Margaret. 'You are angry with Boucher, Nicholas; or else you would see that where the natural punishment is severe, any farther punishment would be merely revenge.' 'My daughter is no great friend of Mr. Thornton's,' said Mr. Hale, smiling at Margaret; while she, turning red, began to sew with double diligence, 'but I believe she says the truth. I like him for it.' 'Well, sir, yo'll not wonder if I'm a bit put out wi' seeing the strike fail, just for a few men who would na suffer in silence.' 'You forget!' said Margaret. 'When I saw Boucher it was not his own sufferings he spoke of, but those of his sick wife and little children.' 'True! but he'd ha' cried out for his own sorrows next. He were not one to bear them.' 'How came he into the Union?' asked Margaret innocently. 'You don't seem to have much respect for him; nor gained much good from having him in.' Higgins's brow clouded. He said shortly: 'It's not for me to speak o' th' Union. What they does, they does. Them of the same trade must hang together; and if they're not willing to, th' Union has ways and means.' 'And what are the Union's ways and means?' He looked up at her, reluctant to answer. But her calm, patient face compelled him. 'Well! If a man doesn't belong to th' Union, them as works next looms has orders not to speak to him. He's out o' bounds; he's none o' us; he works among us, but he's none o' us. In some places them's fined who speaks to him. Yo' try that, miss; try living a year or two among them as looks away if yo' look at 'em; to whom yo' can never say nought even when you're in trouble, because they'll ne'er take notice on your sad looks. Just yo' try that, miss, and yo'll know what th' Union is.' 'Why!' said Margaret, 'what tyranny! Nay, Higgins, I don't care one straw for your anger. I never read of a more slow, lingering torture than this. And you talk of the tyranny of the masters!' 'Nay,' said Higgins, 'the dead stand between yo and every angry word o' mine. And it's th' masters as has made us sin, if th' Union is a sin. Not this generation maybe, but their fathers. Their fathers ground our fathers to the very dust! In those days of sore oppression th' Unions began; it were a necessity. It's a necessity now. It's a withstanding of injustice, past, present, or to come. It may be like war; crimes come along wi' it, but I think it were a greater crime to let it alone. Our only chance is binding men together in one common interest; and if some are cowards or fools, they must join the great march, whose only strength is in numbers.' 'Oh!' said Mr. Hale, sighing, 'your Union would be glorious - it would be Christianity itself - if it were only for an end which affected the good of all, instead of that of merely one class as opposed to another.' 'I reckon it's time for me to be going, sir,' said Higgins, as the clock struck ten. 'Home?' said Margaret very softly. He understood her, and took her offered hand. 'Home, miss. Yo' may trust me, tho' I am one o' th' Union.' 'I do trust you, Nicholas.' 'Wait!' said Mr. Hale. 'Mr. Higgins! I'm sure you'll join us in family prayer?' Higgins looked at Margaret doubtfully. Her grave sweet eyes met his; there was no compulsion, only deep interest in them. He did not speak, but he kept his place. Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.

North and South

Chapter 28: COMFORT IN SORROW

"I was used To sleep at nights as sweetly as a child,-- Now if the wind blew rough, it made me start, And think of my poor boy tossing about Upon the roaring seas. And then I seemed To feel that it was hard to take him from me For such a little fault." SOUTHEY. It was a comfort to Margaret about this time, to find that her mother drew more tenderly and intimately towards her than she had ever done since the days of her childhood. She took her to her heart as a confidential friend--the post Margaret had always longed to fill, and had envied Dixon for being preferred to. Margaret took pains to respond to every call made upon her for sympathy--and they were many--even when they bore relation to trifles which she would no more have noticed or regarded herself than the elephant would perceive the little pin at his feet, which yet he lifts carefully up at the bidding of his keeper. All unconsciously Margaret drew near to a reward. One evening, Mr. Hale being absent, her mother began to talk to her about her brother Frederick, the very subject on which Margaret had longed to ask questions, and almost the only one on which her timidity overcame her natural openness. The more she wanted to hear about him, the less likely she was to speak. "Oh, Margaret, it was so windy last night! It came howling down the chimney in our room! I could not sleep. I never can when there is such a terrible wind. I got into a wakeful habit when poor Frederick was at sea; and now, even if I don't waken all at once, I dream of him in some stormy sea, with great, clear, glass-green walls of waves on either side his ship, but far higher than her very masts, curling over her with that cruel, terrible white foam, like some gigantic crested serpent. It is an old dream, but it always comes back on windy nights, till I am thankful to waken, sitting straight and stiff up in bed with my terror. Poor Frederick! He is on land now, so wind can do him no harm. Though I did think it might shake down some of those tall chimneys." "Where is Frederick now, mamma? Our letters are directed to the care of Messrs. Barbour, at Cadiz. I know: but where is he himself?" "I can't remember the name of the place, but he is not called Hale; you must remember that, Margaret. Notice the F. D. in every corner of the letters. He has taken the name of Dickenson. I wanted him to have been called Beresford, to which he had a kind of right, but your father thought he had better not. He might be recognised, you know, if he were called by my name." "Mamma," said Margaret, "I was at Aunt Shaw's when it all happened; and I suppose I was not old enough to be told plainly about it. But I should like to know now, if I may--if it does not give you too much pain to speak about it." "Pain! No," replied Mrs. Hale, her cheek flushing. "Yet it is pain to think that perhaps I may never see my darling boy again. Or else he did right, Margaret. They may say what they like, but I have his own letters to show, and I'll believe him, though he is my son, sooner than any court-martial on earth. Go to my little japan cabinet, dear, and in the second left-hand drawer you will find a packet of letters." Margaret went. There were the yellow, sea-stained letters, with the peculiar fragrance which ocean letters have. Margaret carried them back to her mother, who untied the silken string with trembling fingers, and, examining their dates, she gave them to Margaret to read, making her hurried, anxious remarks on their contents, almost before her daughter could have understood what they were. "You see, Margaret, how from the very first he disliked Captain Reid. He was second lieutenant in the ship--the Orion--in which Frederick sailed the very first time. Poor little fellow, how well he looked in his midshipman's dress, with his dirk in his hand, cutting open all the newspapers with it as if it were a paper-knife! But this Mr. Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the very beginning. And then--stay! these are the letters he wrote on board the Russell. When he was appointed to her, and found his old enemy Captain Reid in command, he did mean to bear all his tyranny patiently. Look! this is the letter. Just read it, Margaret. Where is it he says--Stop--'my father may rely upon me, that I will bear with all proper patience everything that one officer and gentleman can take from another. But from my former knowledge of my present captain, I confess I look forward with apprehension to a long course of tyranny on board the Russell.' You see, he promises to bear patiently, and I am sure he did, for he was the sweetest-tempered boy, when he was not vexed, that could possibly be. Is that the letter in which he speaks of Captain Reid's impatience with the men, for not going through the ship's manuvres as quickly as the Avenger? You see, he says that they had many new hands on board the Russell, while the Avenger had been nearly three years on the station, with nothing to do but to keep slavers off, and work her men, till they ran up and down the rigging like rats or monkeys." Margaret slowly read the letter, half illegible through the fading of the ink. It might be--it probably was--a statement of Captain Reid's imperiousness in trifles, very much exaggerated by the narrator, who had written it while fresh and warm from the scene of altercation. Some sailors being aloft in the main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered them to race down, threatening the hindmost with the cat-of-nine tails. He who was the farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility of passing his companions, and yet passionately dreading the disgrace of the flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope considerably lower, failed, and fell senseless on the deck. He only survived for a few hours afterwards, and the indignation of the ship's crew was at boiling point when young Hale wrote. "But we did not receive this letter till long, long after we heard of the mutiny. Poor Fred! I dare say it was a comfort to him to write it, even though he could not have known how to send it, poor fellow! And then we saw a report in the papers--that's to say, long before Fred's letter reached us--of an atrocious mutiny having broken out on board the Russell, and that the mutineers had remained in possession of the ship, which had gone off, it was supposed, to be a pirate; and that Captain Reid was sent adrift in a boat with some men--officers or something--whose names were all given, for they were picked up by a West Indian steamer. Oh, Margaret! how your father and I turned sick over that list, when there was no name of Frederick Hale. We thought it must be some mistake; for poor Fred was such a fine fellow, only perhaps rather too passionate; and we hoped that the name of Carr, which was in the list, was a misprint for that of Hale--newspapers are so careless. And towards post-time the next day, papa set off to walk to Southampton to get the papers; and I could not stop at home, so I went to meet him. He was very late--much later than I thought he would have been; and I sat down under the hedge to wait for him. He came at last, his arms hanging loose down, his head sunk, and walking heavily along, as if every step was a labour and a trouble. Margaret, I see him now." "Don't go on, mamma. I can understand it all," said Margaret, leaning up caressingly against her mother's side, and kissing her hand. "No, you can't, Margaret. No one can who did not see him then. I could hardly lift myself up to go and meet him--everything seemed so to reel around me all at once. And when I got to him, he did not speak, or seem surprised to see me there, more than three miles from home, beside the Oldham beech-tree; but he put my arm in his, and kept stroking my hand, as if he wanted to soothe me to be very quiet under some great heavy blow; and when I trembled so all over that I could not speak, he took me in his arms, and stooped down his head on mine, and began to shake and to cry in a strange muffled, groaning voice, till I, for very fright, stood quite still, and only begging him to tell me what he had heard. And then, with his hand jerking, as if some one else moved it against his will, he gave me a wicked newspaper to read, calling our Frederick a 'traitor of the blackest dye,' 'a base, ungrateful disgrace to his profession.' Oh! I cannot tell what bad words they did not use. I took the paper in my hands as soon as I had read it--I tore it up to little bits--I tore it--oh! I believe, Margaret, I tore it with my teeth. I did not cry. I could not. My cheeks were as hot as fire, and my very eyes burnt in my head. I saw your father looking grave at me. I said it was a lie, and so it was. Months after, this letter came, and you see what provocation Frederick had. It was not for himself, or his own injuries, he rebelled; but he would speak his mind to Captain Reid, and so it went on from bad to worse; and you see, most of the sailors stuck by Frederick." "I think, Margaret," she continued, after a pause, in a weak, trembling, exhausted voice, "I am glad of it--I am prouder of Frederick standing up against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer." "I am sure I am," said Margaret, in a firm, decided tone. "Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used--not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless." "For all that, I wish I could see Frederick once more--just once. He was my first baby, Margaret." Mrs. Hale spoke wistfully, and almost as if apologising for the yearning, craving wish, as though it were a depreciation of her remaining child. But such an idea never crossed Margaret's mind. She was thinking how her mother's desire could be fulfilled. "It is six or seven years ago--would they still prosecute him, mother. If he came and stood his trial, what would be the punishment? Surely, he might bring evidence of his great provocation." "It would do no good," replied Mrs. Hale. "Some of the sailors who accompanied Frederick were taken, and there was a court-martial held on them on board the Amicia; I believed all they said in their defence, poor fellows, because it just agreed with Frederick's story--but it was of no use,--" and for the first time during the conversation Mrs. Hale began to cry; yet something possessed Margaret to force the information she foresaw, yet dreaded, from her mother. "What happened to them, mamma?" asked she. "They were hung at the yard-arm," said Mrs. Hale, solemnly. "And the worst was that the court, in condemning them to death, said they had suffered themselves to be led astray from their duty by their superior officers." They were silent for a long time. "And Frederick was in South America for several years, was he not?" "Yes. And now he is in Spain. At Cadiz, or somewhere near it. If he comes to England he will be hung. I shall never see his face again--for if he comes to England he will be hung." There was no comfort to be given. Mrs. Hale turned her face to the wall, and lay perfectly still in her mother's despair. Nothing could be said to console her. She took her hand out of Margaret's with a little impatient movement, as if she would fain be left alone with the recollection of her son. When Mr. Hale came in, Margaret went out, oppressed with gloom, and seeing no promise of brightness on any side of the horizon.

It was a comfort to Margaret at this time to find that her mother became more tender and intimate towards her than she had done since her childhood. She took her to her heart as a confidential friend - the post Margaret had always longed to fill. Margaret responded to her every call for sympathy, even when only about trifles. For this, she was rewarded. One evening, Mr. Hale being absent, her mother began to talk about her brother Frederick. This was the very subject about which Margaret had longed to ask questions, and almost the only one on which her timidity overcame her natural openness. 'Oh, Margaret, it was so windy last night! It came howling down the chimney in our room! I could not sleep. I never can when there is such a terrible wind, ever since poor Frederick went to sea. If I don't waken, I dream of him in some stormy sea, with great, clear, glass-green walls of waves on either side his ship, higher than her masts, curling over her like some gigantic crested serpent. It is an old dream, but it always comes back on windy nights. Poor Frederick! He is on land now, so wind can do him no harm.' 'Where is he now, mamma? Our letters are addressed to the care of Messrs. Barbour, at Cadiz, I know; but where is Frederick?' 'I can't remember the name of the place, but he is not called Hale. The letters are sent to F. D. He has taken the name of Dickenson. I wanted him to have been called Beresford, but your father thought he had better not. He might be recognised, you know, if he were called by my maiden name.' 'Mamma,' said Margaret, 'I was at Aunt Shaw's when it all happened; and I was not old enough to be told plainly about it. But I should like to know now - if it does not give you too much pain to speak about it.' 'Pain! No,' replied Mrs. Hale, flushing. 'He did right, Margaret. They may say what they like, but I'll believe my son sooner than any court-martial on earth. Go to my little japan cabinet, dear, and in the second left-hand drawer you will find a packet of letters.' Margaret went. There were the yellow, sea-stained letters, with the peculiar fragrance which ocean letters have. She carried them back to her mother, who untied the silken string with trembling fingers, and gave them to Margaret to read, making hurried, anxious remarks on their contents, almost before her daughter could have understood what they were. 'You see, Margaret, how from the very first he disliked Captain Reid. He was second lieutenant in the ship - the Orion - in which Frederick sailed the very first time. Poor little midshipman! But this Mr. Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the very beginning. These are the letters he wrote on board the Russell. When he found his old enemy Captain Reid in command there, he did mean to bear his tyranny calmly. Look here, Margaret - '"my father may rely upon me, to bear patiently everything that one officer and gentleman can take from another. But from my former knowledge of my captain, I fear a long course of tyranny on board the Russell." He was the sweetest-tempered boy, when he was not vexed. Is that the letter in which he speaks of Captain Reid's impatience with the men, for not going through manoeuvres as quickly as the Avenger? You see, they had many new hands on board the Russell, while the Avenger had been three years with nothing to do but work her men, till they ran up and down the rigging like monkeys.' Margaret slowly read the letter, half illegible through the fading of the ink. It was a statement of Captain Reid's imperiousness, probably exaggerated by the narrator, who had written it while fresh in indignation. Some sailors being aloft in the main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered them to race down, threatening the last with whipping. He who was the farthest up, dreading the disgrace of the flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope much lower, failed, and fell senseless on deck. He only survived for a few hours afterwards. 'But we did not receive this letter till long, long after we heard of the mutiny. Poor Fred! And then we saw a report in the papers - long before Fred's letter reached us - that an atrocious mutiny had broken out on board the Russell, and that the mutineers had taken over the ship, which had gone off to be a pirate; and that Captain Reid was sent adrift in a boat with some officers whose names were given, for they were picked up by a West-Indian steamer. 'Oh, Margaret! how your father and I turned sick over that list, when there was no name of Frederick Hale. We thought it must be some mistake; for poor Fred was such a fine fellow, only perhaps rather too passionate. The next day, papa set off to walk to Southampton to get the papers; and I went to meet him. He was very late, but he came at last, his arms hanging down, his head sunk, and walking heavily, as if every step was a labour. Margaret, I see him now.' 'Don't go on, mamma. I can understand it all,' said Margaret, leaning against her mother's side, and kissing her hand. 'No, you can't, Margaret. No one can who did not see him then. Everything seemed to reel around me. And when I reached him, he did not speak, or seem surprised to see me there, three miles from home; but he put my arm in his, and kept stroking my hand; and when I trembled, he took me in his arms, and stooped down his head, and began to shake and cry in a strange muffled voice, till, in fright, I begged him to tell me what he had heard. 'And then he gave me a wicked newspaper to read, which called our Frederick a "traitor of the blackest dye," "a disgrace to his profession." As soon as I had read it, I tore it up into little bits - oh! I believe, Margaret, I tore it with my teeth. I did not cry, though my eyes burnt in my head. I said it was a lie, and so it was. Months afterwards, this letter came, and you see what provocation Frederick had. It was not for himself that he rebelled; but he would speak his mind to Captain Reid, and so it went on from bad to worse; and most of the sailors stuck by Frederick. 'I think, Margaret,' she continued, after a pause, in an exhausted voice, 'I am glad of it - I am prouder of Frederick standing up against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer.' 'I am sure I am,' said Margaret firmly. 'Loyalty to wisdom and justice is fine; but it is still finer to defy power used unjustly and cruelly, on behalf of others more helpless.' 'For all that, I wish I could see Frederick once more - just once.' Mrs. Hale spoke wistfully, and almost apologetically, as though the wish were a depreciation of her remaining child. But such an idea never crossed Margaret's mind. She was thinking how her mother's desire could be fulfilled. 'It is six or seven years ago - would they still prosecute him, mother? If he stood trial, what would be the punishment? Surely he might bring evidence of his provocation.' 'It would do no good,' replied Mrs. Hale. 'Some of the sailors who accompanied Frederick were taken, and court-martialled on board the Amicia; I believed all they said in their defence, poor fellows, because it agreed with Frederick's story - but it was of no use.' Mrs. Hale began to cry; yet Margaret needed to know the end. 'What happened to them, mamma?' 'They were hung at the yard-arm. And the worst was that the court said they had allowed themselves to be led astray by their superior officers.' They were silent for a long time. 'And Frederick was in South America for several years, was he not?' 'Yes. And now he is in Spain, near Cadiz. If he comes to England he will be hung. I shall never see his face again.' There was no comfort to be given. Mrs. Hale turned to the wall, and took her hand out of Margaret's with a little impatient movement, as if she would rather be left alone. Margaret saw no promise of brightness on any side of the horizon.

North and South

Chapter 14: THE MEETING

"A spade! a rake! a hoe! A pickaxe or a bill! A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, A flail or what ye will-- And here's a ready hand To ply the needful tool, And skill'd enough, by lessons rough, In Labour's rugged school." HOOD. Higgins's door was locked the next day, when they went to pay their call on the widow Boucher: but they learnt this time from an officious neighbour, that he was really from home. He had, however, been in to see Mrs. Boucher, before starting on his day's business, whatever that was. It was but an unsatisfactory visit to Mrs. Boucher; she considered herself an ill-used woman by her poor husband's suicide; and there was quite germ of truth enough in this idea to make it a very difficult one to refute. Still, it was unsatisfactory to see how completely her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position, and this selfishness extended even to her relations with her children, whom she considered as incumbrances, even in the very midst of her somewhat animal affection for them. Margaret tried to make acquaintances with one or two of them, while her father strove to raise the widow's thoughts into some higher channel than that of mere helpless querulousness. She found that the children were truer and simpler mourners than the widow. Daddy had been a kind daddy to them; each could tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shown, some indulgence granted by the lost father. "Is yon thing upstairs really him? it doesna look like him. I'm feared on it, and I never was feared o' daddy." Margaret's heart bled to hear that the mother, in her selfish requirement of sympathy, had taken her children upstairs to see their dead disfigured father. It was intermingling the coarseness of horror with the profoundness of natural grief. She tried to turn their thoughts in some other direction; on what they could do for mother; on what--for this was a more efficacious way of putting it--what father would have wished them to do. Margaret was more successful than Mr. Hale in her efforts. The children seeing their little duties lie in action close around them, began to try each one to do something that she suggested towards redding up the slatternly room. But her father set too high a standard, and too abstract a view, before the indolent invalid. She could not rouse her torpid mind into any vivid imagination of what her husband's misery might have been, before he had resorted to the last terrible step; she could only look upon it as it affected herself; she could not enter into the enduring mercy of the God who had not specially interposed to prevent the water from drowning her prostrate husband; and although she was secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such drear despair, and denying that he had any excuse for his last rash act, she was inveterate in her abuse of all who could by any possibility be supposed to have driven him to such desperation. The masters--Mr. Thornton in particular, whose mill had been attacked by Boucher, and who, after the warrant had been issued for his apprehension on the charge of rioting, had caused it to be withdrawn,--the Union, of which Higgins was a representative to the poor woman,--the children so numerous, so hungry, and so noisy--all made up one great army of personal enemies, whose fault it was that she was now a helpless widow. Margaret heard enough of this unreasonableness to dishearten her; and when they came away she found it impossible to cheer her father. "It is the town life," said she. "Their nerves are quickened by the haste and bustle and speed of everything around them, to say nothing of the confinement in these pent-up houses, which of itself is enough to induce depression and worry of spirits. Now in the country, people live so much more out of doors, even children, and even in the winter." "But people must live in towns. And in the country some get such stagnant habits of mind that they are almost fatalists." "Yes; I acknowledge that. I suppose each mode of life produces its own trials and its own temptations. The dweller in towns must find it as difficult to be patient, as the country-bred man must find it to be active, and equal to unwonted emergencies. Both must find it hard to realise a future of any kind; the one because the present is so living and hurrying and close around him; the other because his life tempts him to revel in the mere sense of animal existence, not knowing of, and consequently not caring for any pungency of pleasure, for the attainment of which he can plan, and deny himself and look forward." "And thus both the necessity for engrossment, and the stupid content in the present, produce the same effects. But this poor Mrs. Boucher! how little we can do for her." "And yet we dare not leave her without our efforts, although they may seem so useless. Oh papa! it's a hard world to live in!" "So it is, my child. We feel it so just now, at any rate; but we have been very happy, even in the midst of our sorrow. What a pleasure Frederick's visit was!" "Yes, that it was," said Margaret, brightly. "It was such a charming, snatched, forbidden thing." But she suddenly stopped speaking. She had spoiled the remembrance of Frederick's visit to herself by her own cowardice. Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth. And here had she been guilty of it! Then came the thought of Mr. Thornton's cognisance of her falsehood. She wondered if she should have minded detection half so much from any one else. She tried herself in imagination with her Aunt Shaw and Edith; with her father; with Captain and Mr. Lennox; with Frederick. The thought of the last knowing what she had done, even in his own behalf, was the most painful, for the brother and sister were in the first flush of their mutual regard and love; but even any fall in Frederick's opinion was as nothing to the shame, the shrinking shame she felt at the thought of meeting Mr. Thornton again. And yet she longed to see him, to get it over; to understand where she stood in his opinion. Her cheeks burnt as she recollected how proudly she had implied an objection to trade (in the early days of their acquaintance), because it too often led to the deceit of passing off inferior for superior goods, in the one branch; of assuming credit for wealth and resources not possessed, in the other. She remembered Mr. Thornton's look of calm disdain, as in few words he gave her to understand that, in the great scheme of commerce, all dishonourable ways of acting were sure to prove injurious in the long run, and that, testing such actions simply according to the poor standard of success, there was folly and not wisdom in all such, and every kind of deceit in trade, as well as in other things. She remembered--she, then strong in her own untempted truth--asking him, if he did not think that buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market proved some want of the transparent justice which is so intimately connected with the idea of truth: and she had used the word chivalric--and her father had corrected her with the higher word, Christian; and so drawn the argument upon himself, while she sate silent by with a slight feeling of contempt. No more contempt for her!--no more talk about the chivalric! Henceforward she must feel humiliated and disgraced in his sight. But when should she see him? Her heart leaped up in apprehension at every ring of the door-bell; and yet, when it fell down to calmness, she felt strangely saddened and sick at heart at each disappointment. It was very evident that her father expected to see him, and was surprised that he did not come. The truth was, that there were points in their conversation the other night on which they had no time then to enlarge; but it had been understood that if possible on the succeeding evening--if not then, at least the very first evening that Mr. Thornton could command,--they should meet for further discussion. Mr. Hale had looked forward to this meeting ever since they had parted. He had not yet resumed the instruction to his pupils, which he had relinquished at the commencement of his wife's more serious illness, so he had fewer occupations than usual; and the great interest of the last day or so (Boucher's suicide) had driven him back with more eagerness than ever upon his speculations. He was restless all the evening. He kept saying, "I quite expected to have seen Mr. Thornton. I think the messenger who brought the book last night must have had some note, and forgot to deliver it. Do you think there has been any message left to-day?" "I will go and inquire, papa," said Margaret, after the changes on these sentences had been rung once or twice, "Stay, there's a ring!" She sat down instantly, and bent her head attentively over her work. She heard a step on the stairs, but it was only one, and she knew it was Dixon's. She lifted up her head and sighed, and believed she felt glad. "It's that Higgins, sir. He wants to see you, or else Miss Hale. Or it might be Miss Hale first, and then you, sir; for he's in a strange kind of way." "He had better come up here, Dixon; and then he can see us both, and choose which he likes for his listener." "Oh! very well, sir. I've no wish to hear what he's got to say, I'm sure; only, if you could see his shoes, I'm sure you'd say the kitchen was the fitter place." "He can wipe them, I suppose," said Mr. Hale. So Dixon flung off, to bid him walk up-stairs. She was a little mollified, however, when he looked at his feet with a hesitating air; and then, sitting down on the bottom stair, he took off the offending shoes, and without a word walked up-stairs. "Sarvant, sir!" said he, slicking his hair down when he came into the room: "If hoo'l excuse me (looking at Margaret) for being i' my stockings; I'se been tramping a' day, and streets is none o' th' cleanest." Margaret thought that fatigue might account for the change in his manner, for he was unusually quiet and subdued; and he had evidently some difficulty in saying what he came to say. Mr. Hale's ever-ready sympathy with anything of shyness or hesitation, or want of self-possession, made him come to his aid. "We shall have tea up directly, and then you'll take a cup with us, Mr. Higgins. I am sure you are tired, if you've been out much this wet relaxing day. Margaret, my dear, can't you hasten tea?" Margaret could only hasten tea by taking the preparation of it into her own hands, and so offending Dixon, who was emerging out of her sorrow for her late mistress into a very touchy, irritable state. But Martha, like all who came in contact with Margaret--even Dixon herself, in the long run--felt it a pleasure and an honour to forward any of her wishes; and her readiness, and Margaret's sweet forbearance, soon made Dixon ashamed of herself. "Why master and you must always be asking the lower classes up-stairs, since we came to Milton, I cannot understand. Folk at Helstone were never brought higher than the kitchen; and I've let one or two of them know before now that they might think it an honour to be even there." Higgins found it easier to unburden himself to one than to two. After Margaret left the room, he went to the door and assured himself that it was shut. Then he came and stood close to Mr. Hale. "Master," said he, "yo'd not guess easy what I've been tramping after to-day. Special if yo'd remember my manner o' talk yesterday. I've been a seeking work. I have," said he. "I said to mysel', I'd keep a civil tongue in my head, let who would say what 'em would. I'd set my teeth into my tongue sooner nor speak i' haste. For that man's sake--yo' understand," jerking his thumb back in some unknown direction. "No, I don't," said Mr. Hale, seeing he waited for some kind of assent, and completely bewildered as to who "that man" could be. "That chap as lies theer," said he, with another jerk. "Him as went and drownded himself, poor chap! I did na think he'd got it in him to lie still and let the water creep o'er him till he died. Boucher, yo' know." "Yes, I know now," said Mr. Hale. "Go back to what you were saying: you'd not speak in haste----" "For his sake. Yet not for his sake; for where'er he is, and whate'er, he'll ne'er know other clemming or cold again; but for the wife's sake, and the bits o' childer." "God bless you!" said Mr. Hale, starting up; then, calming down, he said, breathlessly, "What do you mean? Tell me out." "I have telled yo'," said Higgins, a little surprised at Mr. Hale's agitation. "I would na ask for work for mysel'; but them's left as a charge on me. I reckon, I would ha guided Boucher to a better end; but I set him off o' th' road, and so I mun answer for him." Mr. Hale got hold of Higgins's hand and shook it heartily, without speaking. Higgins looked awkward and ashamed. "Theer, theer, master! Theer's ne'er a man, to call a man, amongst us, but what would do th' same; ay, and better too; for, belie' me, Is'e ne'er got a stroke o' work, nor yet a sight of any. For all I telled Hamper that, let alone his pledge--which I would not sign--no, I could na, not e'en for this--he'd ne'er ha' such a worker on his mill as I would be--he'd ha' none o' me--no more would none o' th' others. I'm a poor black feckless sheep--childer may clem for ought I can do, unless, parson, yo'd help me?" "Help you! How? I would do anything,--but what can I do?" "Miss there"--for Margaret had re-entered the room, and stood silent, listening--"has often talked grand o' the South, and the ways down there. Now I dunnot know how far off it is, but I been thinking if I could get 'em down theer, where food is cheap and wages good, and all the folk, rich and poor, master and man, friendly like; yo' could, may be, help me to work. I'm not forty-five, and I've a deal o' strength in me, measter." "But what kind of work could you do, my man?" "Well, I reckon I could spade a bit----" "And for that," said Margaret, stepping forwards, "for anything you could do, Higgins, with the best will in the world, you would, may be, get nine shillings a week; may be ten, at the outside. Food is much the same as here, except that you might have a little garden----" "The childer could work at that," said he. "I'm sick o' Milton anyways, and Milton is sick o' me." "You must not go the South," said Margaret, "for all that. You could not stand it. You would have to be out all weathers. It would kill you with rheumatism. The mere bodily work at your time of life would break you down. The fare is far different to what you have been accustomed to." "I'se nought particular about my meat," said he, as if offended. "But you've reckoned on having butcher's meat once a day, if you're in work; pay for that out of your ten shillings, and keep those poor children if you can. I owe it to you--since it's my way of talking that has set you off on this idea--to put it all clear before you. You would not bear the dulness of the life; you don't know what it is; it would eat you away like rust. Those that have lived there all their lives, are used to soaking in the stagnant waters. They labour on from day to day, in the great solitude of steaming fields--never speaking or lifting up their poor, bent, downcast heads. The hard spadework robs their brain of life; the sameness of their toil deadens their imagination; they don't care to meet to talk over thoughts and speculations, even of the weakest, wildest kind, after their work is done; they go home brutishly tired, poor creatures! caring for nothing but food and rest. You could not stir them up into any companionship, which you get in a town as plentiful as the air you breathe, whether it be good or bad--and that I don't know; but I do know, that you of all men are not one to bear a life among such labourers. What would be peace to them, would be eternal fretting to you. Think no more of it, Nicholas, I beg. Besides, you could never pay to get mother and children all there--that's one good thing." "I've reckoned for that. One house mun do for us a', and the furniture o' t'other would go a good way. And men theer mun have their families to keep--mappen six or seven childer. God help 'em!" said he, more convinced by his own presentation of the facts than by all Margaret had said, and suddenly renouncing the idea, which had but recently formed itself in a brain worn out by the day's fatigue and anxiety. "God help 'em! North an' South have each getten their own troubles. If work's sure and steady theer, labour's paid at starvation wages; while here we'n rucks o' money coming in one quarter, and ne'er a farthing th' next. For sure, th' world is in a confusion that passes me or any other man to understand; it needs fettling, and who's to fettle it if it's as yon folks say, and there's nought but what we see?" Mr. Hale was busy cutting bread and butter; Margaret was glad of this, for she saw that Higgins was better left to himself: that if her father began to speak ever so mildly on the subject of Higgins's thoughts, the latter would consider himself challenged to an argument, and would feel himself bound to maintain his own ground. She and her father kept up an indifferent conversation until Higgins, scarcely aware whether he ate or not, had made a very substantial meal. Then he pushed his chair away from the table, and tried to take an interest in what they were saying; but it was of no use; and he fell back into dreamy gloom. Suddenly, Margaret said (she had been thinking of it for some time, but the words had stuck in her throat), "Higgins have you been to Marlborough Mills to seek for work?" "Thornton's?" asked he. "Ay, I've been at Thornton's" "And what did he say?" "Such a chap as me is not like to see the measter. Th' o'erlooker bid me go and be d----d." "I wish you had seen Mr. Thornton," said Mr. Hale. "He might not have given you work, but he would not have used such language." "As to th' language, I'm welly used to it; it dunnot matter to me. I'm not nesh mysel' when I'm put out. It were th' fact that I were na wanted theer, no more nor ony other place, as I minded." "But I wish you had seen Mr. Thornton," repeated Margaret. "Would you go again--it's a good deal to ask, I know--but would you go to-morrow and try him? I should be so glad if you would." "I'm afraid it would be of no use," said Mr. Hale, in a low voice. "It would be better to let me speak to him." Margaret still looked at Higgins for his answer. Those grave soft eyes of hers were difficult to resist. He gave a great sigh. "It would tax my pride above a bit; if it were for mysel', I could stand a deal o' clemming first; I'd sooner knock him down than ask a favour from him. I'd a deal sooner be flogged mysel'; but yo're not a common wench, axing yo'r pardon, nor yet have yo' common ways about yo'. I'll e'en make a wry face, and go at it to-morrow. Dunna yo' think that he'll do it. That man has it in him to be burnt at the stake afore he'll give in. I'll do it for yo'r sake, Miss Hale, and it's first time in my life as e'er I give way to a woman. Neither my wife nor Bess could e'er say that much again me." "All the more do I thank you," said Margaret, smiling. "Though I don't believe you: I believe you have just given way to wife and daughter as much as most men." "And as to Mr. Thornton," said Mr. Hale, "I'll give you a note to him, which, I think I may venture say, will ensure you a hearing." "I thank yo' kindly, sir, but I'd as lief stand on my own bottom. I dunnot stomach the notion of having favour curried for me, by one as doesn't know the ins and outs of the quarrel. Meddling 'twixt master and man is liker meddling 'twixt husband and wife than aught else: it takes a deal of wisdom to do ony good. I'll stand guard at the lodge door. I'll stand there fro' six in the morning till I get speech on him. But I'd liefer sweep th' streets, if paupers had na' got hold on that work. Dunna yo' hope, miss. There'll be more chance o' getting milk out of a flint. I wish yo' a very good night, and many thanks to yo'." "You'll find your shoes by the kitchen fire; I took them there to dry," said Margaret. He turned round and looked at her steadily, and then he brushed his lean hand across his eyes and went his way. "How proud that man is!" said her father, who was a little annoyed at the manner in which Higgins had declined his intercession with Mr. Thornton. "He is," said Margaret; "but what grand makings of a man there are in him, pride and all." "It's amusing to see how he evidently respects the part in Mr. Thornton's character which is like his own." "There's granite in all these northern people, papa, is there not?" "There was none in poor Boucher, I am afraid; none in his wife either." "I should guess by their tones that they had Irish blood in them. I wonder what success he'll have to-morrow. If he and Mr. Thornton would speak out together as man to man--if Higgins would forget that Mr. Thornton was a master, and speak to him as he does to us--and if Mr. Thornton would be patient enough to listen to him with his human heart, not with his master's ears--" "You are getting to do Mr. Thornton justice at last, Margaret," said her father, pinching her ear. Margaret had a strange choking at her heart, which made her unable to answer, "Oh!" thought she, "I wish I were a man, that I could go and force him to express his disapprobation, and tell him honestly that I knew I deserved it. It seems hard to lose him as a friend just when I had begun to feel his value. How tender he was with dear mamma! If it were only for her sake, I wish he would come, and then at least I should know how much I was abased in his eyes."

Higgins's door was locked the next day: but they learnt from a neighbour that he was really away from home. He had, however, been in to see Mrs. Boucher, whom Margaret and her father visited next. It was an unsatisfactory visit: Mrs. Boucher considered herself ill-used by her poor husband's suicide; and there was truth enough in this idea to make it difficult to refute. Her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position, and this selfishness extended even to her children, whom she considered as incumbrances, in the very midst of her affection for them. While Mr. Hale spoke to her, Margaret talked to one or two of the children, and found that they were truer and simpler mourners than the widow. Daddy had been kind to them; each could tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shown by the lost father. 'Is yon thing upstairs really him? It doesna look like him. I'm feared on it, and I never was feared o' daddy.' Margaret's heart bled to hear that the mother had taken her children upstairs to see their disfigured father. She tried to turn their thoughts in some other direction; on what they could do for mother; on what father would have wished. The children began to do as she suggested towards tidying up the slatternly room. But her father, trying to raise the widow's thoughts, set too high a standard, and too abstract a view. She could not rouse her torpid mind to imagine what her husband's misery might have been; she could only look upon it as it affected herself. Although she was secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such despair, and denying that he had any excuse for his last rash act, she abused all who could be supposed to have driven him to such desperation. The masters - Mr. Thornton in particular, whose mill had been attacked by Boucher - the Union, represented by Higgins - the children so numerous, so hungry, and so noisy - all made up one great army of personal enemies, whose fault it was that she was now a helpless widow. Margaret was disheartened; and when they came away she found it impossible to cheer her father. 'It is the town life,' said she. 'The haste and bustle of everything around them, to say nothing of the confinement in these pent-up houses, is enough to induce depression and worry. In the country, people live so much more out of doors, even in the winter.' 'But people must live in towns. And in the country some get such stagnant habits of mind that they are almost fatalists.' 'Yes; I acknowledge that. I suppose each mode of life produces its own trials. The town-dweller must find it as difficult to be patient and calm, as the country-bred man to be active. Both must find it hard to realise a future of any kind; the one because the present is so hurrying and close around him; the other because his slow life tempts him to revel in the mere sense of animal existence, rather than looking forward.' 'But this poor Mrs. Boucher! how little we can do for her.' 'And yet we must try. Oh papa! it's a hard world to live in!' 'So it is, my child. Yet we have been very happy, even in the midst of our sorrow. What a pleasure Frederick's visit was!' 'Yes, that it was,' said Margaret. 'It was such a charming, snatched thing.' But she suddenly stopped speaking as she remembered her own cowardice. Of all faults, the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery and truth. And she had been guilty of it! Then came the thought of Mr. Thornton's knowledge of her falsehood. She wondered if she should have minded detection half so much from anyone else. She did not think so. Even a fall in Frederick's opinion would be as nothing to the shrinking shame she felt at the thought of meeting Mr. Thornton again. And yet she longed to see him, to get it over; to understand where she stood in his opinion. Her cheeks burnt as she recollected how proudly she had implied an objection to trade in the early days of their acquaintance, because it led to a passing off of inferior as superior goods. She remembered Mr. Thornton's look of calm disdain, as in a few words he gave her to understand that there was folly and deceit in every walk of life, and that all dishonourable ways of acting were sure to prove injurious in the long run. She remembered how she - strong in her own untempted truth - had asked him if buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market did not show a lack of justice. She had used the word chivalric; her father had corrected her with the word, Christian; and so drawn the argument upon himself, while she sat silent with a slight feeling of contempt. No more contempt! - no more talk about the chivalric! Henceforward she must feel humiliated and disgraced in his sight. But when should she see him? Her heart leaped up in apprehension at every ring of the door-bell; and yet she felt strangely saddened and sick at heart with each disappointment. Her father was surprised that he did not come. Mr. Hale had not yet resumed his tutoring, so he had fewer occupations than usual. He was restless all evening. He kept saying, 'I quite expected to have seen Mr. Thornton. Has there been any message left today?' 'I will go and inquire, papa,' said Margaret. 'Wait, there's a ring!' She sat down instantly, and bent her head attentively over her work. She heard a step on the stairs, but knew it was only Dixon's. She lifted up her head and sighed, and believed she felt glad. 'It's that Higgins, sir. He wants to see you, or else Miss Hale. He's in a strange kind of way.' 'He had better come up here, Dixon; and then he can see us both.' 'Oh! very well, sir. Only if you could see his shoes, I'm sure you'd say the kitchen was the fitter place.' 'He can wipe them, I suppose,' said Mr. Hale. So Dixon flung off, to bid him walk upstairs. She was a little mollified, however, when Higgins looked at his feet; and then, sitting down on the bottom stair, took off the offending shoes, and walked up. 'If hoo'l excuse me for being i' my stockings,' he said, looking at Margaret, 'I'se been tramping all day, and streets is none o' th' cleanest.' He was unusually subdued; and he had evidently some difficulty in saying what he came to say. Mr. Hale, ever-ready in sympathy with shyness, said: 'We shall have tea directly, and then you'll take a cup with us, Mr. Higgins. I am sure you are tired, if you've been out all day. Margaret, my dear, can't you hasten tea?' Margaret could only hasten tea by taking the preparation of it into her own hands, and so offending Dixon, who was emerging out of her sorrow for her late mistress into a very touchy, irritable state. 'Why master and you must always be asking the lower classes upstairs, since we came to Milton, I cannot understand. Folk at Helstone were never brought higher than the kitchen.' Higgins found it easier to unburden himself to one than to two. After Margaret left the room, he said: 'Master, yo'd not guess easy what I've been tramping after today. I've been a seeking work. I said to mysel', I'd keep a civil tongue in my head, let who would say what 'em would. For that man's sake - yo' understand,' jerking his thumb back in some unknown direction. 'No, I don't,' said Mr. Hale, bewildered as to who 'that man' could be. 'Him as went and drownded himself, poor chap! Boucher, yo' know.' 'Yes,' said Mr. Hale. 'Go on.' 'I'll not speak in haste for his sake. Yet not for his sake; but for the wife's sake, and the childer.' 'God bless you! What do you mean? Tell me.' 'I have telled yo',' said Higgins, a little surprised. 'I would na ask for work for mysel'; but them's left as a charge on me. I reckon I set Boucher off o' th' road, and so I mun answer for him.' Mr. Hale took Higgins's hand and shook it heartily, without speaking. Higgins looked awkward and ashamed. 'Theer, theer, master! Theer's ne'er a man amongst us, but what would do th' same. Ay, and better too; for I'se ne'er got a stroke o' work. For all I telled them that they'd ne'er ha' such a worker as I would be - they'd ha' none o' me. I'm a poor black feckless sheep - childer may clem for aught I can do, unless, parson, yo'd help me?' 'Help you! I would do anything - but what can I do?' 'Miss there' - for Margaret had re-entered the room, and stood listening - 'has often talked grand o' the South. Now I dunnot know how far off it is, but I've been thinking if I could get down theer, where food is cheap and wages good, and all the folk friendly like; yo' could, maybe, help me to find work. I'm not forty-five, and I've a deal o' strength in me, measter.' 'But what kind of work could you do?' 'Well, I reckon I could spade a bit.' 'And for that,' said Margaret, stepping forwards, 'with the best will in the world, you would, maybe, get nine shillings a week; ten at the outside. And food costs much the same as here.' 'I'm sick o' Milton anyways, and Milton is sick o' me.' 'You must not go to the South,' said she, 'for all that. You could not stand it. You would have to be out in all weathers. The bodily work at your time of life would break you down. The fare is far different to what you have been accustomed to.' 'I'se nought particular about my meat,' said he, as if offended. 'But you've reckoned on having butcher's meat once a day, if you're in work. I owe it to you to put it all clear before you. You would not bear the dullness of the life; you don't know what it is; it would eat you away like rust. Those that have lived there all their lives, are used to labouring on, from day to day, in the great solitude of steaming fields - never speaking or lifting up their poor, bent heads. The toil robs their brain of life; it deadens their imagination; they don't care to meet to talk after their work is done; they go home brutishly tired, poor creatures! caring for nothing but food and rest. You could not stir them up into any companionship. You of all men could not bear a life among such labourers. Think no more of it, Nicholas, I beg. Besides, you could never pay to get mother and children all there.' 'I've reckoned for that. One house mun do for us all. And men theer must have their families to keep - God help 'em!' said he. 'God help 'em! North an' South have each getten their own troubles. If work's sure and steady theer, labour's paid at starvation prices; while here we'n rucks o' money coming in one quarter, and ne'er a farthing th' next. For sure, th' world is in a confusion that passes understanding; it needs fettling, and who's to fettle it?' Mr. Hale was busy cutting bread and butter, and did not argue with this. He and Margaret kept up an indifferent conversation until Higgins had made a very substantial meal. Then he pushed his chair away from the table, and fell back into dreamy gloom. Suddenly, Margaret said, 'Higgins, have you been to Marlborough Mills to seek for work?' 'Thornton's?' asked he. 'Ay, I've been at Thornton's.' 'And what did he say?' 'I didna see the measter. Th' o'erlooker bid me go and be d___ d.' 'I wish you had seen Mr. Thornton,' said Mr. Hale. 'He might not have given you work, but he would not have used such language.' 'I'm used to it; it dunnot matter to me. It were th' fact that I were na wanted theer that I minded.' 'Would you go again tomorrow,' said Margaret, 'and try to see Mr. Thornton? I should be so glad if you would.' 'I'm afraid it would be of no use,' said Mr. Hale, in a low voice. Higgins gave a great sigh. 'It would tax my pride above a bit; if it were for mysel', I'd sooner be flogged. But I'll make a wry face, and go at it tomorrow. Dunna yo' think that he'll do it. That man has it in him to be burnt at the stake afore he'll give in. I do it for your sake, Miss Hale, and it's first time in my life as e'er I give way to a woman. Neither my wife nor Bess could e'er say that much against me.' 'I thank you,' said Margaret, smiling. 'Though I don't believe you: I expect you have given way to wife and daughter as much as most men.' 'As to Mr. Thornton,' said Mr. Hale, 'I'll give you a note to him, which should ensure you a hearing.' 'I thank yo' kindly, sir, but I'd as lief stand on my own. I'll stand guard at the lodge door fro' six in the morning till I get speech on him. But dunna yo' hope, miss. There'll be more chance o' getting milk out of a flint. I wish yo' a very good night, and many thanks to yo'.' 'You'll find your shoes by the kitchen fire; I put them there to dry,' said Margaret. He turned round and looked at her steadily, and then he brushed his lean hand across his eyes and went his way. 'How proud that man is!' said her father. 'What grand makings of a man there are in him,' replied Margaret, 'pride and all. There's granite in all these northern people, papa, is there not?' 'There was none in poor Boucher, I am afraid; none in his wife either.' 'I wonder what success he'll have tomorrow. If Higgins would forget that Mr. Thornton was a master, and speak to him as he does to us - and if Mr. Thornton would be patient enough to listen to him with his human heart, not with his master's ears-' 'You are getting to do Mr. Thornton justice at last, Margaret,' said her father. Margaret had a strange choking at her heart, which made her unable to answer. But she thought, 'I wish I were a man, and could go and force him to express his disapproval, and tell him honestly that I knew I deserved it. It is hard to lose him as a friend just when I had begun to feel his value. How tender he was with dear mamma! I wish he would come, and then at least I should know how much I was abased in his eyes.'

North and South

Chapter 37: LOOKING SOUTH

"When some beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly, And silence, against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new,-- What hope? what help? what music will undo That silence to your sense?" MRS. BROWNING. The shock had been great. Margaret fell into a state of prostration, which did not show itself in sobs and tears, or even find the relief of words. She lay on the sofa with her eyes shut, never speaking but when spoken to, and then replying in whispers. Mr. Bell was perplexed. He dared not leave her; he dared not ask her to accompany him back to Oxford, which had been one of the plans he had formed on the journey to Milton, her physical exhaustion was evidently too complete for her to undertake any such fatigue--putting the sight that she would have to encounter out of the question. Mr. Bell sate over the fire, considering what he had better do. Margaret lay motionless, and almost breathless by him. He would not leave her, even for the dinner which Dixon had prepared for him downstairs, and, with sobbing hospitality, would fain have tempted him to eat. He had a plateful of something brought up to him. In general, he was particular and dainty enough, and knew well each shade of flavour in his food, but now the devilled chicken tasted like sawdust. He minced up some of the fowl for Margaret, and peppered and salted it well; but when Dixon, following his directions, tried to feed her, the languid shake of head, proved that in such a state as Margaret was in, food would only choke, not nourish her. Mr. Bell gave a great sigh; lifted up his stout old limbs (stiff with travelling) from their easy position, and followed Dixon out of the room. "I can't leave her. I must write to them at Oxford, to see that the preparations are made: they can be getting on with these till I arrive. Can't Mrs. Lennox come to her? I'll write and tell her she must. The girl must have some woman-friend about her, if only to talk her into a good fit of crying." Dixon was crying--enough for two; but, after wiping her eyes and steadying her voice, she managed to tell Mr. Bell, that Mrs. Lennox was too near her confinement to be able to undertake any journey at present. "Well! I suppose we must have Mrs. Shaw; she's come back to England, isn't she?" "Yes, sir, she's come back; but I don't think she will like to leave Mrs. Lennox at such an interesting time," said Dixon, who did not much approve of a stranger entering the household, to share with her in her ruling care of Margaret. "Interesting time be----." Mr. Bell restricted himself by coughing over the end of his sentence. "She could be content to be at Venice or Naples, or some of those Popish places, at the last 'interesting time,' which took place in Corfu, I think. And what does that little prosperous woman's 'interesting time' signify, in comparison with that poor creature there,--that helpless, homeless, friendless, Margaret--lying as still on that sofa as if it were an altar-tomb, and she the stone statue on it. I tell you, Mrs. Shaw shall come. See that a room, or whatever she wants, is got ready for her by to-morrow night. I'll take care she comes." Accordingly Mr. Bell wrote a letter, which Mrs. Shaw declared, with many tears, to be so like one of the dear general's when he was going to have a fit of the gout, that she should always value and preserve it. If he had given her the option, by requesting or urging her, as if a refusal were possible, she might not have come--true and sincere as was her sympathy with Margaret. It needed the sharp uncourteous command to make her conquer her vis inerti and allow herself to be packed by her maid, after the latter had completed the boxes. Edith, all cap, shawl, and tears, came out to the top of the stairs, as Captain Lennox was taking her mother down to the carriage: "Don't forget, mamma; Margaret must come and live with us. Sholto will go to Oxford on Wednesday, and you must send word by Mr. Bell to him when we're to expect you. And if you want Sholto, he can go on from Oxford to Milton. Don't forget, mamma; you are to bring back Margaret." Edith re-entered the drawing-room. Mr. Henry Lennox was there, cutting open the pages of a new Review. Without lifting his head, he said, "If you don't like Sholto to be so long absent from you, Edith, I hope you will let me go down to Milton, and give what assistance I can." "Oh, thank you," said Edith, "I dare say old Mr. Bell will do everything he can, and more help may not be needed. Only one does not look for much savoir-faire from a resident Fellow. Dear, darling Margaret; won't it be nice to have her here, again? You were both great allies, years ago." "Were we?" asked he indifferently, with an appearance of being interested in a passage in the Review. "Well, perhaps not--I forget. I was so full of Sholto. But doesn't it fall out well, that if my uncle was to die, it should be just now, when we are come home, and settled in the old house, and quite ready to receive Margaret? Poor thing! what a change it will be to her from Milton! I'll have new chintz for her bed-room, and make it look new and bright, and cheer her up a little." In the same spirit of kindness, Mrs. Shaw journeyed to Milton, occasionally dreading the first meeting, and wondering how it would be got over; but more frequently planning how soon she could get Margaret away from "that horrid place," and back in the pleasant comforts of Harley Street. "Oh dear!" she said to her maid; "look at those chimneys! My poor sister Hale! I don't think I could have rested at Naples, if I had known what it was! I must have come and fetched her and Margaret away." And to herself she acknowledged, that she had always thought her brother-in-law rather a weak man, but never so weak as now, when she saw for what a place he had exchanged the lovely Helstone home. Margaret had remained in the same state; white, motionless, speechless, tearless. They had told her that her aunt Shaw was coming; but she had not expressed either surprise or pleasure, or dislike to the idea. Mr. Bell, whose appetite had returned, and who appreciated Dixon's endeavours to gratify it, in vain urged upon her to taste some sweetbreads stewed with oysters; she shook her head with the same quiet obstinacy as on the previous day; and he was obliged to console himself for her rejection, by eating them all himself. But Margaret was the first to hear the stopping of the cab that brought her aunt from the railway station. Her eyelids quivered, her lips coloured and trembled. Mr. Bell went down to meet Mrs. Shaw; and when they came up, Margaret was standing, trying to steady her dizzy self; and when she saw her aunt, she went forward to the arms open to receive her, and first found the passionate relief of tears on her aunt's shoulder. All thoughts of quiet habitual love, of tenderness for years, of relationship to the dead, all that inexplicable likeness in look, tone, and gesture, that seem to belong to one family, and which reminded Margaret so forcibly at this moment of her mother, came in to melt and soften her numbed heart into the overflow of warm tears. Mr. Bell stole out of the room, and went down into the study, where he ordered a fire, and tried to divert his thoughts by taking down and examining the different books. Each volume brought a remembrance or a suggestion of his dead friend. It might be a change of employment from his two days' work of watching Margaret, but it was no change of thought. He was glad to catch the sound of Mr. Thornton's voice, making enquiry at the door. Dixon was rather cavalierly dismissing him; for with the appearance of Mrs. Shaw's maid, came visions of former grandeur, of the Beresford blood, of the "station" (so she was pleased to term it) from which her young lady had been ousted, and to which she was now, please God, to be restored. These visions, which she had been dwelling on with complacency in her conversation with Mrs. Shaw's maid (skilfully eliciting meanwhile all the circumstances of state and consequence connected with the Harley Street establishment, for the edification of the listening Martha), made Dixon rather inclined to be supercilious in her treatment of any inhabitant of Milton; so, though she always stood rather in awe of Mr. Thornton, she was as curt as she durst be in telling him that he could see none of the inmates of the house that night. It was rather uncomfortable to be contradicted in her statement by Mr. Bell's opening the study-door, and calling out: "Thornton! is that you? Come in for a minute or two; I want to speak to you." So Mr. Thornton went into the study, and Dixon had to retreat into the kitchen, and reinstate herself in her own esteem by a prodigious story of Sir John Beresford's coach and six, when he was high sheriff. "I don't know what I wanted to say to you after all. Only it's dull enough to sit in a room where everything speaks to you of a dead friend. Yet Margaret and her aunt must have the drawing-room to themselves!" "Is Mrs.--is her aunt come?" asked Mr. Thornton. "Come? Yes! maid and all. One would have thought she might have come by herself at such a time! And now I shall have to turn out and find my way to the Clarendon." "You must not go to the Clarendon. We have five or six empty bed-rooms at home." "Well aired?" "I think you may trust my mother for that." "Then I'll only run upstairs and wish that wan girl good-night, and make my bow to her aunt, and go off with you straight." Mr. Bell was some time upstairs. Mr. Thornton began to think it long, for he was full of business, and had hardly been able to spare the time for running up to Crampton, and enquiring how Miss Hale was. When they had set out upon their walk, Mr. Bell said: "I was kept by those women in the drawing-room. Mrs. Shaw is anxious to get home--on account of her daughter, she says--and wants Margaret to go off with her at once. Now she is no more fit for travelling than I am for flying. Besides, she says, and very justly, that she has friends she must see--that she must wish good-bye to several people; and then her aunt worried her about old claims, and was she forgetful of old friends? And she said, with a great burst of crying, she should be glad enough to go from a place where she had suffered so much. Now I must return to Oxford to-morrow, and I don't know on which side of the scale to throw in my voice." He paused, as if asking a question; but he received no answer from his companion, the echo of whose thoughts kept repeating-- "Where she had suffered so much." Alas! and that was the way in which this eighteen months in Milton--to him so unspeakably precious, down to its very bitterness, which was worth all the rest of life's sweetness--would be remembered. Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr. Thornton, could have poisoned the remembrance of the weeks, the days, the hours, when a walk of two miles, every step of which was pleasant, as it brought him nearer and nearer to her, took him to her sweet presence--every step of which was rich, as each recurring moment that bore him away from her made him recall some fresh grace in her demeanour, or pleasant pungency in her character. Yes! whatever had happened to him, external to his relation to her, he could never have spoken of that time, when he could have seen her every day--when he had her within his grasp, as it were--as a time of suffering. It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of either hope or fear. Mrs. Thornton and Fanny were in the dining-room; the latter in a flutter of small exultation, as the maid held up one glossy material after another, to try the effect of the wedding-dresses by candle-light. Her mother really tried to sympathise with her, but could not. Neither taste nor dress were in her line of subjects, and she heartily wished that Fanny had accepted her brother's offer of having the wedding clothes provided by some first-rate London dressmaker, without the endless troublesome discussions, and unsettled waverings, that arose out of Fanny's desire to choose and superintend everything herself. Mr. Thornton was only too glad to mark his grateful approbation of any sensible man, who could be captivated by Fanny's second-rate airs and graces, by giving her ample means for providing herself with the finery, which certainly rivalled, if it did not exceed, the lover in her estimation. When her brother and Mr. Bell came in, Fanny blushed and simpered, and fluttered over the signs of her employment, in a way which could not have failed to draw attention from any one else but Mr. Bell. If he thought about her and her silks and satins at all, it was to compare her and them with the pale sorrow he had left behind him, sitting motionless, with bent head and folded hands, in a room where the stillness was so great that you might almost fancy the rush in your straining ears was occasioned by the spirits of the dead, yet hovering round their beloved. For when Mr. Bell had first gone upstairs, Mrs. Shaw lay asleep on the sofa; and no sound broke the silence. Mrs. Thornton gave Mr. Bell her formal, hospitable welcome. She was never so gracious as when receiving her son's friends in her son's house; and the more unexpected they were, the more honour to her admirable housekeeping preparations for comfort. "How is Miss Hale?" she asked. "About as broken down by this last stroke as she can be." "I am sure it is very well for her that she has such a friend as you." "I wish I were her only friend, madam. I daresay it sounds very brutal; but here have I been displaced, and turned out of my post of comforter and adviser by a fine lady aunt; and there are cousins and what not claiming her in London, as if she were a lap-dog belonging to them. And she is too weak and miserable to have a will of her own." "She must indeed be weak," said Mrs. Thornton, with an implied meaning which her son understood well. "But where," continued Mrs. Thornton, "have these relations been all this time that Miss Hale has appeared almost friendless, and has certainly had a good deal of anxiety to bear?" But she did not feel interest enough in the answer to her question to wait for it. She left the room to make her household arrangements. "They have been living abroad. They have some kind of claim upon her. I will do them that justice. The aunt brought her up, and she and the cousin have been like sisters. The thing vexing me, you see, is that I wanted to take her for a child of my own; and I am jealous of these people, who don't seem to value the privilege of their right. Now it would be different if Frederick claimed her." "Frederick!" exclaimed Mr. Thornton. "Who is he? What right----?" He stopped short in his vehement question. "Frederick," said Mr. Bell in surprise. "Why, don't you know? He's her brother. Have you not heard----" "I never heard his name before. Where is he? Who is he?" "Surely I told you about him, when the family first came to Milton--the son who was concerned in that mutiny." "I never heard of him till this moment. Where does he live?" "In Spain. He's liable to be arrested the moment he sets foot on English ground. Poor fellow! he will grieve at not being able to attend his father's funeral. We must be content with Captain Lennox; for I don't know of any other relation." "I hope I may be allowed to go?" "Certainly; thankfully. You're a good fellow, after all, Thornton. Hale liked you. He spoke to me, only the other day, at Oxford. He regretted he had seen so little of you lately. I am obliged to you for wishing to show him respect." "But about Frederick. Does he never come to England?" "Never." "He was not over here about the time of Mrs. Hale's death?" "No. Why, I was here then. I hadn't seen Hale for years and years: and, if you remember, I came--No, it was some time after that that I came. But poor Frederick Hale was not here then. What made you think he was?" "I saw a young man walking with Miss Hale one day," replied Mr. Thornton, "and I think it was about that time." "Oh, that would be this young Lennox, the Captain's brother. He's a lawyer, and they were in pretty constant correspondence with him; and I remember Mr. Hale told me he thought he would come down. Do you know," said Mr. Bell, wheeling round, and shutting one eye, the better to bring the forces of the other to bear with keen scrutiny on Mr. Thornton's face, "that I once fancied you had a little tenderness for Margaret?" No answer. No change of countenance. "And so did poor Hale. Not at first, and not till I had put it into his head." "I admired Miss Hale. Every one must do so. She is a beautiful creature," said Mr. Thornton, driven to bay by Mr. Bell's pertinacious questioning. "Is that all! You can speak of her in that measured way, as simply a 'beautiful creature'--only something to catch the eye. I did hope you had had nobleness enough in you to make you pay her the homage of the heart. Though I believe--in fact I know, she would have rejected you, still to have loved her without return would have lifted you higher than all those, be they who they may, that have ever known her to love. 'Beautiful creature' indeed! Do you speak of her as you would of a horse or a dog?" Mr. Thornton's eyes glowed like red embers. "Mr. Bell," said he, "before you speak so, you should remember that all men are not as free to express what they feel as you are. Let us talk of something else." For though his heart leaped up, as at a trumpet-call, to every word that Mr. Bell had said, and though he knew that what he had said would henceforward bind the thought of the old Oxford Fellow closely up with the most precious things of his heart, yet he would not be forced into any expression of what he felt towards Margaret. He was no mocking-bird of praise to try, because another extolled what he reverenced and passionately loved, to outdo him in laudation. So he turned to some of the dry matters of business that lay between Mr. Bell and him, as landlord and tenant. "What is that heap of brick and mortar we came against in the yard? Any repairs wanted?" "No, none, thank you." "Are you building on your own account? If you are, I'm very much obliged to you." "I'm building a dining-room--for the men I mean--the hands." "I thought you were hard to please, if this room wasn't good enough to satisfy you, a bachelor." "I've got acquainted with a strange kind of chap, and I put one or two children in whom he is interested to school. So, as I happened to be passing near his house one day, I just went there about some trifling payment to be made; and I saw such a miserable black frizzle of a dinner--a greasy cinder of meat, as first set me a-thinking. But it was not till provisions grew so high this winter that I bethought me how, by buying things wholesale, and cooking a good quantity of provisions together, much money might be saved, and much comfort gained. So I spoke to my friend--or my enemy--the man I told you of--and he found fault with every detail of my plan; and in consequence I laid it aside, both as impracticable, and also because if I forced it into operation I should be interfering with the independence of my men; when, suddenly, this Higgins came to me and graciously signified his approval of a scheme so nearly the same as mine, that I might fairly have claimed it; and, moreover, the approval of several of his fellow-workmen, to whom he had spoken. I was a little 'riled,' I confess, by his manner, and thought of throwing the whole thing overboard to sink or swim. But it seemed childish to relinquish a plan which I had once thought wise and well-laid, just because I myself did not receive all the honour and consequence due to the originator. So I coolly took the part assigned to me, which is something like that of a steward to a club. I buy in the provisions wholesale, and provide a fitting matron or cook." "I hope you give satisfaction in your new capacity. Are you a good judge of potatoes and onions? But I suppose Mrs. Thornton assists you in your marketing." "Not a bit," replied Mr. Thornton. "She disapproves of the whole plan, and now we never mention it to each other. But I manage pretty well, getting in great stocks from Liverpool, and being served in butcher's meat by our own family butcher. I can assure you, the hot dinners the matron turns out are not to be despised." "Do you taste each dish as it goes in, in virtue of your office? I hope you have a white wand." "I was very scrupulous, at first, in confining myself to the mere purchasing part, and even in that I rather obeyed the men's orders, conveyed through the housekeeper, than went by my own judgment. At one time, the beef was too large, at another the mutton was not fat enough. I think they saw how careful I was to leave them free, and not to intrude my own ideas upon them; so, one day, two or three of the men--my friend Higgins among them--asked me if I would not come in and take a snack. It was a very busy day, but I saw that the men would be hurt if, after making the advance, I didn't meet them half-way, so I went in, and I never made a better dinner in my life. I told them (my next neighbours I mean, for I'm no speech-maker) how much I enjoyed it; and for some time, whenever that especial dinner recurred in their dietary, I was sure to be met by these men, with a 'Master, there's hot-pot for dinner to-day, win yo' come in?' If they had not asked me, I would no more have intruded on them than I'd have gone to the mess at the barracks without invitation." "I should think you were rather a restraint on your hosts' conversation. They can't abuse the masters while you're there. I expect they take it out on non-hot-pot days." "Well! hitherto we've steered clear of all vexed questions. But if any of the old disputes came up again, I would certainly speak out my mind next hot-pot day. But you are hardly acquainted with our Darkshire fellows, for all you're a Darkshire man yourself. They have such a sense of humour, and such a racy mode of expression! I am getting really to know some of them now, and they talk pretty freely before me." "Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men. Dying is nothing to it. The philosopher dies sententiously--the pharisee ostentatiously--the simple-hearted humbly--the poor idiot blindly, as the sparrow falls to the ground; the philosopher and idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion--given an equally good digestion. There's theory for theory for you!" "Indeed I have no theory; I hate theories." "I beg your pardon. To show my penitence, will you accept a ten pound note towards your marketing, and give the poor fellows a feast?" "Thank you; but I'd rather not. They pay me rent for the oven and cooking-places at the back of the mill: and will have to pay more for the new dining-room. I don't want it to fall into a charity. I don't want donations. Once let in the principle, and I should have people going and talking, and spoiling the simplicity of the whole thing." "People will talk about any new plan. You can't help that." "My enemies, if I have any, may make a philanthropic fuss about this dinner-scheme; but you are a friend, and I expect that you will now pay my experiment the respect of silence. It is but a new broom at present, and sweeps clean enough. But by-an-bye we shall meet with plenty of stumbling-blocks, no doubt."

The shock had been great. Margaret did not sob or even speak. She lay on the sofa with her eyes shut. Mr. Bell was perplexed. He dared not leave her; he dared not ask her to accompany him back to Oxford, which had been one of the plans he had formed on the journey to Milton. He sat by the fire, considering what he had better do. Margaret lay motionless, and almost breathless. He would not leave her, even for the dinner which Dixon had prepared for him downstairs, and, sobbing, would fain have tempted him to eat. He had a plateful of something brought up, but it tasted like sawdust. When Dixon tried to feed Margaret, the languid shake of her head indicated that food would only choke her. Mr. Bell gave a great sigh, and followed Dixon out of the room. 'I can't leave her. I must write to Oxford, to see that preparations are made for the funeral. Can't Mrs. Lennox come to her? I'll write and tell her she must. The girl must have some woman-friend about her.' Dixon was crying; but after wiping her eyes, she managed to tell Mr. Bell that Mrs. Lennox was too near her confinement with her second child to undertake any journey at present. 'Well! Mrs. Shaw; she's back in England, isn't she?' 'Yes, sir; but I don't think she will like to leave Mrs. Lennox at such an interesting time,' said Dixon. 'Interesting time be-' Mr. Bell restricted himself to coughing. 'What does that prosperous woman's "interesting time" signify, in comparison with that poor creature there - homeless and friendless - lying as still on that sofa as if it were an altar-tomb? I tell you, Mrs. Shaw shall come.' Accordingly Mr. Bell wrote a letter, which did not give Mrs. Shaw the option of refusing. If he had, she might not have come - true and sincere as was her sympathy with Margaret. It needed the sharp, uncourteous command to make her conquer her inertia. She allowed her things to be packed by her maid; and Edith, in cap, shawls, and tears, called to her mother, as Captain Lennox was taking her down to the carriage: 'Don't forget, mamma; Margaret must come and live with us. You must send word by Mr. Bell to Cosmo when we're to expect you: Cosmo will be in Oxford, and can go on to Milton. Don't forget, mamma; you are to bring back Margaret.' Edith re-entered the drawing-room, where Mr. Henry Lennox was. Without lifting his head, he said, 'If you don't like Cosmo to be so long absent from you, Edith, I hope you will let me go down to Milton, and give what assistance I can.' 'Thank you,' said Edith. 'Dear Margaret! won't it be nice to have her here again? You were both great allies, years ago.' 'Were we?' asked he, indifferently. 'Well, perhaps not - I forget. I was so full of Cosmo. But doesn't it fall out well, that my uncle should die just after we are come home, and ready to receive Margaret? Poor thing! what a change it will be from Milton! I'll have new chintz for her bedroom, and make it look bright, and cheer her up a little.' In the same spirit of kindness, Mrs. Shaw journeyed to Milton planning how soon she could get Margaret away from 'that horrid place,' and back into the pleasant comforts of Harley Street. 'Oh dear!' she said to her maid; 'look at those chimneys! My poor sister Hale!' She had always thought her brother-in-law rather a weak man, but never so weak as now, when she saw for what a place he had exchanged the lovely Helstone home. Margaret had remained in the same state; white, motionless, speechless, tearless. They had told her that her aunt Shaw was coming; but she had not answered. Despite Mr. Bell's urgings, she still refused to eat; she shook her head with the same quiet obstinacy as on the previous day. She was the first to hear her aunt's cab stopping. Her eyelids quivered, her lips trembled. Mr. Bell went down to meet Mrs. Shaw, and when they came up, Margaret was standing dizzily: she went forward to her aunt's open arms, and found the passionate relief of tears. All that inexplicable likeness to her mother melted her numbed heart. Mr. Bell stole out of the room, and went into the study, where he tried to divert his thoughts by taking down books. Each volume brought a remembrance of his dead friend. He was glad to catch the sound of Mr. Thornton's voice, making enquiry at the door. Dixon was rather cavalierly dismissing him; for the appearance of Mrs. Shaw and her Beresford blood made Dixon inclined to be supercilious in her treatment of Milton inhabitants. So, though she stood rather in awe of Mr. Thornton, she was as curt as she dared be in telling him that he could see nobody that night. Mr. Bell opened the study-door, and called out: 'Thornton! is that you? Come in; I want to speak to you.' So Mr. Thornton went into the study, and Dixon had to retreat. 'I don't know what I wanted to say to you after all. Only it's dull to sit in a room where everything reminds you of a dead friend. Yet Margaret and her aunt must have the drawing-room to themselves!' 'Is her aunt come?' asked Mr. Thornton. 'Yes! maid and all. I shall have to turn out and find my way to the Clarendon Hotel.' 'You must not go to the Clarendon. We have five or six empty bedrooms at home.' 'Then I'll just run upstairs and wish that wan girl good-night, and make my bow to her aunt, and go off with you.' Mr. Bell was some time upstairs. Mr. Thornton began to think it long, for he was busy, and had hardly been able to spare the time for running up to Crampton to enquire after Miss Hale. When they had set out upon their walk, Mr. Bell said: 'Mrs. Shaw is anxious to get home, and wants Margaret to go off with her at once. Now she is no more fit for travelling than I am for flying. Besides, she says, and very justly, that she has friends she must see - that she must wish good-bye to several people. And she said, with a great burst of crying, she should be glad enough to leave a place where she had suffered so much. Now I must return to Oxford tomorrow, and I don't know which side to support.' He received no answer from his companion, who was inwardly repeating: 'Where she had suffered so much.' Alas! and that was the way in which this eighteen months in Milton - to him so unspeakably precious, even down to its very bitterness - would be remembered by her. Nothing could have poisoned his remembrance of the weeks when a walk of two miles took him to her sweet presence - every moment of which showed him some fresh grace in her demeanour, or pleasant pungency in her character. Yes! whatever had happened to him, he could never have spoken of that period as a time of suffering. It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings, compared to the poverty that crept round the anticipation of the future. Mrs. Thornton and Fanny were in the dining-room; the latter in a flutter of exultation, as the maid held up one glossy material after another, to try out the effect of the wedding-dresses by candlelight. Her mother really tried to sympathise with her, but could not. She heartily wished that Fanny had accepted her brother's offer of having the wedding clothes made by some London dressmaker, without these endless troublesome discussions. Mr. Thornton was only too glad to mark his approval of any sensible man who could be captivated by Fanny's second-rate airs and graces, by giving her ample means for providing herself with finery. When her brother and Mr. Bell came in, Fanny blushed and simpered in a way which could not have failed to draw attention from anyone else but Mr. Bell. If he thought about her at all, it was to compare her with the pale sorrow he had left behind him, sitting motionless in a room so still that you might almost fancy the rush in your straining ears was caused by the spirits of the dead. Mrs. Thornton gave Mr. Bell her formal welcome. 'How is Miss Hale?' she asked. 'About as broken down by this last stroke as she can be.' 'I am sure it is very well for her that she has such a friend as you.' 'I wish I were her only friend, madam. I daresay it sounds very brutal; but I have been displaced by a fine lady aunt; and there are cousins and what not claiming her in London, as if she were a lap-dog belonging to them. And she is too weak and miserable to have a will of her own.' 'She must indeed be weak,' said Mrs. Thornton, with an implied meaning which her son understood well. 'But where have these relations been all this time that Miss Hale has appeared almost friendless?' However, she did not feel interest enough in the answer to wait for it. She left the room to make her household arrangements. 'They have been living abroad. The aunt brought her up, and she and the cousin have been like sisters. The thing vexing me, you see, is that I wanted to take her for a child of my own; and I am jealous of these people. Now it would be different if Frederick claimed her.' 'Frederick!' exclaimed Mr. Thornton. 'Who is he? What right-?' He stopped short. 'Frederick,' said Mr. Bell in surprise. 'Why, don't you know? He's her brother.' 'I never heard his name before.' 'Surely I told you about him, when the family first came to Milton - the son who was concerned in that mutiny.' 'I never heard of him till this moment. Where does he live?' 'In Spain. He's liable to be arrested the moment he sets foot in England. Poor fellow! He will grieve at not being able to attend his father's funeral.' 'I hope I may be allowed to go?' 'Certainly. You're a good fellow, Thornton. Hale liked you.' 'But about Frederick. Does he never come to England?' 'Never.' 'He was not over here about the time of Mrs. Hale's death?' 'No. Why, I was here then - no, it was some time later. But poor Frederick was not here then. What made you think he was?' 'I saw a young man walking with Miss Hale one day, about that time,' replied Mr. Thornton. 'Oh, that would be young Lennox, the Captain's brother. He's a lawyer, and they were in pretty constant correspondence with him; I remember Mr. Hale told me he thought he would come down. Do you know,' said Mr. Bell, wheeling round, 'that I once fancied you had a little tenderness for Margaret?' No answer. No change of countenance. 'And so did poor Hale, though not till I had put it into his head.' 'I admired Miss Hale. Everyone must do so. She is a beautiful creature,' said Mr. Thornton, at bay. 'Is that all! You can speak of her in that measured way, as simply a "beautiful creature" - only something to catch the eye. I did hope you had had nobleness enough in you to make you pay her the homage of the heart. Though I believe she would have rejected you, still to have loved her without return would have lifted you higher than all those that have never known and loved her. "Beautiful creature" indeed! Do you speak of her as you would of a horse or a dog?' Mr. Thornton's eyes glowed like embers. 'Mr. Bell,' said he, 'not all men are as free to express what they feel as you are. Let us talk of something else.' For though his heart leaped up, as at a trumpet-call, to every word that Mr. Bell had said, he would not be forced into any expression of what he felt towards Margaret. He was no mocking-bird of praise, to try and out-do another. So he turned to some matters of business that lay between Mr. Bell and him, as landlord and tenant. 'What is that heap of brick and mortar we came against in the yard? Are you building?' asked Mr. Bell. 'I'm building a dining-room for the men - the hands. I've got acquainted with a strange kind of chap, and I put one or two children in whom he is interested in school. I happened to be passing his house one day, and called in; and I saw such a miserable black frizzle of a dinner - a greasy cinder of meat, as set me a-thinking. By buying things wholesale, and cooking a good quantity together, much money might be saved, and much comfort gained. So I spoke to this man - and he found fault with every detail of my plan; and I had laid it aside, when, suddenly, this Higgins graciously signified his approval of a scheme so nearly the same as mine, that I might fairly have claimed it. I was a little "riled", I confess, and thought of throwing the whole thing overboard. But that seemed a childish reaction; so I coolly took the part assigned to me, which is something like that of steward to a club. I buy in the provisions wholesale, and provide a cook.' 'I hope you give satisfaction. Are you a good judge of potatoes and onions? But I suppose Mrs. Thornton assists you.' 'Not a bit,' replied Mr. Thornton. 'She disapproves of the whole plan. But I manage pretty well, getting in great stocks from Liverpool, and meat from our own family butcher. I can assure you, the hot dinners the cook turns out are by no means to be despised.' 'Do you taste each dish as it goes in?' 'I was very scrupulous, at first, in confining myself to the buying, and even in that I obeyed the men's orders rather than my own judgment. At one time, the beef was too large, at another the mutton was not fat enough. I think they saw how careful I was not to intrude my own ideas upon them; so, one day, some of the men - my friend Higgins among them - asked me to come in and take a snack. It was a very busy day, but I saw that the men would be hurt if I didn't, so I went in, and I never made a better dinner in my life. I told them how much I'd enjoyed it; and for some time after I'd be met by these men, with a "Master, there's hot-pot for dinner today, win yo' come?"' 'I should think you were rather a restraint on your hosts' conversation. They can't abuse the masters while you're there.' 'Well! if any of the old disputes came up, I would certainly speak out my mind next hot-pot day. But you are hardly acquainted with our Darkshire fellows, for all you're a Darkshire man yourself. They have such a sense of humour, and such a racy mode of expression! I am getting to know some of them now, and they talk pretty freely before me.' 'Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men. Will you accept a ten pound note towards your marketing, and give the poor fellows a feast?' 'Thank you; but I'd rather not. They pay me rent for the oven and cooking-places at the back of the mill. I don't want it to fall into a charity. I don't want donations. But by-and-by we shall meet with plenty of stumbling-blocks, no doubt.'

North and South

Chapter 42: ALONE! ALONE!

"Mist clogs the sunshine, Smoky dwarf houses Have we round on every side." MATTHEW ARNOLD. The next afternoon, about twenty miles from Milton-Northern, they entered on the little branch railway that led to Heston. Heston itself was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashore. It had a character of its own, as different from the little bathing-places in the south of England as they again from those of the continent. To use a Scotch word, everything looked more "purpose-like." The country carts had more iron, and less wood and leather about the horse-gear; the people in the streets, although on pleasure bent, had yet a busy mind. The colours looked grayer--more enduring, not so gay and pretty. There were no smock-frocks, even among the country-folk; they retarded motion, and were apt to catch on machinery, and so the habit of wearing them had died out. In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made themselves business in the shop--even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and re-rolling of ribbons. All these differences struck upon her mind, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for lodgings. Their two nights at hotels had cost more than Mr. Hale had anticipated, and they were glad to take the first clean, cheerful rooms they met with that were at liberty to receive them. There, for the first time for many days, did Margaret feel at rest. There was a dreaminess in the rest, too, which made it still more perfect and luxurious to repose in. The distant sea, lapped the sandy shore with measured sound; the nearer cries of the donkey-boys; the unusual scenes moving before her like pictures, which she cared not in her laziness to have fully explained before they passed away; the stroll down to the beach to breathe the sea-air, soft and warm on that sandy shore even to the end of November; the great long misty sea-line touching the tender-coloured sky; the white sail of a distant boat turning silver in some pale sunbeam:--it seemed as if she could dream her life away in such luxury of pensiveness, in which she made her present all in all, from not daring to think of the past, or wishing to contemplate the future. But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be. One evening it was arranged that Margaret and her father should go the next day to Milton-Northern, and look out for a house. Mr. Hale had received several letters from Mr. Bell, and one or two from Mr. Thornton, and he was anxious to ascertain at once a good many particulars respecting his position and chances of success there, which he could only do by an interview with the latter gentleman. Margaret knew that they ought to be removing; but she had a repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town, and believed that her mother was receiving benefit from Heston air, so she would willingly have deferred the expedition to Milton. For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon in the direction in which it lay. It was all the darker from contrast with the pale gray-blue of the wintry sky; for in Heston there had been the earliest signs of frost. Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke; perhaps, after all, more a loss of the fragrance of grass and herbage than any positive taste or smell. Quick they were whirled over long, straight, hopeless streets of regularly-built houses, all small and of brick. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black "unparliamentary" smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which Margaret had taken to foretell rain. As they drove through the larger and wider streets, from the station to the hotel, they had to stop constantly; great loaded lurries blocked up the not over-wide thoroughfares. Margaret had now and then been into the city in her drives with her aunt. But there the heavy lumbering vehicles seemed various in their purposes and intent; here every van, every waggon and truck, bore cotton, either in the raw shape in bags, or the woven shape in bales of calico. People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar class in London. "New Street," said Mr. Hale. "This, I believe, is the principal street in Milton. Bell has often spoken to me about it. It was the opening of this street from a lane into a great thoroughfare, thirty years ago, which has caused his property to rise so much in value. Mr. Thornton's mill must be somewhere not very far off, for he is Mr. Bell's tenant. But I fancy he dates from his warehouse." "Where is our hotel, papa?" "Close to the end of this street, I believe. Shall we have lunch before or after we have looked at the houses we marked in the Milton Times?" "Oh, let us get our work done first." "Very well. Then I will only see if there is any note or letter for me from Mr. Thornton, who said he would let me know anything he might hear about these houses, and then we will set off. We will keep the cab; it will be safer than losing ourselves, and being too late for the train this afternoon." There were no letters awaiting him. They set out on their house-hunting. Thirty pounds a-year was all they could afford to give, but in Hampshire they could have met with a roomy house and pleasant garden for the money. Here, even the necessary accommodation of two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms seemed unattainable. They went through their list, rejecting each as they visited it. They then looked at each other in dismay. "We must go back to the second, I think. That one,--in Crampton, don't they call the suburb? There were three sitting-rooms; don't you remember how we laughed at the number compared with the three bed-rooms? But I have planned it all. The front room down-stairs is to be your study and our dining-room (poor papa!), for you know, we settled mamma is to have as cheerful a sitting-room as we can get; and that front room up-stairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a pretty view over the plain, with a great bend of river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bed-room behind, in that projection at the head of the first flight of stairs over the kitchen, you know--and you and mamma the room behind the drawing-room, and that closet in the roof will make you a splendid dressing-room." "But Dixon, and the girl we are to have to help?" "Oh, wait a minute. I am overpowered by the discovery of my own genius for management. Dixon is to have--let me see, I had it once--the back sitting-room. I think she will like that. She grumbles so much about the stairs at Heston; and the girl is to have that sloping attic over your room and mamma's. Won't that do?" "I dare say it will. But the papers. What taste! And the over-loading such a house with colour and such heavy cornices!" "Never mind, papa! Surely you can charm the landlord into re-papering one or two of the rooms--the drawing-room and your bed-room--for mamma will come most in contact with them; and your book-shelves will hide a great deal of that gaudy pattern in the dining-room." "Then you think it the best? If so, I had better go at once and call on this Mr. Donkin, to whom the advertisement refers me. I will take you back to the hotel, where you can order lunch, and rest, and by the time it is ready, I shall be with you. I hope I shall be able to get new papers." Margaret hoped so too, though she said nothing. She had never come fairly in contact with the taste that loves ornament, however bad, more than the plainness and simplicity which are of themselves the framework of elegance. Her father took her through the entrance of the hotel, and leaving her at the foot of the staircase, went to the address of the landlord of the house they had fixed upon. Just as Margaret had her hand on the door of their sitting-room, she was followed by a quick-stepping waiter: "I beg your pardon, ma'am. The gentleman was gone so quickly, I had no time to tell him. Mr. Thornton called almost directly after you left; and as I understood, from what the gentleman said, you would be back in an hour, I told him so, and he came again about five minutes ago, and said he would wait for Mr. Hale. He is in your room now, ma'am." "Thank you. My father will return soon, and then you can tell him." Margaret opened the door and went in with the straight, fearless, dignified presence habitual to her. She felt no awkwardness; she had too much the habits of society for that. Here was a person come on business to her father; and, as he was one who had shown himself obliging, she was disposed to treat him with a full measure of civility. Mr. Thornton was a good deal more surprised and discomfited than she. Instead of a quiet, middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came forward with frank dignity,--a young lady of a different type to most of those he was in the habit of seeing. Her dress was very plain: a close straw bonnet of the best material and shape, trimmed with white ribbon; a large Indian shawl, which hung about her in long heavy folds, and which she wore as an empress wears her drapery. He did not understand who she was, as he caught the simple, straight, unabashed look, which showed that his being there was of no concern to the beautiful countenance, and called up no flush of surprise to the pale ivory of the complexion. He had heard that Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had imagined that she was a little girl. "Mr. Thornton, I believe!" said Margaret, after a half-instant's pause, during which his unready words would not come. "Will you sit down. My father brought me to the door not a minute ago, but unfortunately he was not told that you were here, and he has gone away on some business. But he will come back almost directly. I am sorry you have had the trouble of calling twice." Mr. Thornton was in habits of authority himself, but she seemed to assume some kind of rule over him at once. He had been getting impatient at the loss of his time on a market-day, the moment before she appeared, yet now he calmly took a seat at her bidding. "Do you know where it is that Mr. Hale has gone to? Perhaps I might be able to find him." "He has gone to a Mr. Donkin in Canute Street. He is the landlord of the house my father wishes to take in Crampton." Mr. Thornton knew the house. He had seen the advertisement, and been to look at it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell's that he would assist Mr. Hale to the best of his power: and also instigated by his own interest in the case of a clergyman who had given up his living under circumstances such as those of Mr. Hale. Mr. Thornton had thought that the house in Crampton was really just the thing; but now that he saw Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales, in spite of a certain vulgarity in it which had struck him at the time of his looking it over. Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the round, massive up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness. She was tired now, and would much rather have remained silent, and taken the rest her father had planned for her; but, of course, she owed to herself to be a gentlewoman, and to speak courteously from time to time to this stranger; not over-brushed, nor over-polished, it must be confessed, after his rough encounter with Milton streets and crowds. She wished that he would go, as he had once spoken of doing, instead of sitting there, answering with curt sentences all the remarks she made. She had taken off her shawl, and hung it over the back of her chair. She sat facing him and facing the light; her full beauty met his eye; her round white flexile throat rising out of the full, yet lithe figure; her lips moving so slightly as she spoke, not breaking the cold serene look of her face with any variation from the one lovely haughty curve; her eyes, with their soft gloom, meeting his with quiet maiden freedom. He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so to compensate himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked upon her with an admiration he could not repress, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he told himself he was--a great rough fellow, with not a grace or a refinement about him. Her quiet coldness of demeanour he interpreted into contemptuousness, and resented it in his heart to the pitch of almost inclining him to get up and go away, and have nothing more to do with these Hales, and their superciliousness. Just as Margaret had exhausted her last subject of conversation--and yet conversation that could hardly be called which consisted of so few and such short speeches--her father came in, and with his pleasant gentlemanly courteousness of apology, reinstated his name and family in Mr. Thornton's good opinion. Mr. Hale and his visitor had a good deal to say respecting their mutual friend, Mr. Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of entertaining the visitor was over, went to the window to try and make herself more familiar with the strange aspect of the street. She got so much absorbed in watching what was going on outside that she hardly heard her father when he spoke to her, and he had to repeat what he said: "Margaret! the landlord will persist in admiring that hideous paper, and I am afraid we must let it remain." "Oh dear! I am sorry!" she replied, and began to turn over in her mind the possibility of hiding part of it, at least, by some of her sketches, but gave up the idea at last, as likely only to make bad worse. Her father, meanwhile, with his kindly country hospitality, was pressing Mr. Thornton to stay to luncheon with them. It would have been very inconvenient to him to do so, yet he felt that he should have yielded, if Margaret by word or look had seconded her father's invitation; he was glad she did not, and yet he was irritated at her for not doing so. She gave him a low, grave bow when he left, and he felt more awkward and self-conscious in every limb than he had ever done in his life before. "Well, Margaret, now to luncheon as fast as we can. Have you ordered it?" "No, papa; that man was here when I came home, and I have never had an opportunity." "Then we must take anything we can get. He must have been waiting a long time I'm afraid." "It seemed exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you came in. He never went on with any subject, but gave little, short, abrupt answers." "Very much to the point though, I should think. He is a clear-headed fellow. He said (did you hear?) that Crampton is on gravelly soil, and by far the most healthy suburb in the neighbourhood of Milton." When they returned to Heston, there was the day's account to be given to Mrs. Hale, who was full of questions, which they answered in the intervals of tea-drinking. "And what is your correspondent, Mr. Thornton, like?" "Ask Margaret," said her husband. "She and he had a long attempt at conversation, while I was away speaking to the landlord." "Oh! I hardly know what he is like," said Margaret, lazily; too tired to tax her powers of description much. And then rousing herself, she said, "He is a tall, broad-shouldered man, about--how old, papa?" "I should guess about thirty." "About thirty--with a face that is neither exactly plain, nor yet handsome, nothing remarkable--not quite a gentleman; but that was hardly to be expected." "Not vulgar or common though," put in her father, rather jealous of any disparagement of the sole friend he had in Milton. "Oh, no!" said Margaret. "With such an expression of resolution and power, no face, however plain in feature, could be either vulgar or common. I should not like to have to bargain with him; he looks very inflexible. Altogether a man who seems made for his niche, mamma; sagacious, and strong, as becomes a great tradesman." "Don't call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret," said her father. "They are very different." "Are they? I apply the word to all who have something tangible to sell; but if you think the term is not correct, papa, I won't use it. But, oh mamma! speaking of vulgarity and commonness, you must prepare yourself for our drawing-room paper. Pink and blue roses, with yellow leaves! And such a heavy cornice round the room!" But when they removed to their new house in Milton, the obnoxious papers were gone. The landlord received their thanks very composedly; and let them think, if they liked, that he had relented from his expressed determination not to repaper. There was no particular need to tell them, that what he did not care to do for a Reverend Mr. Hale, unknown in Milton, he was only too glad to do at the one short sharp remonstrance of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.

The next afternoon they travelled on the railway to Heston. Heston was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashore. It was different from the little bathing-places in the south of England: to use a Scotch word, everything looked more 'purposelike.' The people looked busier; the colours looked greyer. In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen shopmen lounging at their doors to look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure, they busied themselves in the shop - even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and rerolling of ribbons. All these differences struck her, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for lodgings. Two nights in hotels had cost more than anticipated, and they were glad to take the first clean, cheerful rooms they found. There, for the first time for many days, Margaret felt at rest. There was a dreaminess which made it still more perfect and luxurious. The distant sea, lapping the sandy shore; the cries of the donkey-boys; the stroll down to the beach to breathe the sea-air, soft and warm even at the end of November; the great long misty sea-line touching the sky; the white sail of a distant boat turning silver in some pale sunbeam: she felt she could dream her life away here, without thinking of the past or future. But the future must be met, however stern and iron it might be. One evening it was arranged that Margaret and her father should go the next day to Milton-Northern, and look for a house. Mr. Hale was anxious to see Mr. Thornton and ascertain his position. Margaret had a repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town, and would willingly have put off the expedition. For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon above it, contrasting with the pale wintry sky. Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke. They were whirled over long, straight, hopeless streets of small brick houses. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black smoke, and accounting for the cloud. As they drove through the streets, they had to stop constantly; loaded lorries blocked up the thoroughfares. Margaret had now and then been into the city of London in her drives with her aunt. But there the heavy lumbering vehicles seemed to have various purposes; here, every van, wagon and truck bore cotton, either raw in bags, or woven, in the form of bales of calico. People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar class in London. 'New Street,' said Mr. Hale. 'This, Bell tells me, is the main street in Milton. It was the making of this street into a great thoroughfare, thirty years ago, which has caused his property to rise so much in value. Mr. Thornton's mill must be nearby, for he is Mr. Bell's tenant. Before we look for those houses we marked in the Milton Times, I will see if there is any letter for me at our hotel from Mr. Thornton. He said he would let me know anything he might hear about the houses.' There were no letters awaiting him, so they set out on their house-hunting. Thirty pounds a year was all they could afford, but in Hampshire they could have found a roomy house and pleasant garden for the money. Here, even the necessary two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms seemed unattainable. They went through their list, rejecting each as they visited it. Then they looked at each other in dismay. 'We must go back to the second, I think,' said Margaret. 'That one in the suburb of Crampton? There were three sitting-rooms; don't you remember how we laughed at the number compared with the three bedrooms? But I have planned it all. The front room downstairs is to be your study and our dining-room, for mamma is to have the cheerful sitting-room; and that room upstairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper, had a pretty view of the plain with the river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bedroom behind - over the kitchen - and you and mamma the room behind the drawing-room.' 'But Dixon, and a servant-girl?' 'Wait a minute. Dixon is to have, let me see - the back sitting-room. I think she will like that. And the girl can have that sloping attic over your room and mamma's. Won't that do?' 'I dare say it will. But the wallpapers. What taste!' 'Never mind, papa! Surely you can charm the landlord into re-papering the drawing-room and your bedroom; and your book-shelves will hide a great deal of that gaudy pattern in the dining-room.' 'Then you think it the best? If so, I had better go and call on the landlord. I will take you back to the hotel, where you can order lunch, and by the time it is ready, I shall be with you. I hope I shall be able to get new wallpaper.' Her father took her through the entrance of the hotel, and went away. Just as Margaret was entering their sitting-room, she was addressed by a waiter: 'I beg your pardon, ma'am. I had no time to tell the gentleman. Mr. Thornton called directly after you left; and, as I understood you would be back in an hour, I told him so, and he came again five minutes ago, and said he would wait for Mr. Hale. He is in your room now, ma'am.' 'Thank you. My father will return soon.' Margaret opened the door and went in; straight, fearless and dignified, as usual. She felt no awkwardness; here was a person come on business to her father; and she would treat him with civility. Mr. Thornton was a good deal more surprised and discomfited than she. Instead of a quiet, middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came forward with frank dignity - a young lady of a different type to those he was in the habit of seeing. Her dress was very plain: a close straw bonnet of the best material; a dark silk gown, without any trimming; a large Indian shawl, which she wore as an empress wears her drapery. He did not understand who she was, as he caught the simple, straight, unabashed look. He had heard that Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had imagined that she was a little girl; and his words would not come. 'Mr. Thornton, I believe!' said Margaret, after a pause. 'Will you sit down? Unfortunately my father was not told that you were here, and he has gone away on some business. But he will come back soon. I am sorry you have had the trouble of calling twice.' Mr. Thornton was in the habit of authority himself, but she seemed to assume some kind of rule over him. He calmly took a seat at her bidding. 'Do you know where Mr. Hale has gone? Perhaps I might be able to find him.' 'He has gone to a Mr. Donkin's; the landlord of the house my father wishes to take in Crampton.' Mr. Thornton knew the house. He had seen the advertisement, and been to look at it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell's: and also because of his own interest in Mr. Hale's circumstances. Mr. Thornton had thought that the house in Crampton, despite a certain vulgarity, was really just the thing; but now that he saw Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales. Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the round, up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, and her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness. She was tired now, and would rather have rested; but she owed it to herself to speak courteously to this stranger. She wished that he would go, instead of sitting there, curtly answering all her remarks. She had taken off her shawl, and sat facing the light. Her full beauty met his eye; her round white throat rising out of the lithe figure; her moving lips not breaking the cold serene look of her face; her eyes meeting his with quiet freedom. He almost said to himself that he did not like her. While he looked upon her with admiration, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what he was - a great rough fellow, with not a refinement about him. Her quiet coldness he interpreted as contempt, and resented it so much that he was almost inclined to get up and go away, and have nothing more to do with these supercilious Hales. Just as Margaret had exhausted her last subject of conversation, her father came in, and with a pleasant gentlemanly apology reinstated his family in Mr. Thornton's good opinion. The two men had much to say about their mutual friend, Mr. Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of entertaining the visitor was over, went to the window and was gazing out at the street, when her father spoke to her: 'Margaret! the landlord will persist in admiring that hideous paper, and I am afraid we must let it remain.' 'Oh dear! I am sorry!' she replied, and began to consider if she could hide part of it, at least, with some of her sketches. Her father, meanwhile, was pressing Mr. Thornton to stay to luncheon. It would have been very inconvenient to him to do so, yet he felt that he should accept, if Margaret also invited him. She did not, and he was glad, yet irritated at her. She gave him a low, grave bow when he left, and he felt more awkward and self-conscious than he had ever done in his life. 'Well, Margaret, now to luncheon. Mr. Thornton must have been waiting a long time, I'm afraid.' 'It seemed exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you came in. He gave such short, abrupt answers.' 'Very much to the point though, I should think. He is a clearheaded fellow. He said that Crampton is on gravelly soil, and by far the most healthy suburb near Milton.' When they returned to Heston, Mrs. Hale was full of questions. 'And what is Mr. Thornton like?' 'Ask Margaret,' said her husband. 'She and he had a long attempt at conversation, while I was away speaking to the landlord.' 'Oh! I hardly know what he is like,' said Margaret lazily. 'He is a tall, broad-shouldered man, about - how old, papa?' 'I should guess about thirty.' 'About thirty - neither exactly plain, nor handsome, nothing remarkable - not quite a gentleman; but that was hardly to be expected.' 'Not vulgar or common though,' put in her father. 'Oh, no!' said Margaret. 'With such an expression of resolution and power, no face could be vulgar or common. I should not like to have to bargain with him; he looks very inflexible. Altogether he seems made for his niche, mamma; sagacious, and strong, as becomes a great tradesman.' 'Don't call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret,' said her father. 'They are very different.' 'Are they? If you think the term is not correct, papa, I won't use it. But, oh mamma! speaking of vulgarity, you must prepare yourself for our drawing-room paper. Pink and blue roses, with yellow leaves!' But when they moved to their new house in Milton, the obnoxious wallpaper was gone. The landlord let them think that he had relented; there was no need to tell them that what he did not care to do for an unknown Mr. Hale, he was only too glad to do at the short sharp remonstrance of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.

North and South

Chapter 7: NEW SCENES AND FACES

"We are the trees whom shaking fastens more." GEORGE HERBERT. Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again. He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton. He was anxious not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctuality. The church-clock struck half-past seven as he stood at the door awaiting Dixon's slow movements; always doubly tardy when she had to degrade herself by answering the door-bell. He was ushered into the little drawing-room, and kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to his wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped figure made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting. Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered, for the darkness was coming on. The lamp threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room, from which, with country habits, they did not exclude the night-skies, and the outer darkness of air. Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome, ponderous, with no sign of female habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sate, and no convenience for any other employment than eating and drinking. To be sure, it was a dining-room; his mother preferred to sit in it; and her will was a household law. But the drawing-room was not like this. It was twice--twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable. Here were no mirrors, not even a scrap of glass to reflect the light, and answer the same purpose as water in a landscape; no gilding; a warm, sober breadth of colouring, well relieved by the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers. An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves. Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places: and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently put down. Behind the door was another table decked out for tea, with a white table-cloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves. It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares were habitual to the family; and especially of a piece with Margaret. She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it. She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness. She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening--the fall. He could almost have exclaimed--"There it goes again!" There was so little left to be done after he arrived at the preparation for tea, that he was almost sorry the obligation of eating and drinking came so soon to prevent him watching Margaret. She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongues. Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter, and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two, unobserved as they fancied, by any. Margaret's head still ached, as the paleness of her complexion, and her silence might have testified; but she was resolved to throw herself into the breach, if there was any long untoward pause, rather than that her father's friend, pupil, and guest should have cause to think himself in any way neglected. But the conversation went on; and Margaret drew into a corner, near her mother, with her work, after the tea-things were taken away; and felt that she might let her thoughts roam, without fear of being suddenly wanted to fill up a gap. Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in the continuation of some object which had been started at their last meeting. Margaret was recalled to a sense of the present by some trivial, low-spoken remark of her mother's; and on suddenly looking up from her work, her eye was caught by the difference of outward appearance between her father and Mr. Thornton, as betokening such distinctly opposite natures. Her father was of slight figure, which made him appear taller than he really was, when not contrasted, as at this time, with the tall, massive frame of another. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving, with a frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched, giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty which was almost feminine. The brows were finely arched, but were by the very size of the dreamy lids, raised to a considerable distance from the eyes. Now, in Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set, earnest eyes, which without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly compressed, over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen, honest, enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously except by children. Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other. She rearranged her mother's worsted-work, and fell back into her own thoughts--as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she had not been in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the might of the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in the Arabian Nights--one moment stretching from earth to sky and filling all the width of the horizon, at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be borne in the hand of a child. "And this imagination of power, this practical realisation of a gigantic thought, came out of one man's brain in our good town. That very man has it within him to mount, step by step, on each wonder he achieves to higher marvels still. And I'll be bound to say, we have many among us who, if he were gone, could spring into the breach and carry on the war which compels, and shall compel, all material power to yield to science." "Your boast reminds me of the old lines-- 'I've a hundred captains in England,' he said, 'As good as ever was he.'" At her father's quotation Margaret looked suddenly up, with inquiring wonder in her eyes. How in the world had they got from the cog-wheels to Chevy Chace? "It is no boast of mine," replied Mr. Thornton; "it is plain matter-of-fact. I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town--or perhaps I should rather say a district--the necessities of which give birth to such grandeur of conception. I would rather be a man toiling, suffering--nay, failing and successless--here, than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease. One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly." "You are mistaken," said Margaret, roused by the aspersion on her beloved South to a fond vehemence of defence, that brought the colour into her cheeks and the angry tears into her eyes. "You do not know anything about the South. If there is less adventure or less progress--I suppose I must not say less excitement--from the gambling spirit of trade, which seems requisite to force out these wonderful inventions, there is less suffering also. I see men here going about in the streets who look ground down by some pinching sorrow or care--who are not only sufferers but haters. Now, in the South we have our poor, but there is not that terrible expression in their countenances of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here. You do not know the South, Mr. Thornton," she concluded, collapsing into a determined silence, and angry with herself for having said so much. "And may I say you do not know the North?" asked he, with an inexpressible gentleness in his tone, as he saw that he had really hurt her. She continued resolutely silent; yearning after the lovely haunts she had left far away in Hampshire, with a passionate longing that made her feel her voice would be unsteady and trembling if she spoke. "At any rate, Mr. Thornton," said Mrs. Hale, "you will allow that Milton is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever meet with in the South." "I'm afraid I must give up its cleanliness," said Mr. Thornton, with the quick gleaming smile. "But we are bidden by parliament to burn our own smoke; so I suppose, like good little children, we shall do as we are bid--some time." "But I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume the smoke, did you not?" asked Mr. Hale. "Mine were altered by my own will, before parliament meddled with the affair. It was an immediate outlay, but it repays me in the saving of coal. I'm not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until the act was passed. At any rate, I should have waited to be informed against and fined, and given all the trouble in yielding that I legally could. But all laws which depend for their enforcement upon informers and fines, become inert from the odiousness of the machinery. I doubt if there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past, although some are constantly sending out one-third of their coal in what is called here unparliamentary smoke." "I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean here above a week together; and at Helstone we have had them up for a month or more, and they have not looked dirty at the end of that time. And as for hands--Margaret, how many times did you say you had washed your hands this morning before twelve o'clock? Three times, was it not?" "Yes, mamma." "You seem to have a strong objection to acts of parliament and all legislation affecting your mode of management down here at Milton," said Mr. Hale. "Yes, I have; and many others have as well. And with justice, I think. The whole machinery--I don't mean the wood and iron machinery now--of the cotton trade is so new that it is no wonder if it does not work well in every part all at once. Seventy years ago what was it? And now what it is not? Raw, crude materials came together; men of the same level, as regarded education and station, took suddenly the different position of masters and men, owing to the motherwit, as regarded opportunities and probabilities, which distinguished some, and made them far-seeing as to what great future lay concealed in that rude model of Sir Richard Arkwright's. The rapid development of what might be called a new trade, gave those early masters enormous power of wealth and command. I don't mean merely over the workmen; I mean over purchasers--over the whole world's market. Why, I may give you, as an instance, an advertisement, inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that so-and-so (one of the half-dozen calico-printers of the time) would close his warehouse at noon each day; therefore, that all purchasers must come before that hour. Fancy a man dictating in this manner the time when he would sell and when he would not sell. Now, I believe, if a good customer chose to come at midnight, I should get up, and stand hat in hand to receive his orders." Margaret's lip curled, but somehow she was compelled to listen; she could no longer abstract herself in her own thoughts. "I only name such things to show what almost unlimited power the manufacturers had about the beginning of this century. The men were rendered dizzy by it. Because a man was successful in his ventures, there was no reason that in all other things his mind should be well-balanced. On the contrary, his sense of justice, and his simplicity, were often utterly smothered under the glut of wealth that came down upon him; and they tell strange tales of the wild extravagance of living indulged in on gala-days by those early cotton-lords. There can be no doubt, too, of the tyranny they exercised over their work-people. You know the proverb, Mr. Hale, 'Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil,'--well, some of these early manufacturers did ride to the devil in a magnificent style--crushing human bone and flesh under their horses' hoofs without remorse. But by-and-by came a reaction; there were more factories, more masters; more men were wanted. The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the battle is pretty fairly waged between us. We will hardly submit to the decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with only a smattering of the knowledge of the real facts of the case, even though that meddler be called the High Court of Parliament." "Is there necessity for calling it a battle between the two classes?" asked Mr. Hale. "I know, from your using the term, it is one which gives a true idea of the real state of things to your mind." "It is true; and I believe it to be as much a necessity as that prudent wisdom and good conduct are always opposed to, and doing battle with ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, every one who rules himself to decency and sobriety of conduct, and attention to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master, but as an overlooker, a cashier, a book-keeper, a clerk, one on the side of authority and order." "You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I understand you rightly," said Margaret, in a clear, cold voice. "As their own enemies, certainly," said he, quickly, not a little piqued by the haughty disapproval her form of expression and tone of speaking implied. But, in a moment, his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were but a poor and quibbling answer to what she had said, and, be she as scornful as she liked, it was a duty he owed to himself to explain, as truly as he could, what he did mean. Yet it was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning. He could best have illustrated what he wanted to say by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the simple straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush of colour into his dark cheek, he said: "I am not speaking without book. Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve. We went into a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got employment in a draper's shop (a capital place, by the way, for obtaining a knowledge of goods). Week by week, our income came to fifteen shillings, out of which three people had to be kept. My mother managed so that I put by three out of these fifteen shillings regularly. This made the beginning; this taught me self-denial. Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age, rather than her own wish, requires, I thank her silently on each occasion for the early training she gave me. Now when I feel that in my own case it is no good luck, nor merit, nor talent,--but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgences not thoroughly earned,--indeed, never to think twice about them,--I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is impressed on the countenances of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure, at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character." "But you have the rudiments of a good education," remarked Mr. Hale. "The quick zest with which you are now reading Homer, shows me that you do not come to it as an unknown book: you have read it before, and are only recalling your old knowledge." "That is true,--I had blundered along it at school; I dare say, I was even considered a pretty fair classic in those days, though my Latin and Greek have slipt away from me since. But I ask you, what preparation were they for such a life as I had to lead? None at all. Utterly none at all. On the point of education, any man who can read and write starts fair with me in the amount of really useful knowledge that I had at that time." "Well! I don't agree with you. But there I am perhaps somewhat of a pedant. Did not the recollection of the heroic simplicity of the Homeric life nerve you up?" "Not one bit!" exclaimed Mr. Thornton, laughing. "I was too busy to think about any dead people, with the living pressing alongside of me, neck to neck, in the struggle for bread. Now that I have my mother safe in the quiet peace that becomes her age, and duly rewards her former exertions, I can turn to all that old narration and thoroughly enjoy it." "I dare say, my remark came from the professional feeling of there being nothing like leather," replied Mr. Hale. When Mr. Thornton rose up to go away, after shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Hale, he made an advance to Margaret to wish her good-bye in a similar manner. It was the frank familiar custom of the place; but Margaret was not prepared for it. She simply bowed her farewell; although the instant she saw the hand, half put out, quickly drawn back, she was sorry she had not been aware of the intention. Mr. Thornton, however, knew nothing of her sorrow, and, drawing himself up to his full height, walked off, muttering as he left the house-- "A more proud, disagreeable girl I never saw. Even her great beauty is blotted out of one's memory by her scornful ways."

Mr. Thornton left the house, and walked rapidly to Crampton. He was anxious not to slight his new friend by arriving late. The church clock struck half past seven as he rang the door-bell, and was ushered into the little drawing-room. He was kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him to his wife. Her pale face made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting. Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered; it threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room. Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome and ponderous, with no sign of feminine habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sat. To be sure, that was a dining-room; but his mother's drawing-room was not like this either. It was twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable. Here were no mirrors, no gilding - just the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers. In one window was a tall white vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale-green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves. Pretty baskets of work stood about: and books lay on one table, as if recently put down. Behind the door was a table set for tea, with cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves. It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares especially fitted Margaret. She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, not attending to the conversation, but busy with the tea-cups, among which her ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless daintiness. She had a bracelet on one arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening - the fall. He could almost have exclaimed, 'There it goes, again!' Margaret handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to do for her father, who took her little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs. Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter and half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on between the two. Margaret's head still ached; but she was resolved to throw herself into the breach, if there was any long pause, rather than give her father's guest any cause to think himself neglected. But the conversation went on; and after tea Margaret drew into a corner with her work. She felt that she might let her thoughts roam, without fear of being suddenly wanted to fill up a gap. Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in some subject they had started discussing at their last meeting. On looking up from her work, Margaret's eye was caught by the difference in appearance between the two men. Her father was of slight figure, when contrasted with the tall, massive frame of the other. The lines in her father's face were soft and waving, with a frequent trembling movement passing over them, showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched, giving to the eyes a languid beauty which was almost feminine. In Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell low over clear, deep-set, earnest eyes, which seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble; his lips were slightly compressed over teeth so faultless as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when a rare bright smile shone out of the eyes. It changed his whole look from a severe and resolved expression to the keen honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly except by children. Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character seemed to explain the attraction the two men evidently felt towards each other. She rearranged her mother's wool-work, and fell back into her own thoughts, while Mr. Thornton forgot her presence in explaining to Mr. Hale the magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of genii in the Arabian Nights - one moment stretching from earth to sky, at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be held in a child's hand. 'And this practical realisation of a gigantic thought came out of one man's brain in our good town. That man has it within him to mount, step by step, to higher marvels still. And I'll be bound to say, we have many among us who could carry on the war which shall compel all material power to yield to science. I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town - perhaps I should rather say a district - which has given birth to such grandeur of conception. I would rather be a man toiling, suffering - even failing - here. than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease. One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.' 'You are mistaken,' said Margaret, roused by the aspersion on her beloved South to a vehemence that brought the colour into her cheeks and angry tears into her eyes. 'You do not know anything about the South. If there is less adventure or less progress there from the gambling spirit of trade, which seems necessary to force out these wonderful inventions, there is less suffering also. I see men here going about in the streets who look ground down by sorrow or care - who are not only sufferers but haters. Now, in the South we have our poor, but they have not that terrible expression of a sullen sense of injustice which I see here. You do not know the South, Mr. Thornton,' she concluded, angry with herself for having said so much. 'And may I say you do not know the North?' asked he, with an inexpressible gentleness, as he saw that he had really hurt her. She remained resolutely silent; her passionate longing for the lovely haunts she had left made her feel that her voice would tremble if she spoke. 'At any rate, Mr. Thornton,' said Mrs. Hale, 'you will admit that Milton is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever see in the South.' 'I'm afraid so,' said Mr. Thornton, with the quick gleaming smile. 'Though now Parliament wishes us to swallow our own smoke.' 'I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume the smoke, did you not?' asked Mr. Hale. 'Mine were altered before Parliament passed the Smoke Nuisance Act; it repays me in the saving of coal. I'm not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until the Act was passed. At any rate, I should have waited to be informed against and fined, and would have given all the trouble that I legally could. But I doubt if there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past, although some are constantly sending out unparliamentary smoke.' 'I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean for a week together,' said Mrs. Hale; 'and at Helstone we have had them up for a month without getting dirty.' 'You seem to have a strong objection to all laws affecting your management here at Milton,' said Mr. Hale. 'Yes, I have; and many others have as well. And justly, I think. The whole machinery - I don't mean the iron machinery now - of the cotton trade is so new that it is no wonder if it does not work well in every part all at once. Seventy years ago, what was it? Raw materials came together; men of the same level of education and station took suddenly the different positions of masters and men, owing to the mother-wit of some, which made them foresee the great future that lay concealed in that rude model of Sir Richard Arkwright's. The rapid development of a new trade gave those early masters enormous wealth and power - not merely over the workmen, but over world's market. Why, for instance, an advertisement was inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that one of the calico-printers would close his warehouse at noon each day; and that therefore all purchasers must come before that hour. Fancy a man dictating in this way the time when he would sell! Now, if a good customer chose to come at midnight, I should get up to receive his orders.' Margaret's lip curled, but she was compelled to listen. 'I only name such things to show what almost unlimited power the manufacturers had at the beginning of this century. They were made dizzy by it. Such a man's sense of justice was often smothered under the glut of wealth that came down upon him; and they tell strange tales of the wild extravagance of those early cotton-lords. There can be no doubt that they tyrannised over their work-people - crushing them underfoot without remorse. But by-and-by came a reaction. There were more factories; more men were wanted. The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the battle is pretty fairly waged between us. We will hardly submit to the decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with only a smattering of knowledge about the real facts of the case, even though that meddler be called the High Court of Parliament.' 'Need you call it a battle between the two classes?' asked Mr. Hale. 'I believe it indicates the true state of things; and prudent wisdom is always doing battle with ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, everyone who acts decently and attends to his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master, but as an over-looker, a cashier, a book-keeper, or a clerk.' 'You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I understand you rightly,' said Margaret in a clear, cold voice. 'As their own enemies, certainly,' said he quickly, somewhat piqued by her haughty disapproval. But his straightforward honesty made him feel that his words were a poor answer, and that he needed to explain. He could best illustrate what he wanted to say by telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the most straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush to his cheek, he said: 'Sixteen years ago, my father died under very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are blest with; a strong woman of firm resolve. We went to a small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I got work in a draper's shop. Our weekly income was fifteen shillings, out of which three people had to be kept. My mother managed so that I saved three of those shillings regularly. This taught me self-denial. Now that I am able to afford my mother such comforts as her age requires, I thank her silently for the early training she gave me. I feel that in my own case it is not good luck, nor merit, nor talent - but simply the habits of life which taught me to despise indulgence. And I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is shown on the faces of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.' 'But you have had the rudiments of a good education,' remarked Mr. Hale. 'The quick zest with which you are now reading Homer, shows me that you have read it before, and are recalling your old knowledge.' 'That is true; at school, I dare say I was considered a pretty fair classical scholar, though my Latin and Greek have slipped away since. But I ask you, what preparation were they for such a life as I had to lead? None at all. On the point of education, any man who can read and write starts fair with me.' 'Well! I don't agree with you. Did not the recollection of the heroic simplicity of the Homeric life nerve you up?' 'Not one bit!' exclaimed Mr. Thornton, laughing. 'I was too busy struggling for bread to think about it. Now that I have my mother safe in the peace that rewards her former exertions, I can turn to that old narration and thoroughly enjoy it.' When Mr. Thornton rose to go, after shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Hale he advanced to Margaret to wish her good-bye in a similar manner. It was the custom of the place; but Margaret was not prepared for it. She simply bowed her farewell; although the instant she saw the hand quickly drawn back, she was sorry she had not been aware of his intention. Mr. Thornton, however, drawing himself up to his full height, walked off, muttering as he left the house- 'A more proud, disagreeable girl I never saw. Even her great beauty is blotted out of one's memory by her scornful ways.'

North and South

Chapter 10: WROUGHT IRON AND GOLD

"By the soft green light in the woody glade, On the banks of moss where thy childhood played By the household tree, thro' which thine eye First looked in love to the summer sky." MRS. HEMANS. Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding. Her mother had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, none of which anybody fully understood, except Mr. Hale, who was perfectly aware that all his arguments in favour of a grey satin gown, which was midway between oldness and newness, had proved unavailing; and that, as he had not the money to equip his wife afresh, from top to toe, she would not show herself at her only sister's only child's wedding. If Mrs. Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor pretty Miss Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except that of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married life, on which she could descant by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, only eight years older than herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue black hair one so seldom sees. Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest. Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all these premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw's characteristic conclusion, as she thought over her sister's lot: "Married for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?" Mrs. Hale, if she spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, "a silver-grey glac silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house." Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting would take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the confusion of the last two or three days, in the house in Harley Street, where she herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and was wanted everywhere at one and the same time. Her mind and body ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours. The farewells so hurriedly taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those she had lived with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the times that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been, they were gone never to return. Margaret's heart felt more heavy than she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for years--at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep. She took her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future. Her eyes began to see, not visions of what had been, but the sight actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in the railway carriage. His blue-black hair was grey now, and lay thinly over his brows. The bones of his face were plainly to be seen--too plainly for beauty, if his features had been less finely cut; as it was, they had a grace if not a comeliness of their own. The face was in repose; but it was rather rest after weariness than the serene calm of the countenance of one who led a placid, contented life. Margaret was painfully struck by the worn, anxious expression; and she went back over the open and avowed circumstances of her father's life, to find the cause for the lines that spoke so plainly of habitual distress and depression. "Poor Frederick!" thought she, sighing. "Oh! if Frederick had but been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost to us all! I wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because of that terrible affair. Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am so glad I am going home, to be at hand to comfort him and mamma." She was ready with a bright smile, in which there was not a trace of fatigue, to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back again, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion. His face returned into its lines of habitual anxiety. He had a trick of half-opening his mouth as if to speak, which constantly unsettled the form of the lips, and gave the face an undecided expression. But he had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter,--eyes which moved slowly and almost grandly round in their orbits, and were well veiled by their transparent white eyelids. Margaret was more like him than like her mother. Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said. Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a "yes" and "no," and "an't please you, sir." But the wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If the look on her face was, in general, too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was bright as the morning,--full of dimples, and glances that spoke of childish gladness, and boundless hope in the future. It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home. The forest trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still. Margaret used to tramp along by her father's side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it yield under her light foot, and send up the fragrance peculiar to it--out on the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the sunshine, and the herbs and flowers it called forth. This life--at least these walks--realised all Margaret's anticipations. She took a pride in her forest. Its people were her people. She made hearty friends with them; learned and delighted in using their peculiar words; took up her freedom amongst them; nursed their babies; talked or read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their sick; resolved before long to teach at the school where her father went regularly every day as to an appointed task, but she was continually tempted off to go and see some individual friend--man, woman, or child--in some cottage in the green shade of the forest. Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors life had its drawbacks. With the healthy shame of a child, she blamed herself for her keenness of sight in perceiving that all was not as it should be there. Her mother--her mother always so kind and tender towards her--seemed now and then so much discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not giving Mr. Hale a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he could not bring himself to say that he wished to leave the parish, and undertake the charge of a larger. He would sigh aloud as he answered, that if he could do what he ought in little Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more overpowered; the world became more bewildering. At each repeated urgency of his wife, that he would put himself in the way of seeking some preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more and more; and she strove at such times to reconcile her mother to Helstone. Mrs. Hale said that the near neighbourhood of so many trees affected her health; and Margaret would try to tempt her forth on to the beautiful, broad, upland, sun-streaked, cloud-shadowed common; for she was sure that her mother had accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life, seldom extending her walks beyond the church, the school, and the neighbouring cottages. This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on, and the weather became more changeable, her mother's idea of the unhealthiness of the place increased; and she repined even more frequently that her husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume, a better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth, should not have met with the preferment that these two former neighbours of theirs had done. This marring of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent, was what Margaret was unprepared for. She knew, and had rather revelled in the idea, that she should have to give up many luxuries, which had only been troubles and trammels to her freedom in Harley Street. Her keen enjoyment of every sensuous pleasure was balanced finely, if not overbalanced, by her conscious pride in being able to do without them all, if need were. But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it. There had been slight complaints and passing regrets on her mother's part, over some trifle connected with Helstone, and her father's position there, when Margaret had been spending her holidays at home before; but in the general happiness of the recollection of those times, she had forgotten the small details which were not so pleasant. In the latter half of September, the autumnal rains and storms came on, and Margaret was obliged to remain more in the house than she had hitherto done. Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of their own standard of cultivation. "It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England," said Mrs. Hale, in one of her plaintive moods. "I can't help regretting constantly that papa has really no one to associate with here; he is so thrown away; seeing no one but farmers and labourers from week's end to week's end. If we only lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something; there we should be almost within walking distance of the Stansfields; certainly the Gormons would be within a walk." "Gormons," said Margaret, "Are those the Gormons who made their fortunes in trade at Southampton? Oh! I'm glad we don't visit them. I don't like shoppy people. I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without pretence." "You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!" said her mother, secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gormon whom she had once met at Mr. Hume's. "No! I call mine a very comprehensive taste; I like all people whose occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and sailors, and the three learned professions, as they call them. I'm sure you don't want me to admire butchers and bakers, and candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?" "But the Gormons were neither butchers nor bakers, but very respectable coach-builders." "Very well. Coach-building is a trade all the same, and I think a much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's carriage, and how I longed to walk!" And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, as she crossed some heath, she seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly and easily as the fallen leaf that was wafted along by the autumnal breeze. But the evenings were rather difficult to fill up agreeably. Immediately after tea her father withdrew into his small library, and she and her mother were left alone. Mrs. Hale had never cared much for books, and had discouraged her husband, very early in their married life, in his desire of reading aloud to her, while she worked. At one time they had tried backgammon as a resource; but as Mr. Hale grew to take an increasing interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the interruptions which arose out of these duties were regarded as hardships by his wife, not to be accepted as the natural conditions of his profession, but to be regretted and struggled against by her as they severally arose. So he withdrew, while the children were yet young, into his library, to spend his evenings (if he were at home), in reading the speculative and metaphysical books which were his delight. When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her a great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and had found the summer's day all too short to get through the reading she had to do before her return to town. Now there were only the well-bound, little-read English Classics, which were weeded out of her father's library to fill up the small book-shelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Season's, Hayley's Cowper, Middleton's Cicero, were by far the lightest, newest, and most amusing. The book-shelves did not afford much resource. Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to all of which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused and questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her sister's circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower means at Helstone Vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the rain upon the leads of the little bow window. Once or twice Margaret found herself mechanically counting the repetition of the monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to put a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they had heard from him. But a consciousness that her mother's delicate health and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged--the full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion,--made her pause and turn away from the subject each time she approached it. When she was with her mother, her father seemed the best person to apply to for information; and when with him, she thought that she could speak more easily to her mother. Probably there was nothing much to be heard that was new. In one of the letters she had received before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her that they had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well in health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but not the living intelligence she longed for. Frederick was always spoken of, in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as "Poor Frederick." His room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted, and put into order by Dixon, Mrs. Hale's maid, who touched no other part of the household work, but always remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady Beresford as ladies' maid to Sir John's wards, the pretty Miss Beresfords, the belles of Rutlandshire. Dixon had always considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young lady's prospects in life. If Miss Beresford had not been in such a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman there was no knowing what she might have become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert her in her affliction and downfall (alas, her married life). She remained with her, and was devoted to her interests; always considering herself as the good and protecting fairy, whose duty it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr. Hale. Master Frederick had been her favourite and pride; and it was with a little softening of her dignified look and manner, that she went in weekly to arrange the chamber as carefully as if he might be coming home that very evening. Margaret could not help believing that there had been some late intelligence of Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was making her father anxious and uneasy. Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any alteration in her husband's looks or ways. His spirits were tender and gentle, readily affected by any small piece of intelligence concerning the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of any crime. But now Margaret noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were pre-occupied by some subject, the oppression of which could not be relieved by any daily action, such as comforting the survivors, or teaching at the school in hope of lessening the evils in the generation to come. Mr. Hale did not go out among his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his study; was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the household was a rap on the back-kitchen window shutter--a signal which at one time had often to be repeated before any one was sufficiently alive to the hour of the day to understand what it was, and attend to him. Now Mr. Hale loitered about the garden if the morning was fine, and if not, stood dreamily by the study window until the postman had called, or gone down the lane, giving a half-respectful, half-confidential shake of the head to the parson, who watched him away from the sweet-briar hedge, and past the great arbutus, before he turned into the room to begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an occupied mind. But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest. The fern-harvest was over; and now that the rain was gone, many a deep glade was accessible, into which Margaret had only peeped in July and August weather. She had learnt drawing with Edith; and she had sufficiently regretted, during the gloom of the bad weather, her idle revelling in the beauty of the woodlands, while it had yet been fine, to make her determined to sketch what she could before winter fairly set in. Accordingly, she was busy preparing her board one morning, when Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the drawing-room door, and announced, "Mr. Henry Lennox."

After the wedding Margaret travelled quietly home with her father. Her mother had stayed at home for a multitude of half-reasons, which nobody fully understood except Mr. Hale, who was aware that she had felt her grey satin gown was too old for the occasion. As he had not the money to buy his wife a new outfit, she would not show herself at her only niece's wedding. If Mrs. Shaw had guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband, she would have showered down gowns upon her sister; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty Miss Beresford, and she had forgotten all misfortunes except that of disparity of age in marriage, on which she could talk by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, with the sweetest temper and jet-black hair; Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest. So Mrs. Shaw concluded: 'Married for love, what can dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?' Mrs. Hale might have truthfully answered, 'A silver-grey silk, a white bonnet, dozens of things for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.' Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come, and she was not sorry that they would meet at Helstone parsonage, rather than during the confusion of the last few days in Harley Street. Her mind and body ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours. The hurried farewells oppressed her with a sad regret for the times that were no more; it did not matter what those times had been, they were gone never to return. Margaret's heart felt heavier than she could have thought possible in going to her own dear longed-for home. She wrenched her mind away from the recollection of the past to the bright contemplation of the hopeful future. She looked at her dear father leaning back asleep in the railway carriage; his black hair was grey now, and thinner. The finely cut bones of his face were plainly to be seen. The face was in the repose of weariness, rather than the serene calm of one who led a placid, contented life. Margaret was painfully struck by his worn, anxious expression; and she looked into the past, to find the cause for the lines of distress and depression. 'Poor Frederick!' thought she, sighing. 'Oh! if only Frederick had been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost to us! I wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because of that terrible affair. Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am so glad I am going home, to comfort him and mamma.' She was ready with a bright smile to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion; and his face returned into its lines of habitual anxiety. He had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter. Margaret was more like him than like her mother. Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far from conventionally beautiful. Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a 'yes' and 'no.' But the wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white, had an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If the look on her face was in general too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was full of dimples and childish gladness. It was late July when Margaret returned home. The forest trees were a dark, dusky green; the ferns below them caught the slanting sunbeams; the weather was broodingly still. Margaret used to tramp along by her father's side, crushing down the ferns with her light foot - out on to the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the sunshine and the flowers. She took a pride in the New Forest. Its people were her people. She made friends with them; delighted in using their peculiar words; nursed their babies; talked or read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their sick; and resolved before long to teach at the school, where her father went every day; but she was continually tempted off to go and see some friend in some cottage in the green shade of the forest. Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her indoors life had its drawbacks. She perceived that all was not as it should be there. Her mother, always kind and tender towards her, seemed discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop was strangely neglectful in not giving Mr. Hale a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he did not wish to leave the parish to go to a larger one. He would sigh that if he could do what he ought in little Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more overpowered; the world became more bewildering. When his wife urged him to seek preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more and more; and she strove to reconcile her mother to Helstone. Mrs. Hale said that the nearness of so many trees affected her health, so Margaret would try to tempt her on to the beautiful, broad, sun-streaked common, for she was sure that her mother had become too used to an indoors life. This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on, and the weather became changeable, her mother's idea of the unhealthiness of the place increased; and she resumed her complaints. Margaret was unprepared for this marring of the peace of home. She had rather revelled in the idea of giving up the luxuries of Harley Street. But the cloud never comes from that part of the sky where we watch for it. There had been slight complaints from her mother about Helstone during Margaret's holidays at home before; but in the general happiness of the memory of those times, she had forgotten the small, less pleasant details. In late September, the autumnal rains and storms came on, and Margaret had to stay in the house more. Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of their own standing. 'It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England,' said Mrs. Hale plaintively. 'Papa has no one to associate with here; he is thrown away, seeing no one but farmers and labourers. If we lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something; we should be almost within walking distance of the Stansfields, and certainly the Gormans.' 'Gormans,' said Margaret. 'Are those the Gormans who made their fortunes in trade at Southampton? Oh! I'm glad we don't visit them. I don't like shoppy people. I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without pretence.' 'You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!' said her mother, secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gorman whom she had once met. 'No! I call mine a very comprehensive taste. I like all people whose occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and sailors, and the three learned professions - the church, law and medicine. I'm sure you don't want me to admire butchers and bakers, and candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?' 'But the Gormans were neither butchers nor bakers, but very respectable coach-builders.' 'Coach-building is a trade all the same, and a much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's carriage, and how I longed to walk!' And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, she seemed to be borne over the heath as lightly and easily as a fallen leaf wafted by the autumn breeze. But the evenings were rather difficult to fill up agreeably. Immediately after tea her father withdrew into his small library, and she and her mother were left alone. Mrs. Hale had never cared much for books, and had always discouraged her husband from reading aloud to her. At one time they had tried backgammon; but as Mr. Hale took an increasing interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the resulting interruptions were resented by his wife. So he withdrew into his library, to spend his evenings at home in reading the speculative and metaphysical books which were his delight. When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her a great box of books, recommended by masters or governesses, and had found the summer's day too short to get through her reading. Now there were only the well-bound little-read English Classics on the small bookshelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Seasons and Middleton's Cicero were the lightest, newest, and most amusing. Margaret told her mother every detail of her London life, to which Mrs. Hale listened with interest; sometimes amused, but at other times inclined to compare her sister's comfortable life with the narrower means at Helstone vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the rain. Once or twice she wondered if she might venture a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they had heard from him. But she was aware that her mother's delicate health, and dislike of Helstone, dated from the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been involved - the full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion. So she turned away from the subject. Her father seemed the best person to ask for information; though when she was with him, she thought that she could speak more easily to her mother. In one of the letters she had received at Harley Street, her father had told her that they had heard from Frederick. He was still at Rio, and very well in health, and sent his best love; which was dry bones, but not the living news she longed for. Frederick was always spoken of as 'Poor Frederick.' His room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted by Dixon, Mrs. Hale's maid, who did no other housework, but remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady Beresford as maid to the pretty Miss Beresfords. Dixon had always considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young lady's prospects. If Miss Beresford had not been in such a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman, there was no knowing what she might not have become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert her in her affliction and downfall (alias her married life). She remained devoted. Master Frederick had been her favourite; and her dignified manner softened when she went in to arrange his room as carefully as if he might be coming home that very evening. Margaret could not help believing that there had been some news of Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was making her father anxious. Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any change in her husband. His spirits were always easily affected by the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of a crime. But now Margaret noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were pre-occupied. Mr. Hale did not go out among his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his study, and anxious for the village postman to call. He loitered about the garden or stood dreamily by the study window until the postman had been. Then he turned into the room to begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an occupied mind. But Margaret was at an age when any fears are easily banished by a bright sunny day. And when the fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest. The fern-harvest was over, and now that the rain was gone, many a deep glade was accessible. Margaret had learnt drawing with Edith; and now decided to sketch what she could before winter set in. Accordingly, she was preparing her board one morning, when Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the drawing-room door and announced, 'Mr. Henry Lennox.'

North and South

Chapter 2: ROSES AND THORNS

"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?" "No," replied the Doctor, shaking his head. "She craves for fruit,--she has a constant fever on her; but jargonelle pears will do as well as anything, and there are quantities of them in the market." "You will tell me if there is anything I can do, I'm sure," replied Mr. Thornton. "I rely upon you." "Oh! never fear! I'll not spare your purse,--I know it's deep enough. I wish you'd give me a carte-blanche for all my patients, and all their wants." But Mr. Thornton had no general benevolence,--no universal philanthropy; few even would have given him credit for strong affections. But he went straight to the first fruit-shop in Milton, and chose out the bunch of purple grapes with the most delicate bloom upon them,--the richest-coloured peaches,--the freshest vine-leaves. They were packed into a basket, and the shopman awaited the answer to his inquiry, "Where shall we send them to, sir?" There was no reply. "To Marlborough Mills, I suppose, sir?" "No!" Mr. Thornton said. "Give the basket to me,--I'll take it." It took up both his hands to carry it; and he had to pass through the busiest part of the town for feminine shopping. Many a young lady of his acquaintance turned to look after him, and thought it strange to see him occupied just like a porter or an errand-boy. He was thinking, "I will not be daunted from doing as I choose by the thought of her. I like to take this fruit to the poor mother, and it is simply right that I should. She shall never scorn me out of doing what I please. A pretty joke, indeed, if, for fear of a haughty girl, I failed in doing a kindness to a man I liked! I do it for Mr. Hale; I do it in defiance of her." He went at an unusual pace, and was soon at Crampton. He went upstairs two steps at a time, and entered the drawing-room before Dixon could announce him,--his face flushed, his eyes shining with kindly earnestness. Mrs. Hale lay on the sofa, heated with fever. Mr. Hale was reading aloud. Margaret was working on a low stool by her mother's side. Her heart fluttered, if his did not at this interview. But he took no notice of her,--hardly of Mr. Hale himself; he went up straight with his basket to Mrs. Hale, and said, in that subdued and gentle tone, which is so touching when used by a robust man in full health, speaking to a feeble invalid,-- "I met Dr. Donaldson, ma'am, and as he said fruit would be good for you, I have taken the liberty--the great liberty--of bringing you some that seemed to me fine." Mrs. Hale was excessively pleased; quite in a tremble of eagerness. Mr. Hale with fewer words expressed a deeper gratitude. "Fetch a plate, Margaret--a basket--anything." Margaret stood up by the table, half afraid of moving or making any noise to arouse Mr. Thornton into a consciousness of her being in the room. She thought it would be awkward for both to be brought into conscious collision: and fancied that, from her being on a low seat at first, and now standing behind her father, he had overlooked her in his haste. As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over, though his eyes had never rested on her! "I must go," said he, "I cannot stay. If you will forgive this liberty,--my rough ways,--too abrupt, I fear--but I will be more gentle next time. You will allow me the pleasure of bringing you some fruit again, if I should see any that is tempting. Good afternoon, Mr. Hale. Good-bye, ma'am." He was gone. Not one word: not one look to Margaret. She believed that he had not seen her. She went for a plate in silence, and lifted the fruit out tenderly, with the points of her delicate taper fingers. It was good of him to bring it; and after yesterday too! "Oh! it is so delicious!" said Mrs. Hale, in a feeble voice. "How kind of him to think of me! Margaret love, only taste these grapes! Was it not good of him?" "Yes!" said Margaret, quietly. "Margaret!" said Mrs. Hale, rather querulously, "you won't like anything Mr. Thornton does. I never saw anybody so prejudiced." Mr. Hale had been peeling a peach for his wife; and, cutting off a small piece for himself, he said: "If I had any prejudices, the gift of such delicious fruit as this would melt them away. I have not tasted such fruit--no! not even in Hampshire--since I was a boy; and, to boys, I fancy, all fruit is good. I remember eating sloes and crabs with a relish. Do you remember the matted-up currant bushes, Margaret, at the corner of the west-wall at the garden at home?" Did she not? Did she not remember every weather-stain on the old stone wall; the gray and yellow lichens that marked it like a map; the little crane's-bill that grew in the crevices? She had been shaken by the events of the last two days; her whole life just now was a strain upon her fortitude; and, somehow, these careless words of her father's, touching on the remembrance of the sunny times of old, made her start up, and, dropping her sewing on the ground, she went hastily out of the room into her own little chamber. She had hardly given way to the first choking sob, when she became aware of Dixon standing at her drawers, and evidently searching for something. "Bless me, miss! How you startled me! Missus is not worse, is she? Is anything the matter?" "No, nothing. Only I'm silly, Dixon, and want a glass of water. What are you looking for? I keep my muslins in that drawer." Dixon did not speak, but went on rummaging. The scent of lavender came out and perfumed the room. At last Dixon found what she wanted; what it was Margaret could not see. Dixon faced round, and spoke to her: "Now I don't like telling what I wanted, because you've fretting enough to go through, and I know you'll fret about this. I meant to have kept it from you till night, may be, or such times as that." "What is the matter? Pray, tell me, Dixon, at once." "That young woman you go to see--Higgins I mean." "Well?" "Well! she died this morning, and her sister is here--come to beg a strange thing. It seems, the young woman who died had a fancy for being buried in something of yours, and so the sister's come to ask for it,--and I was looking for a night-cap that wasn't too good to give away." "Oh! let me find one," said Margaret, in the midst of her tears. "Poor Bessy! I never thought I should not see her again." "Why, that's another thing. This girl downstairs wanted me to ask you, if you would like to see her." "But she's dead!" said Margaret, turning a little pale. "I never saw a dead person. No! I would rather not." "I should never have asked you, if you hadn't come in. I told her you wouldn't." "I will go down and speak to her," said Margaret, afraid lest Dixon's harshness of manner might wound the poor girl. So, taking the cap in her hand, she went to the kitchen. Mary's face was all swollen with crying, and she burst out afresh when she saw Margaret. "Oh, ma'am, she loved yo', she loved yo', she did indeed!" And for a long time, Margaret could not get her to say anything more than this. At last, her sympathy, and Dixon's scolding, forced out a few facts. Nicholas Higgins had gone out in the morning, leaving Bessy as well as on the day before. But in an hour she was taken worse; some neighbour ran to the room where Mary was working; they did not know where to find her father; Mary had only come in a few minutes before she died. "It were a day or two ago she axed to be buried in somewhat o' yourn. She were never tired o' talking o' yo'. She used to say yo' were the prettiest thing she ever clapped eyes on. She loved yo' dearly. Her last words were 'Give her my affectionate respects; and keep father fro' drink.' Yo'll come and see her ma'am. She would ha' thought it a great compliment, I know." Margaret shrank a little from answering. "Yes, perhaps I may. Yes, I will. I'll come before tea. But where's your father, Mary?" Mary shook her head, and stood up to be going. "Miss Hale," said Dixon, in a low voice, "where's the use o' your going to see the poor thing laid out? I'd never say a word against it, if it could do the girl any good; and I wouldn't mind a bit going myself, if that would satisfy her. They've just a notion, these common folks, of its being a respect to the departed. Here," said she, turning sharply round, "I'll come and see your sister. Miss Hale is busy, and she can't come, or else she would." The girl looked wistfully at Margaret. Dixon's coming might be a compliment, but it was not the same thing to the poor sister, who had had her little pangs of jealousy, during Bessy's lifetime, at the intimacy between her and the young lady. "No, Dixon!" said Margaret with decision. "I will go. Mary, you shall see me this afternoon." And for fear of her own cowardice, she went away, in order to take from herself any chance of changing her determination.

Mr. Thornton went straight and clear into all the interests of the following day. There was a slight demand for goods; he took advantage of it, and drove hard bargains. He met his brother magistrates, aiding them with his strong sense, and his power of seeing consequences at a glance, and so coming to a rapid decision. Older men of long standing and far greater wealth looked to him for ready wisdom and leadership. And he cared nothing for their unconscious deference. He was not aware of the silent respect paid to him. If he had been, he would have felt it as an obstacle to all he wished to accomplish alone. He swept off his business right and left that day. It seemed as though his deep mortification of yesterday, and the stunned purposeless hours afterwards, had cleared away the mists from his intellect. He felt his power and revelled in it. He could almost defy his heart, and vow that he did not care for anybody. The evidence against Boucher, and the ringleaders of the riot, was taken before him, as a magistrate. The evidence against others, for conspiracy, failed; but he sternly charged the police to be on the watch for any fault that they could prove. And then he left the hot reeking room of the borough court, and went out into the sultry street. It seemed as though he gave way all at once. He could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her; they would bring back the scene of the riot, when she clung to him. He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding amongst people without seeing them - almost sick with longing for that one brief space of time when her heart beat against his. 'Why, Mr. Thornton! How is Mrs. Thornton? Brave weather this! We doctors don't like it, I can tell you.' 'I beg your pardon, Dr. Donaldson. I didn't see you. My mother's quite well, thank you. It is a good day 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 times are my good ones. When trade is bad, there's more undermining of health going on among you Milton men than you're aware of.' 'Not with me, Doctor. I'm made of iron. This strike, which affects me more than anyone else in Milton, harms neither my pulse nor my appetite. You must go elsewhere for a patient.' '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 hasn't many weeks to live. I never had any hope of cure, as I told you; but I've seen her today, and she is very ill.' 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 will have seen that money is not very plentiful; are there any comforts or dainties she ought to have?' 'She craves for fruit - she has a constant fever; but pears will do as well as anything, and there are quantities of them in the market.' 'You will tell me, if there is anything I can do, I'm sure,' replied Mr. Thornton. 'Oh! never fear! I know your purse is deep enough. I wish you'd give me carte-blanche for all my patients' wants.' However, Mr. Thornton had no general benevolence. But he went straight to the best fruit-shop in Milton, and chose the most perfect bunch of purple grapes - the richest-coloured peaches - the freshest vine-leaves. They were packed into a basket. 'Where shall we send them to, sir?' the shopman asked. 'To Marlborough Mills?' 'No!' Mr. Thornton said. 'Give the basket to me.' It took both his hands to carry it; and he had to pass through the busiest shopping streets of the town. Many a young lady he knew turned to look after him, on seeing him occupied like an errand-boy. He was thinking, 'I will not be daunted from doing as I choose by the thought of her. I like to take this fruit to the poor mother, and it is right that I should. She shall never scorn me out of doing what I please. A pretty joke, indeed, if, for fear of a haughty girl, I failed in doing a kindness to a man I liked! I do it for Mr. Hale; I do it in defiance of her.' He went at an unusual pace, and was soon at Crampton. He went upstairs two steps at a time, and entered the drawing-room before Dixon could announce him - his face flushed, his eyes shining with kindly earnestness. Mrs. Hale lay on the sofa. Mr. Hale was reading aloud. Margaret was sewing on a low stool by her mother's side. Her heart fluttered; but he took no notice of her. He went straight with his basket to Mrs. Hale, and said, in that subdued and gentle tone, which is so touching when used by a robust man speaking to an invalid: 'I met Dr. Donaldson, ma'am, and as he said fruit would be good for you, I have taken the great liberty of bringing you some.' Mrs. Hale was excessively surprised and pleased; Mr. Hale expressed deep gratitude. 'Fetch a plate, Margaret.' Margaret stood up, half afraid of moving or causing any noise to make Mr. Thornton aware that she was in the room. She thought it would be awkward for both; and fancied that, from her being on a low seat behind her father, he had overlooked her in his haste. As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over! 'I must go,' said he. 'I cannot stay. If you will forgive this liberty - my rough ways - too abrupt, I fear - I will be more gentle next time. You will allow me the pleasure of bringing you some fruit again, if I should see any that is tempting. Good afternoon, Mr. Hale. Good-bye, ma'am.' He was gone. Not one word: not one look to Margaret. She believed that he had not seen her. She went for a plate in silence, and lifted the fruit out tenderly, with her delicate fingers. It was good of him to bring it; and after yesterday too! 'Oh! it is so delicious!' said Mrs. Hale, in a feeble voice. 'Margaret love, only taste these grapes! Was it not good of him?' 'Yes,' said Margaret, quietly. 'Margaret!' said Mrs. Hale, rather querulously, 'you won't like anything Mr. Thornton does. I never saw anybody so prejudiced.' Mr. Hale peeled a peach for his wife; and, cutting off a small piece for himself, he said: 'I have not tasted such fruit since I was a boy; and to boys, I fancy, all fruit is good. I remember eating sloes and crab-apples with relish. Do you remember the currant bushes, Margaret, in the garden at home?' Did she not? Did she not remember every weather-stain on the old stone wall; the grey and yellow lichens that marked it like a map; the little crane's-bill that grew in the crevices? She had been shaken by the events of the last two days; and, somehow, these careless words of her father's, about the sunny times of old, made her start up. Dropping her sewing, she went hastily out of the room into her own little chamber. She had hardly given way to the first choking sob, when she became aware of Dixon standing at her chest of drawers, searching for something. 'Bless me, miss! How you startled me! Missus is not worse, is she? Is anything the matter?' 'No, nothing. Only I'm silly, Dixon, and want a glass of water. What are you looking for? I keep my muslins in that drawer.' Dixon did not speak, but went on rummaging. The scent of lavender came out and perfumed the room. At last Dixon found what she wanted; what it was, Margaret could not see. Dixon tuned, and spoke to her: 'Now I don't like telling you what I wanted, because you're fretting enough, and I know you'll fret about this. I meant to have kept it from you till night.' 'What is the matter? Pray, tell me.' 'That young woman you go to see - Higgins, I mean.' 'Well?' 'Well! she died this morning, and her sister is here - come to beg a strange thing. It seems the young woman had a fancy for being buried in something of yours, and so the sister's come to ask for it; and I was looking for a night-cap that wasn't too good to give away.' 'Oh! let me find one,' said Margaret, in the midst of her tears. 'Poor Bessy! I never thought I should not see her again.' 'Why, that's another thing. This girl downstairs wanted me to ask you if you would like to see her.' 'But she's dead!' said Margaret, turning a little pale. 'I never saw a dead person. No! I would rather not.' 'I told her you wouldn't.' 'I will go down and speak to her,' said Margaret. Taking the cap in her hand, she went to the kitchen. Mary's face was swollen with crying, and she burst out afresh when she saw Margaret. 'Oh, ma'am, she loved yo', she loved yo', she did indeed!' And for a long time, Margaret could not get her to say anything more than this. At last, she learned a few facts. Nicholas Higgins had gone out in the morning, leaving Bessy as well as on the day before. But in an hour she was taken worse; a neighbour ran to the room where Mary was working; they did not know where to find her father. Mary had only come in a few minutes before she died. 'It were a day or two ago she axed to be buried in somewhat o' yourn. She were never tired o' talking o' yo'. She used to say yo' were the prettiest thing she'd ever clapped eyes on. She loved yo' dearly. Her last words were, "Give her my affectionate respects; and keep father fro' drink." Yo'll come and see her, ma'am. She would ha' thought it a great compliment, I know.' Margaret shrank a little from answering. 'Yes, I will. I'll come before tea. But where's your father, Mary?' Mary shook her head, and stood up to go. 'Miss Hale,' said Dixon, in a low voice, 'where's the use o' your going to see the poor thing laid out? I'd never say a word against it, if it could do the girl any good; but I'd go myself, if that would satisfy her. They've just a notion, these folks, of its being a respect to the departed. Here,' said she, turning sharply, 'I'll come and see your sister. Miss Hale is busy.' The girl looked wistfully at Margaret. Dixon's coming might be a compliment, but it was not the same thing to the poor sister, who had had her little pangs of jealousy at the intimacy between Bessy and the young lady. 'No, Dixon!' said Margaret with decision. 'Mary, I will come this afternoon.' And for fear of her own cowardice, she went away, so that she could not change her mind.

North and South

Chapter 27: FRUIT-PIECE

"Experience, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand; Whence harmonies we cannot understand, Of God's will in His worlds, the strain unfolds In sad, perplexed minors." MRS. BROWNING. About this time Dixon returned from Milton, and assumed her post as Margaret's maid. She brought endless pieces of Milton gossip: How Martha had gone to live with Miss Thornton, on the latter's marriage; with an account of the bridesmaids, dresses and breakfasts, at that interesting ceremony; how people thought that Mr. Thornton had made too grand a wedding of it, considering he had lost a deal by the strike, and had had to pay so much for the failure of his contracts; how little money articles of furniture--long cherished by Dixon--had fetched at the sale, which was a shame considering how rich folks were at Milton; how Mrs. Thornton had come one day and got two or three good bargains, and Mr. Thornton had come the next, and in his desire to obtain one or two things, had bid against himself, much to the enjoyment of the bystanders, so as Dixon observed, that made things even; if Mrs. Thornton paid too little, Mr. Thornton paid too much. Mr. Bell had sent all sorts of orders about the books; there was no understanding him, he was so particular; if he had come himself it would have been all right, but letters always were and always will be more puzzling than they are worth. Dixon had not much to tell about the Higginses. Her memory had an aristocratic bias, and was very treacherous whenever she tried to recall any circumstance connected with those below her in life. Nicholas was very well she believed. He had been several times at the house asking for news of Miss Margaret--the only person who ever did ask, except once Mr. Thornton. And Mary? oh! of course she was very well, a great, stout, slatternly thing! She did hear, or perhaps it was only a dream of hers, though it would be strange if she had dreamt of such people as the Higginses, that Mary had gone to work at Mr. Thornton's mill, because her father wished her to know how to cook; but what nonsense that could mean she didn't know. Margaret rather agreed with her that the story was incoherent enough to be like a dream. Still it was pleasant to have some one now with whom she could talk of Milton, and Milton people. Dixon was not over-fond of the subject, rather wishing to leave that part of her life in shadow. She liked much more to dwell upon speeches of Mr. Bell's, which had suggested an idea to her of what was really his intention--making Margaret his heiress. But her young lady gave her no encouragement, nor in any way gratified her insinuating enquiries, however disguised in the form of suspicions or assertions. All this time Margaret had a strange undefined longing to hear that Mr. Bell had gone to pay one of his business visits to Milton; for it had been well understood between them, at the time of their conversation at Helstone, that the explanation she had desired should only be given to Mr. Thornton by word of mouth, and even in that manner should be in nowise forced upon him. Mr. Bell was no great correspondent, but he wrote from time to time long or short letters, as the humour took him, and although Margaret was not conscious of any definite hope, on receiving them, yet she always put away his notes with a little feeling of disappointment. He was not going to Milton; he said nothing about it at any rate. Well! she must be patient. Sooner or later the mists would be cleared away. Mr. Bell's letters were hardly like his usual self; they were short, and complaining, with every now and then a little touch of bitterness that was unusual. He did not look forward to the future; he rather seemed to regret the past, and be weary of the present. Margaret fancied that he could not be well; but in answer to some enquiry of hers as to his health, he sent her a short note, saying there was an oldfashioned complaint called the spleen; that he was suffering from that, and it was for her to decide if it was more mental or physical; but that he should like to indulge himself in grumbling, without being obliged to send a bulletin every time. In consequence of this note, Margaret made no more enquiries about his health. One day Edith let out accidentally a fragment of a conversation which she had had with Mr. Bell, when he was last in London, which possessed Margaret with the idea that he had some notion of taking her to pay a visit to her brother and new sister-in-law, at Cadiz, in the autumn. She questioned and cross-questioned Edith, till the latter was weary, and declared that there was nothing more to remember; all he had said was that he half-thought he should go, and hear for himself what Frederick had to say about the mutiny; and that it would be a good opportunity for Margaret to become acquainted with her new sister-in-law; that he always went somewhere during the long vacation, and did not see why he should not go to Spain as well as anywhere else. That was all. Edith hoped Margaret did not want to leave them, that she was so anxious about all this. And then, having nothing else particular to do, she cried, and said that she knew she cared much more for Margaret than Margaret did for her. Margaret comforted her as well as she could, but she could hardly explain to her how this idea of Spain, mere Chteau en Espagne as it might be, charmed and delighted her. Edith was in the mood to think that any pleasure enjoyed away from her was a tacit affront, or at best a proof of indifference. So Margaret had to keep her pleasure to herself, and could only let it escape by the safety-valve of asking Dixon, when she dressed for dinner, if she would not like to see Master Frederick and his new wife very much indeed? "She's a Papist, Miss, isn't she?" "I believe--oh yes, certainly!" said Margaret, a little damped for an instant at this recollection. "And they live in a Popish country?" "Yes." "Then I'm afraid I must say, that my soul is dearer to me than even Master Frederick, his own dear self. I should be in a perpetual terror, Miss, lest I should be converted." "Oh," said Margaret, "I do not know that I am going; and if I go, I am not such a fine lady as to be unable to travel without you. No! dear old Dixon, you shall have a long holiday, if we go. But I'm afraid it is a long 'if.'" Now Dixon did not like this speech. In the first place, she did not like Margaret's trick of calling her 'dear old Dixon' whenever she was particularly demonstrative. She knew that Miss Hale was apt to call all people that she liked "old," as a sort of term of endearment; but Dixon always winced away from the application of the word to herself, who, being not much past fifty, was, she thought, in the very prime of life. Secondly, she did not like being so easily taken at her word; she had, with all her terror, a lurking curiosity about Spain, the Inquisition, and Popish mysteries. So, after clearing her throat, as if to show her willingness to do away with difficulties, she asked Miss Hale whether she thought, if she took care never to see a priest, or enter into one of their churches, there would be so very much danger of her being converted? Master Frederick, to be sure, had gone over unaccountably. "I fancy it was love that first predisposed him to conversion," said Margaret, sighing. "Indeed, Miss!" said Dixon; "well! I can preserve myself from priests, and from churches; but love steals in unawares! I think it's as well I should not go." Margaret was afraid of letting her mind run too much upon this Spanish plan. But it took off her thoughts from too impatiently dwelling upon her desire to have all explained to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Bell appeared for the present to be stationary at Oxford, and to have no immediate purpose of going to Milton, and some secret restraint seemed to hang over Margaret, and prevent her from even asking, or alluding again to any probability of such a visit on his part. Nor did she feel at liberty to name what Edith had told her of the idea he had entertained,--it might be but for five minutes,--of going to Spain. He had never named it at Helstone, during all that sunny day of leisure; it was very probably but the fancy of a moment,--but if it were true, what a bright outlet it would be from the monotony of her present life, which was beginning to fall upon her. One of the great pleasures of Margaret's life at this time was in Edith's boy. He was the pride and plaything of both father and mother, as long as he was good; but he had a strong will of his own, and as soon as he burst out into one of his stormy passions, Edith would throw herself back in despair and fatigue, and sigh out, "Oh dear, what shall I do with him! Do, Margaret, please ring the bell for Hanley." But Margaret almost liked him better in these manifestations of character than in his good blue-sashed moods. She would carry him off into a room, where they two alone battled it out; she with a firm power which subdued him into peace, while every sudden charm and wile she possessed was exerted on the side of right, until he would rub his little hot and tear-smeared face all over hers, kissing and caressing till he often fell asleep in her arms or on her shoulder. Those were Margaret's sweetest moments. They gave her a taste of the feeling that she believed would be denied to her for ever. Mr. Henry Lennox added a new and not disagreeable element to the course of the household life by his frequent presence. Margaret thought him colder, if more brilliant than formerly; but there were strong intellectual tastes, and much and varied knowledge, which gave flavour to the otherwise rather insipid conversation. Margaret saw glimpses in him of a slight contempt for his brother and sister-in-law, and for their mode of life, which he seemed to consider as frivolous and purposeless. He once or twice spoke to his brother, in Margaret's presence, in a pretty sharp tone of enquiry, as to whether he meant entirely to relinquish his profession; and on Captain Lennox's reply, that he had quite enough to live upon, she had seen Mr. Lennox's curl of the lip as he said, "And is that all you live for?" But the brothers were much attached to each other, in the way that any two persons are, when the one is cleverer and always leads the other, and this last is patiently content to be led. Mr. Lennox was pushing on in his profession; cultivating, with profound calculation, all those connections that might eventually be of service to him; keen-sighted, far-seeing, intelligent, sarcastic, and proud. Since the one long conversation relating to Frederick's affairs, which she had with him the first evening in Mr. Bell's presence, she had had no great intercourse with him, further than that which arose out of their close relations with the same household. But this was enough to wear off the shyness on her side, and any symptoms of mortified pride and vanity on his. They met, continually, of course, but she thought that he rather avoided being alone with her; she fancied that he, as well as she, perceived that they had drifted strangely apart from their former anchorage, side by side, in many of their opinions, and all their tastes. And yet, when he had spoken unusually well, or with remarkable epigrammatic point, she felt that his eye sought the expression of her countenance first of all, if but for an instant; and that, in the family intercourse which constantly threw them together, her opinion was the one to which he listened with a deference,--the more complete, because it was reluctantly paid, and concealed as much as possible.

About this time Dixon returned from Milton, bringing endless pieces of gossip: how Martha had gone to live with Miss Thornton, on the latter's marriage, with an account of bridesmaids, dresses and breakfasts; how people thought that Mr. Thornton had made too grand a wedding of it, considering he had lost a deal by the strike, and had had to pay so much for the failure of his contracts; how little money the Hales' furniture had fetched at the sale; how Mrs. Thornton had come one day and got two or three good bargains, and Mr. Thornton had come the next, and in his desire to buy one or two things, had bid against himself, much to the enjoyment of the bystanders. Mr. Bell had sent all sorts of orders about the books which she could not understand, his letters were so puzzling. Dixon had not much to tell about the Higginses. Her memory had an aristocratic bias. Nicholas was very well, she believed. He had been several times at the house asking for news of Miss Margaret - the only person who ever did ask, except once Mr. Thornton. And Mary? oh! she was very well, a great, stout, slatternly thing! She did hear that Mary had gone to work at Mr. Thornton's mill, because her father wished her to know how to cook; but what nonsense that could mean she didn't know. Margaret rather agreed with her that the story was incoherent. Still, it was pleasant to have someone with whom she could talk of Milton. Dixon was not over-fond of the subject, preferring to dwell upon speeches of Mr. Bell's which had suggested that he would make Margaret his heiress. But her young lady gave her no encouragement in her enquiries. All this time, Margaret had a strange undefined longing to hear that Mr. Bell had gone to pay one of his business visits to Milton, and had been able to speak to Mr. Thornton about her explanation. Mr. Bell was no great correspondent, and when he wrote she read his notes with a little feeling of disappointment. He was not going to Milton; he said nothing about it at any rate. Well! she must be patient. Mr. Bell's letters were hardly like his usual self; they were short, and complaining, with an unusual touch of bitterness and weariness. Margaret thought that he could not be well; but when she enquired about his health, he sent her a short note, saying there was an old-fashioned complaint called the spleen; that he was suffering from that, and it was for her to decide if it was more mental or physical; but that he should like to indulge himself in grumbling, without being obliged to send a bulletin every time. After this note, Margaret made no more enquiries about his health. One day Edith let out accidentally a fragment of a conversation which she had had with Mr. Bell, which implied that he had some notion of taking Margaret to see Frederick at Cadiz in the autumn. She cross-questioned Edith, till the latter was weary, and declared that there was nothing more to remember; all he had said was that he half-thought he should go. Edith hoped Margaret did not want to leave them. And then, having nothing else particular to do, she cried, and said that she knew she cared much more for Margaret than Margaret did for her. Margaret comforted her, but she could hardly explain how this idea of Spain delighted her. Edith was in the mood to think that any pleasure enjoyed away from her was an affront. So Margaret resorted to asking Dixon if she would not like to see Master Frederick and his new wife? 'She's a Papist, Miss, isn't she?' 'I believe so,' said Margaret, a little damped. 'And they live in a Popish country?' 'Yes.' 'Then I'm afraid I must say that my soul is dearer to me than even Master Frederick. I should be in a perpetual terror, Miss, lest I should be converted.' 'Oh' said Margaret, 'If I go, I can travel without you. Dear old Dixon, you shall have a long holiday, if we go. But I'm afraid it is a big "if."' Now Dixon did not like this speech. In the first place, she did not like being called 'dear old Dixon'. She knew that Miss Hale used 'old' as a term of endearment; but Dixon winced away from it, thinking herself, at not much past fifty, to be in the very prime of life. Secondly, she had a secret lurking curiosity about Spain, and Popish mysteries. So, after clearing her throat, she asked Miss Hale whether she might be safe from conversion if she took care never to enter one of their churches? Master Frederick, to be sure, had gone over unaccountable. 'I fancy that was because of love,' said Margaret, sighing. 'Indeed, Miss!' said Dixon. 'I can protect myself from churches; but love steals in unawares! I think it's as well I should not go.' Margaret was afraid of thinking too much about this Spanish trip. But it took her mind off Mr. Thornton. Mr. Bell appeared to have no immediate plan to go to Milton, and some secret restraint prevented Margaret from asking him when he might visit. Nor did she feel at liberty to ask about his idea of visiting Spain; for he had never mentioned it at Helstone. It was probably just the fancy of a moment - but what a bright fancy! One of the great pleasures of Margaret's life at this time was Edith's boy. He was the pride and plaything of both father and mother, as long as he was good; but he had a strong will, and as soon as he burst out into a stormy passion, Edith would throw herself back in despair and fatigue, sighing, 'Oh dear, what shall I do with him! Do, Margaret, please ring the bell for Hanley.' But Margaret almost liked him better in these moods. She would carry him off into a room, where they two alone battled it out; she with a firm power which subdued him into peace, exerting every charm and wile she possessed on the side of right, until he would rub his little tear-smeared face all over hers, caressing her till he often fell asleep on her shoulder. Those were Margaret's sweetest moments. They gave her a taste of the feeling that she believed would be denied to her for ever. Mr. Henry Lennox's frequent presence added a new element to the household life. Margaret thought him colder, if more brilliant than formerly; but his intellectual tastes and knowledge gave flavour to the otherwise rather insipid conversation. Margaret saw glimpses in him of a slight contempt for his brother and sister-in-law, and for their mode of life, which he seemed to consider as frivolous and purposeless. He once asked his brother, in Margaret's presence, whether he meant entirely to give up his profession. On Captain Lennox's reply, that he had quite enough to live upon, Mr. Lennox's lip curled as he said, 'And is that all you live for?' But the brothers were much attached to each other. Mr. Lennox was pushing on in his profession; cultivating all those connections that might be of use to him; keen-sighted, sarcastic, and proud. Since their one long conversation about Frederick's affairs, she had made only small talk with him. But this was enough to wear off the shyness on her side, and any mortified vanity on his. She thought that he rather avoided being alone with her; she fancied that he perceived that they had drifted strangely apart in many of their opinions, and all their tastes. And yet, when he had spoken unusually well, she felt that his eye sought her out first of all, if but for an instant; and that, in the family discussion, her opinion was the one to which he listened with deference - the more complete, because it was reluctantly paid, and concealed as much as possible.

North and South

Chapter 47: SOMETHING WANTING

"Bear up, brave heart! we will be calm and strong; Sure, we can master eyes, or cheek, or tongue, Nor let the smallest tell-tale sign appear She ever was, and is, and will be dear." RHYMING PLAY. It was a hot summer's evening. Edith came into Margaret's bed-room, the first time in her habit, the second ready dressed for dinner. No one was there at first; the next time Edith found Dixon laying out Margaret's dress on the bed; but no Margaret. Edith remained to fidget about. "Oh, Dixon! not those horrid blue flowers to that dead gold-coloured gown. What taste! Wait a minute, and I will bring you some pomegranate blossoms." "It's not a dead gold-colour ma'am. It's a straw-colour. And blue always goes with straw-colour." But Edith had brought the brilliant scarlet flowers before Dixon had got half through her remonstrance. "Where is Miss Hale?" asked Edith, as soon as she had tried the effect of the garniture. "I can't think," she went on, pettishly, "how my aunt allowed her to get into such rambling habits in Milton! I'm sure I'm always expecting to hear of her having met with something horrible among all those wretched places she pokes herself into. I should never dare to go down some of those streets without a servant. They're not fit for ladies." Dixon was still huffed about her despised taste; so she replied rather shortly: "It's no wonder to my mind, when I hear ladies talk such a deal about ladies--and when they're such fearful, delicate, dainty ladies too--I say it's no wonder to me that there are no longer any saints on earth----" "Oh, Margaret! here you are! I have been so wanting you. But how your cheeks are flushed with the heat, poor child! But only think what that tiresome Henry has done; really, he exceeds brother-in-law's limits. Just when my party was made up so beautifully--fitted in so precisely for Mr. Colthurst--there has Henry come, with an apology it is true, and making use of your name for an excuse, and asked me if he may bring that Mr. Thornton of Milton--your tenant, you know--who is in London about some law business. It will spoil my number, quite." "I don't mind dinner. I don't want any," said Margaret, in a low voice. "Dixon can get me a cup of tea here, and I will be in the drawing-room by the time you come up. I shall really be glad to lie down." "No, no! that will never do. You do look wretchedly white, to be sure; but that is just the heat, and we can't do without you possibly. (Those flowers a little lower, Dixon. They look glorious flames, Margaret, in your black hair.) You know we planned you to talk about Milton to Mr. Colthurst. Oh! to be sure! and this man comes from Milton. I believe it will be capital, after all. Mr. Colthurst can pump him well on all the subjects in which he is interested, and it will be great fun to trace out your experiences, and this Mr. Thornton's wisdom, in Mr. Colthurst's next speech in the House. Really, I think it is a happy hit of Henry's. I asked him if he was a man one would be ashamed of; and he replied, 'Not if you've any sense in you, my little sister.' So I suppose he is able to sound his h's, which is not a common Darkshire accomplishment--eh, Margaret?" "Mr. Lennox did not say why Mr. Thornton was come up to town? Was it law business connected with the property?" asked Margaret, in a constrained voice. "Oh! he's failed, or something of the kind, that Henry told you of that day you had such a headache--what was it? (There, that's capital, Dixon. Miss Hale does us credit, does she not?) I wish I was as tall as a queen, and as brown as a gipsy, Margaret." "But about Mr. Thornton?" "Oh! I really have such a terrible head for law business. Henry will like nothing better than to tell you all about it. I know the impression he made upon me was, that Mr. Thornton is very badly off, and a very respectable man, and that I'm to be very civil to him: and as I did not know how, I came to you to ask you to help me. And now come down with me, and rest on the sofa for a quarter of an hour." The privileged brother-in-law came early; and Margaret, reddening as she spoke, began to ask him the questions she wanted to hear answered about Mr. Thornton. "He came up about this sub-letting the property--Marlborough Mills, and the house and premises adjoining, I mean. He is unable to keep it on; and there are deeds and leases to be looked over and agreements to be drawn up. I hope Edith will receive him properly; but she was rather put out, as I could see, by the liberty I had taken in begging for an invitation for him. But I thought you would like to have some attention shown him: and one would be particularly scrupulous in paying every respect to a man who is going down in the world." He had dropped his voice to speak to Margaret, by whom he was sitting; but as he ended he sprang up, and introduced Mr. Thornton, who had that moment entered, to Edith and Captain Lennox. Margaret looked with an anxious eye at Mr. Thornton while he was thus occupied. It was considerably more than a year since she had seen him; and events had occurred to change him much in that time. His fine figure yet bore him above the common height of men; and gave him a distinguished appearance, from the ease of motion which arose out of it, and was natural to him; but his face looked older and careworn; yet a noble composure sate upon it, which impressed those who had just been hearing of his changed position, with a sense of inherent dignity and manly strength. He was aware, from the first glance he had given round the room, that Margaret was there; he had seen her intent look of occupation as she listened to Mr. Henry Lennox; and he came up to her with the perfectly regulated manner of an old friend. With his first calm words a vivid colour flashed into her cheeks, which never left them again during the evening. She did not seem to have much to say to him. She disappointed him by the quiet way in which she asked what seemed to him to be the merely necessary questions respecting her old acquaintances, in Milton; but others came in--more intimate in the house than he--and he fell into the background, where he and Mr. Lennox talked together from time to time. "You think Miss Hale looking well," said Mr. Lennox, "don't you? Milton didn't agree with her, I imagine; for when she first came to London, I thought I had never seen any one so much changed. To-night she is looking radiant. But she is much stronger. Last autumn she was fatigued with a walk of a couple of miles. On Friday evening we walked up to Hampstead and back. Yet on Saturday she looked as well as she does now." "We!" Who? They two alone? Mr. Colthurst was a very clever man, and a rising member of Parliament. He had a quick eye at discerning character, and was struck by a remark which Mr. Thornton made at dinner-time. He enquired from Edith who that gentleman was; and, rather to her surprise, she found, from the tone of his "Indeed!" that Mr. Thornton of Milton was not such an unknown name to him as she had imagined it would be. Her dinner was going off well. Henry was in good humour, and brought out his dry caustic wit admirably. Mr. Thornton and Mr. Colthurst found one or two mutual subjects of interest, which they could only touch upon then, reserving them for more private after-dinner talk. Margaret looked beautiful in the pomegranate flowers; and if she did lean back in her chair and speak but little, Edith was not annoyed, for the conversation flowed on smoothly without her. Margaret was watching Mr Thornton's face. He never looked at her: so she might study him unobserved, and note the changes which even this short time had wrought in him. Only at some unexpected mot of Mr. Lennox's, his face flashed out into the old look of intense enjoyment: the merry brightness returned to his eyes, the lips just parted to suggest the brilliant smile of former days; and for an instant, his glance instinctively sought hers, as if he wanted her sympathy. But when their eyes met, his whole countenance changed; he was grave and anxious once more; and he resolutely avoided even looking near her again during dinner. There were only two ladies beside their own party, and as these were occupied in conversation by her aunt and Edith, when they went up into the drawing-room, Margaret languidly employed herself about some work. Presently the gentlemen came up, Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton in close conversation. Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and said in a low voice: "I really think Edith owes me thanks for my contribution to her party. You've no idea what an agreeable, sensible fellow this tenant of yours is. He has been the very man to give Colthurst all the facts he wanted coaching in. I can't conceive how he contrived to mismanage his affairs." "With his powers and opportunities you would have succeeded," said Margaret. He did not quite relish the tone in which she spoke, although the words but expressed a thought which had passed through his own mind. As he was silent, they caught a swell in the sound of conversation going on near the fire-place between Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton. "I assure you, I heard it spoken of with great interest--curiosity as to its result, perhaps I should rather say. I heard your name frequently mentioned during my short stay in the neighbourhood." Then they lost some words; and when next they could hear Mr. Thornton was speaking. "I have not the elements for popularity--if they spoke of me in that way, they were mistaken. I fall slowly into new projects; and I find it difficult to let myself be known, even by those whom I desire to know, and with whom I would fain have no reserve. Yet, even with all these drawbacks, I felt that I was on the right path, and that, starting from a kind of friendship with one, I was becoming acquainted with many. The advantages were mutual: we were both unconsciously and consciously teaching each other." "You say 'were.' I trust you are intending to pursue the same course?" "I must stop Colthurst," said Henry Lennox, hastily. And by an abrupt, yet apropos question, he turned the current of the conversation, so as not to give Mr. Thornton the mortification of acknowledging his want of success and consequent change of position. But as soon as the newly-started subject had come to a close, Mr. Thornton resumed the conversation just where it had been interrupted, and gave Mr. Colthurst the reply to his inquiry. "I have been unsuccessful in business, and have had to give up my position as a master. I am on the look-out for a situation in Milton, where I may meet with employment under some one who will be willing to let me go along my own way in such matters as these. I can depend upon myself for having no go-ahead theories that I would rashly bring into practice. My only wish is to have the opportunity of cultivating some intercourse with the hands beyond the mere 'cash nexus.' But it might be the point Archimedes sought from which to move the earth, to judge by the importance attached to it by some of our manufacturers, who shake their heads and look grave as soon as I name the one or two experiments that I should like to try." "You call them 'experiments' I notice," said Mr. Colthurst, with a delicate increase of respect in his manner. "Because I believe them to be such. I am not sure of the consequences that may result from them. But I am sure they ought to be tried. I have arrived at the conviction that no mere institutions, however wise, and however much thought may have been required to organise and arrange them, can attach class to class as they should be attached, unless the working out of such institutions bring the individuals of the different classes into actual personal contact. Such intercourse is the very breath of life. A working man can hardly be made to feel and know how much his employer may have laboured in his study at plans for the benefit of his workpeople. A complete plan emerges like a piece of machinery, apparently fitted for every emergency. But the hands accept it as they do machinery, without understanding the intense mental labour and forethought required to bring it to such perfection. But I would take an idea, the working out of which would necessitate personal intercourse; it might not go well at first, but at every hitch interest would be felt by an increasing number of men, and at last its success in working come to be desired by all, as all had borne a part in the formation of the plan; and even then I am sure that it would lose its vitality, cease to be living, as soon as it was no longer carried on by that sort of common interest which invariably makes people find means and ways of seeing each other, and becoming acquainted with each others' characters and persons, and even tricks of temper and modes of speech. We should understand each other better, and I'll venture to say we should like each other more." "And you think they may prevent recurrence of strikes?" "Not at all. My utmost expectation only goes as far as this--that they may render strikes not the bitter, venomous sources of hatred they have hitherto been. A more hopeful man might imagine that a closer and more genial intercourse between classes might do away with strikes. But I am not a hopeful man." Suddenly, as if a new idea had struck him, he crossed over to where Margaret was sitting, and began, without preface, as if he knew she had been listening to all that had passed: "Miss Hale, I had a round-robin from some of my men--I suspect in Higgins' handwriting--stating their wish to work for me, if ever I was in a position to employ men again on my own behalf. That was good, wasn't it?" "Yes. Just right. I am glad of it," said Margaret, looking up straight into his face with her speaking eyes, and then dropping them under his eloquent glance. He gazed back at her for a minute, as if he did not know exactly what he was about. Then sighed; and saying, "I knew you would like it," he turned away, and never spoke to her again until he bid her a formal "good night." As Mr. Lennox took his departure, Margaret said, with a blush that she could not repress, and with some hesitation, "Can I speak to you to-morrow? I want your help about--something." "Certainly. I will come at whatever time you name. You cannot give me a greater pleasure than by making me of any use. At eleven? Very well." His eye brightened with exultation. How she was learning to depend upon him! It seemed as if any day now might give him the certainty, without having which he had determined never to offer to her again.

It was a hot summer's evening. Edith came into Margaret's bedroom, dressed for dinner. She found Dixon laying out Margaret's dress on the bed; but no Margaret. 'Oh, Dixon! not those horrid blue flowers with that dead gold-coloured gown. What taste! Wait a minute, and I will bring you some pomegranate blossoms.' 'It's not a dead gold-colour, ma'am. It's a straw-colour. And blue always goes with straw-colour.' But Edith had brought the scarlet flowers before Dixon had finished. 'Where is Miss Hale?' asked Edith pettishly. 'I can't think how my aunt Hale allowed her to get into such rambling habits when she was in Milton! I'm always expecting to hear of her having met with something horrible in those wretched places she pokes herself into. I should never dare to go down some of those streets without a servant. They're not fit for ladies.' Dixon was still huffed about her despised taste; so she replied, rather shortly: 'It's no wonder to my mind, when they're such fearful, delicate, dainty ladies - it's no wonder to me that there are no longer any saints on earth-' 'Oh, Margaret! here you are! I have been so wanting you. Only think what that tiresome Henry has done. Just when my party was made up so beautifully - there has Henry come, with an apology it is true, and using your name for an excuse, has asked me if he may bring that Mr. Thornton of Milton - your tenant, you know - who is in London about some law business. It will spoil my number at dinner.' 'I don't mind dinner. I don't want any,' said Margaret, in a low voice. 'Dixon can get me a cup of tea here, and I will be in the drawing-room by the time you come up. I shall really be glad to lie down.' 'No, no! that will never do. You do look wretchedly white, to be sure; but that is just the heat, and we can't do without you. You know we planned you to talk about Milton to Mr. Colthurst. Oh! and this man comes from Milton. I believe it will be capital, after all. Mr. Colthurst can pump him, and it will be great fun to trace out your experiences, and this Mr. Thornton's wisdom, in Mr. Colthurst's next speech in parliament. Really, it is a happy hit of Henry's. I asked him if Mr. Thornton was a man one would be ashamed of; and he replied, "Not if you've any sense, my little sister." So I suppose he is able to sound his h's - eh, Margaret?' 'Mr. Lennox did not say why Mr. Thornton was come up to town? Was it connected with the property?' asked Margaret, in a constrained voice. 'Oh! he's failed, or something of the kind, as Henry told you that day you had such a headache. There, that's capital, Dixon. Miss Hale does us credit, does she not? I wish I was as tall as a queen, and as brown as a gipsy, Margaret.' 'But about Mr. Thornton?' 'Oh, I really have such a terrible head for law business. Henry will tell you all about it. I gathered that Mr. Thornton is very badly off, and a very respectable man, and that I'm to be very civil to him; so I came to ask you to help me. And now come down with me.' Henry Lennox arrived early. Margaret, reddening, began to ask him about Mr. Thornton. 'He came to London about sub-letting the property - Marlborough Mills, and the house and premises. He is unable to keep it on; and there are leases to be looked over, and agreements to be drawn up. I hope Edith will receive him properly; she was rather put out when I begged an invitation for him. But I thought you would like to have some attention shown him: and one would wish to be scrupulous in paying every respect to a man who is going down in the world.' As he ended he sprang up, and introduced Mr. Thornton, who had that moment entered, to Edith and Captain Lennox. Margaret looked anxiously at Mr. Thornton. It was more than a year since she had seen him; and he had changed in that time. His fine figure and his height gave him a distinguished appearance, with a natural ease of motion; but his face looked older and care-worn. Yet a noble composure sat upon it, indicating an inner dignity and manly strength. He was aware from his first glance that Margaret was there; he had seen her intent look as she listened to Mr. Henry Lennox; and he came up to her with the perfectly regulated manner of an old friend. With his first calm words a vivid colour flashed into her cheeks, which never left them again during the evening. She did not seem to have much to say to him. She disappointed him by the quiet way in which she asked the necessary questions about her old acquaintances in Milton. Others came in, and he fell back to talk to Mr. Lennox. 'You think Miss Hale looking well,' said Mr. Lennox, 'don't you? Milton didn't agree with her, I imagine; for when she first came to London, I had never seen anyone so much changed. Tonight she is looking radiant. But she is much stronger. Last autumn she was fatigued with a walk of a couple of miles. On Friday evening we walked up to Hampstead and back.' 'We!' Who? They two alone? Mr. Colthurst was a very clever man, and a rising member of parliament. He was struck by a remark which Mr. Thornton made at dinner, and enquired of Edith who that gentleman was. To her surprise, she found that Mr. Thornton of Milton was not such an unknown name to him as she had imagined. Her dinner was going off well. Henry was in good humour, and displayed his dry caustic wit admirably. Mr. Thornton and Mr. Colthurst found one or two mutual subjects of interest. Margaret looked beautiful in the pomegranate flowers; and if she spoke little, Edith was not annoyed, for the conversation flowed on smoothly without her. Margaret was watching Mr. Thornton's face. He never looked at her; so she might study him unobserved, and note the changes in him. Only once, at some witty remark of Mr. Lennox's, his face flashed out into the old look of intense enjoyment; the merry brightness returned to his eyes, the lips just parted to suggest the brilliant smile of former days; and for an instant, his glance instinctively sought hers. But when their eyes met, his whole countenance changed; he was grave and anxious once more. He resolutely avoided looking near her again during dinner. When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room, Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton were in close conversation. Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and said in a low voice: 'I really think Edith owes me thanks. You've no idea what an agreeable, sensible fellow this tenant of yours is. He has been the very man to give Colthurst the facts he wanted. I can't conceive how he contrived to mismanage his affairs.' 'With his powers and opportunities you would have succeeded,' said Margaret. He did not quite relish the tone in which she spoke, although the words echoed his own thought. As he was silent, they caught some of the conversation going on between Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton. 'I assure you, I heard it spoken of with great interest as to its result. I heard your name frequently mentioned during my stay in the neighbourhood.' Then they lost some words; and when next they could hear, Mr. Thornton was speaking. 'I have not the elements for popularity. I fall slowly into new projects; and I find it difficult to let myself be known, even by those whom I desire to know. Yet, even with all these drawbacks, I felt that I was on the right path, and that, starting from a kind of friendship with one, I was becoming acquainted with many. The advantages were mutual: we were both unconsciously and consciously teaching each other.' 'You say "were." I trust you are intending to pursue the same course?' 'I must stop Colthurst,' said Henry Lennox, hastily. And by an abrupt question, he turned the current of the conversation, so as not to give Mr. Thornton the mortification of acknowledging his failure. But as soon as the newly-started subject had come to a close, Mr. Thornton resumed the conversation just where it had been interrupted, and gave Mr. Colthurst his reply. 'I have been unsuccessful in business, and have had to give up my position as a master. I am on the look out for a situation in Milton, where I may be employed by someone who will be willing to let me go my own way in such matters as these. I have no rash go-ahead theories. I wish only to have consultation with the hands beyond the mere "cash nexus." But I might as well be attempting to move the earth, to judge by the way some of our manufacturers shake their heads and look grave as soon as I mention the experiments that I should like to try.' 'You call them "experiments"?' said Mr. Colthurst. 'Because I believe them to be such. I am not sure of the consequences that may result from them. But I am sure they ought to be tried. I believe that no mere institutions, however wise, can attach class to class as they should be attached, unless the individuals of the different classes come into actual personal contact. A working man can hardly know how much his employer may have laboured in his study at plans for the benefit of his workpeople. A complete plan emerges like a piece of machinery, and the hands accept without understanding the intense effort required to bring it to perfection. But I would take an idea, which should be worked out through personal discussion; it might not go well at first, but at every hitch interest would be felt by an increasing number of men, and at last its success would be desired by all who had helped to form the plan. We should understand each other better, and I'll venture to say we should like each other more.' 'And you think this may prevent the recurrence of strikes?' 'Not at all. At best, it may render strikes less bitter and venomous than they have hitherto been. A more hopeful man might imagine that closer communication between classes might do away with strikes. But I am not a hopeful man.' Suddenly, as if a new idea had struck him, he crossed over to where Margaret was sitting, and began, without preface, as if he knew she had been listening to all that had passed: 'Miss Hale, I had a round-robin from some of my men - I suspect in Higgins's handwriting - stating their wish to work for me, if ever I was in a position to employ men again on my own behalf. That was good, wasn't it?' 'Yes. I am glad of it,' said Margaret, looking up straight into his face with her speaking eyes, and then dropping them under his eloquent glance. He gazed back at her for a minute, as if he did not know exactly what he was about. Then he sighed; and saying, 'I knew you would like it,' he turned away, and never spoke to her again until he bid her a formal 'good night.' As Mr. Lennox took his departure, Margaret said hesitantly, with a blush that she could not repress, 'Can I speak to you tomorrow? I want your help about - something.' 'Certainly. It will be a pleasure. At eleven? Very well.' Henry Lennox's eye brightened with exultation. How she was learning to depend upon him! It seemed as if any day now might give him the certainty that she would accept him. Without that, he had determined never to offer to her again.

North and South

Chapter 51: MEETING AGAIN

I see my way as birds their trackless way-- I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, I ask not: but unless God sends his hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow, In some time--his good time--I shall arrive; He guides me and the bird. In His good time! BROWNING'S PARACELSUS. So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing with them any of the brightness of hope which usually accompanies the rays of a February sun. Mrs. Thornton had of course entirely ceased to come to the house. Mr. Thornton came occasionally, but his visits were addressed to her father, and were confined to the study. Mr. Hale spoke of him as always the same; indeed, the very rarity of their intercourse seemed to make Mr. Hale set only the higher value on it. And from what Margaret could gather of what Mr. Thornton had said, there was nothing in the cessation of his visits which could arise from any umbrage or vexation. His business affairs had become complicated during the strike, and required closer attention than he had given to them last winter. Nay, Margaret could even discover that he spoke from time to time of her, and always, as far as she could learn, in the same calm friendly way, never avoiding and never seeking any mention of her name. She was not in spirits to raise her father's tone of mind. The dreary peacefulness of the present time had been preceded by so long a period of anxiety and care--even intermixed with storms--that her mind had lost its elasticity. She tried to find herself occupation in teaching the two younger Boucher children, and worked hard at goodness; hard, I say most truly, for her heart seemed dead to the end of all her efforts; and though she made them punctually and painfully, yet she stood as far off as ever from any cheerfulness; her life seemed still bleak and dreary. The only thing she did well, was what she did out of unconscious piety, the silent comforting and consoling of her father. Not a mood of his but what found a ready sympathiser in Margaret; not a wish of his that she did not strive to forecast, and to fulfil. They were quiet wishes to be sure, and hardly named without hesitation and apology. All the more complete and beautiful was her meek spirit of obedience. March brought the news of Frederick's marriage. He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words which proved how far the idioms of his bride's country were infecting him. On the receipt of Henry Lennox's letter, announcing how little hope there was of his ever clearing himself at a court-martial, in the absence of the missing witnesses, Frederick had written to Margaret a pretty vehement letter, containing his renunciation of England as his country; he wished he could unnative himself, and declared that he would not take his pardon if it were offered him, nor live in the country if he had permission to do so. All of which made Margaret cry sorely, so unnatural did it seem to her at the first opening; but on consideration, she saw rather in such expression the poignancy of the disappointment which had thus crushed his hopes; and she felt that there was nothing for it but patience. In the next letter Frederick spoke so joyfully of the future that he had no thought for the past; and Margaret found a use in herself for the patience she had been craving for him. She would have to be patient. But the pretty, timid, girlish letters of Dolores were beginning to have a charm for both Margaret and her father. The young Spaniard was so evidently anxious to make a favourable impression upon her lover's English relations, that her feminine care peeped out at every erasure; and the letters announcing the marriage, were accompanied by a splendid black lace mantilla, chosen by Dolores herself for her unseen sister-in-law, whom Frederick had represented as a paragon of beauty, wisdom and virtue. Frederick's worldly position was raised by this marriage on to as high a level as they could desire. Barbour and Co. was one of the most extensive Spanish houses, and into it he was received as a junior partner. Margaret smiled a little and then sighed as she remembered afresh her old tirades against trade. Here was her preux chevalier of a brother turned merchant, trader! But then she rebelled against herself, and protested silently against the confusion implied between a Spanish merchant and a Milton millowner. Well, trade or no trade, Frederick was very, very happy. Dolores must be charming, and the mantilla was exquisite! And then she returned to the present life. Her father had occasionally experienced a difficulty in breathing this spring, which had for the time distressed him exceedingly. Margaret was less alarmed, as this difficulty went off completely in the intervals; but she still was so desirous of his shaking off the liability altogether, as to make her very urgent that he should accept Mr. Bell's invitation to visit him at Oxford this April. Mr. Bell's invitation included Margaret. Nay more, he wrote a special letter commanding her to come; but she felt as if it would be a greater relief to her to remain quietly at home, entirely free from any responsibility whatever, and so to rest her mind and heart in a manner which she had not been able to do for more than two years past. When her father had driven off on his way to the railroad, Margaret felt how great and long had been the pressure on her time and her spirits. It was astonishing, almost stunning, to feel herself so much at liberty; no one depending on her for cheering care, if not for positive happiness; no invalid to plan and think for; she might be idle, and silent and forgetful,--and what seemed worth more than all the other privileges--she might be unhappy if she liked. For months past, all her own personal cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn over them, and study their nature, and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace. All these weeks she had been conscious of their existence in a dull kind of way, though they were hidden out of sight. Now, once for all she would consider them and appoint to each of them its right work in her life. So she sat almost motionless for hours in the drawing-room, going over the bitterness of every remembrance with an unwincing resolution. Only once she cried aloud, at the stinging thought of the faithlessness which gave birth to that abasing falsehood. She now would not even acknowledge the force of the temptation; her plans for Frederick had all failed, and the temptation lay there a dead mockery,--a mockery which had never had life in it; the lie had been so despicably foolish, seen by the light of the ensuing events, and faith in the power of truth so infinitely the greater wisdom! In her nervous agitation, she unconsciously opened a book of her father's that lay upon the table,--the words that caught her eye in it, seemed almost made for her present state of acute self-abasement:-- "Je ne voudrois pas reprendre mon cur en ceste sorte: meurs de honte, aveugle, impudent, traistre et desloyal ton Dieu, et sembables choses; mais je voudrois le corriger par voye de compassion. Or sus, mon pauvre cur, nous voil tombe dans la fosse, laquelle nous avions tant resolu d'eschapper. Ah! revelons-nous, et quittons-la pour jamais, reclamons la misericorde de Dieu, et esperons en elle qu'elle nous assistera pour desormais estra plus fermes; et remettons-nous au chemin de l'humilit. Courage, soyons meshuy sur nos gardes, Dieu nous aydera." "The way of humility. Ah," thought Margaret, "that is what I have missed! But courage, little heart. We will turn back, and by God's help we may find the lost path." So she rose up, and determined at once to set to on some work which should take her out of herself. To begin with, she called in Martha, as she passed the drawing-room door in going up-stairs, and tried to find out what was below the grave, respectful, servant-like manner, which crusted over her individual character with an obedience which was almost mechanical. She found it difficult to induce Martha to speak of any of her personal interests; but at last she touched the right chord, in naming Mrs. Thornton. Martha's whole face brightened, and, on a little encouragement, out came a long story, of how her father had been in early life connected with Mrs. Thornton's husband--nay, had even been in a position to show him some kindness; what, Martha hardly knew, for it had happened when she was quite a little child; and circumstances had intervened to separate the two families until Martha was nearly grown up, when, her father having sunk lower and lower from his original occupation as clerk in a warehouse, and her mother being dead, she and her sister, to use Martha's own expression, would have been "lost" but for Mrs. Thornton; who sought them out, and thought for them, and cared for them. "I had had the fever, and was but delicate; and Mrs. Thornton and Mr. Thornton too, they never rested till they had nursed me up in their own house, and sent me to the sea and all. The doctor said the fever was catching, but they cared none for that--only Miss Fanny, and she went a-visiting these folk that she is going to marry into. So though she was afraid at the time, it has all ended well." "Miss Fanny going to be married!" exclaimed Margaret. "Yes; and to a rich gentleman, too, only he's a deal older than she is. His name is Watson; and his mills are somewhere out beyond Hayleigh; it's a very good marriage, for all he's got such gray hair." At this piece of information, Margaret was silent long enough for Martha to recover her propriety, and, with it, her habitual shortness of answer. She swept up the hearth, asked at what time she should prepare tea, and quitted the room with the same wooden face with which she had entered it. Margaret had to pull herself up from indulging a bad trick, which she had lately fallen into, of trying to imagine how every event that she heard of in relation to Mr. Thornton would affect him: whether he would like it or dislike it. The next day she had the little Boucher children for their lessons, and took a long walk, and ended by a visit to Mary Higgins. Somewhat to Margaret's surprise, she found Nicholas already come home from his work; the lengthening light had deceived her as to the lateness of the evening. He too seemed, by his manners, to have entered a little more on the way of humility; he was quieter, and less self-asserting. "So th' oud gentleman's away on his travels, is he?" said he. "Little 'uns telled me so. Eh! but the're sharp 'uns they are; I a'most think they beat my own wenches for sharpness, though mappen it's wrong to say so, and one on 'em in her grave. There's summut in th' weather, I reckon, as sets folk a-wandering. My measter, him at th' shop yonder, is spinning about th' world somewhere." "Is that the reason you're so soon at home to-night?" asked Margaret innocently. "Thou know'st nought about it, that's all," said he, contemptuously. "I'm not one wi' two faces--one for my measter, and t'other for his back. I counted a' th' clocks in the town striking afore I'd leave my work. No! yon Thornton's good enough for to fight wi', but too good for to be cheated. It were you as getten me the place, and I thank yo' for it. Thornton's is not a bad mill, as times go. Stand down, lad, and say yo'r pretty hymn to Miss Marget. That's right; steady on thy legs, and right arm out as straight as a skewer. One to stop, two to stay, three mak' ready, and four away!" The little fellow repeated a Methodist hymn, far above his comprehension in point of language, but of which the swinging rhythm had caught his ear, and which he repeated with all the developed cadence of a member of parliament. When Margaret had duly applauded, Nicholas called for another, and yet another, much to her surprise, as she found him thus oddly and unconsciously led to take an interest in the sacred things which he had formerly scouted. It was past the usual tea-time when she reached home; but she had the comfort of feeling that no one had been kept waiting for her; and of thinking her own thoughts while she rested, instead of anxiously watching another person to learn whether to be grave or gay. After tea she resolved to examine a large packet of letters, and pick out those that were to be destroyed. Among them she came to four or five of Mr. Henry Lennox's, relating to Frederick's affairs; and she carefully read them over again, with the sole intention, when she began, to ascertain exactly on how fine a chance the justification of her brother hung. But when she had finished the last, and weighed the pros and cons, the little personal revelation of character contained in them forced itself on her notice. It was evident enough, from the stiffness of the wording, that Mr. Lennox had never forgotten his relation to her in any interest he might feel in the subject of the correspondence. They were clever letters; Margaret saw that in a twinkling; but she missed out of them all hearty and genial atmosphere. They were to be preserved, however, as valuable; so she laid them carefully on one side. When this little piece of business was ended, she fell into a reverie; and the thought of her absent father ran strangely in Margaret's head that night. She almost blamed herself for having felt her solitude (and consequently his absence) as a relief; but these two days had set her up afresh, with new strength and brighter hope. Plans which had lately appeared to her in the guise of tasks, now appeared like pleasures. The morbid scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw her position and her work more truly. If only Mr. Thornton would restore her the lost friendship,--nay, if he would only come from time to time to cheer her father as in former days,--though she should never see him, she felt as if the course of her future life, though not brilliant in prospect, might lie clear and even before her. She sighed as she rose up to go to bed. In spite of the "One step's enough for me,"--in spite of the one plain duty of devotion to her father,--there lay at her heart an anxiety and a pang of sorrow. And Mr. Hale thought of Margaret, that April evening, just as strangely and as persistently as she was thinking of him. He had been fatigued by going about among his old friends and old familiar places. He had had exaggerated ideas of the change which his altered opinions might make in his friends' reception of him; but although some of them might have felt shocked or grieved, or indignant at his falling off in the abstract, as soon as they saw the face of the man whom they had once loved, they forgot his opinions in himself; or only remembered them enough to give an additional tender gravity to their manner. For Mr. Hale had not been known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal of this kindliness, after the lapse of years, and an interval of so much change, overpowered him more than any roughness or expression of disapproval could have done. "I'm afraid we've done too much," said Mr. Bell. "You're suffering now from having lived so long in that Milton air." "I am tired," said Mr. Hale. "But it is not Milton air. I'm fifty-five years of age, and that little fact of itself accounts for any loss of strength." "Nonsense! I'm upwards of sixty, and feel no loss of strength, either bodily or mental. Don't let me hear you talking so. Fifty-five! why, you're quite a young man." Mr. Hale shook his head. "These last few years!" said he. But after a minute's pause, he raised himself from his half recumbent position, in one of Mr. Bell's luxurious easy-chairs, and said with a kind of trembling earnestness: "Bell! you're not to think, that if I could have foreseen all that would come of my change of opinion, and my resignation of my living--no! not even if I could have known how _she_ would have suffered,--that I would undo it--the act of open acknowledgment that I no longer held the same faith as the church in which I was a priest. As I think now, even if I could have foreseen that cruellest martyrdom of suffering, through the sufferings of one whom I loved, I would have done just the same as far as that step of openly leaving the church went. I might have done differently, and acted more wisely, in all that I subsequently did for my family. But I don't think God endued me with over-much wisdom or strength," he added, falling back into his old position. Mr. Bell blew his nose ostentatiously before answering. Then he said: "He gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right; and I don't see that we need any higher or holier strength than that; or wisdom either. I know I have not that much; and yet men set me down in their fool's books as a wise man; an independent character; strong-minded, and all that cant. The veriest idiot who obeys his own simple law of right, if it be but in wiping his shoes on a door-mat, is wiser and stronger than I. But what gulls men are!" There was a pause. Mr. Hale spoke first, in continuation of his thought: "About Margaret." "Well! about Margaret. What then?" "If I die----" "Nonsense!" "What will become of her--I often think? I suppose the Lennoxes will ask her to live with them. I try to think they will. Her Aunt Shaw loved her very well in her own quiet way; but she forgets to love the absent." "A very common fault. What sort of people are the Lennoxes?" "He, handsome, fluent, and agreeable. Edith, a sweet spoiled beauty. Margaret loves her with all her heart, and Edith with as much of her heart as she can spare." "Now, Hale; you know that girl of yours has got pretty nearly all my heart. I told you that before. Of course, as your daughter, as my god-daughter, I took great interest in her before I saw her the last time. But this visit that I paid to you at Milton made me her slave. I went, a willing old victim, following the car of the conqueror. For, indeed, she looks as grand and serene as one who has struggled, and may be struggling, and yet has the victory secure in sight. Yes, in spite of all her present anxieties, that was the look on her face. And so, all I have is at her service, if she needs it; and will be hers, whether she will or no, when I die. Moreover, I myself, will be her preux chevalier, sixty and gouty though I be. Seriously, old friend, your daughter shall be my principal charge in life, and all the help that either my wit or my wisdom or my willing heart can give, shall be hers. I don't choose her out as a subject for fretting. Something, I know of old, you must have to worry yourself about, or you wouldn't be happy. But you're going to outlive me by many a long year. You, spare, thin men are always tempting and always cheating Death! It's the stout, florid fellows like me, that always go off first." If Mr. Bell had had a prophetic eye he might have seen the torch all but inverted, and the angel with the grave and composed face standing very nigh, beckoning to his friend. That night Mr. Hale laid his head down upon the pillow on which it never more should stir with life. The servant who entered his room in the morning, received no answer to his speech; drew near the bed, and saw the calm, beautiful face lying white and cold under the ineffaceable seal of death. The attitude was exquisitely easy; there had been no pain--no struggle. The action of the heart must have ceased as he lay down. Mr. Bell was stunned by the shock; and only recovered when the time came for being angry at every suggestion of his man's. "A coroner's inquest? Pooh. You don't think I poisoned him! Dr. Forbes says it is just the natural end of a heart complaint. Poor old Hale! You wore out that tender heart of yours before its time. Poor old friend! how he talked of his---- Wallis, pack up a carpet-bag for me in five minutes. Here have I been talking. Pack it up, I say. I must go to Milton by the next train." The bag was packed, the cab ordered, the railway reached, in twenty minutes from the time of this decision. The London train whizzed by, drew back some yards, and in Mr. Bell was hurried by the impatient guard. He threw himself back in his seat, to try, with closed eyes, to understand how one in life yesterday could be dead to-day; and shortly tears stole out between his grizzled eye-lashes, at the feeling of which he opened his keen eyes, and looked as severely cheerful as his set determination could make him. He was not going to blubber before a set of strangers. Not he! There was no set of strangers, only one sitting far from him on the same side. By-and-by Mr. Bell peered at him, to discover what manner of man it was that might have been observing his emotion; and behind the great sheet of the outspread "Times," he recognized Mr. Thornton. "Why, Thornton! is that you?" said he, removing hastily to a closer proximity. He shook Mr. Thornton vehemently by the hand, until the gripe ended in a sudden relaxation, for the hand was wanted to wipe away tears. He had last seen Mr. Thornton in his friend Hale's company. "I'm going to Milton, bound on a melancholy errand. Going to break to Hale's daughter the news of his sudden death!" "Death! Mr. Hale dead!" "Ay; I keep saying it to myself, 'Hale is dead!' but it doesn't make it any the more real. Hale is dead for all that. He went to bed well, to all appearance, last night, and was quite cold this morning when my servant went to call him." "Where? I don't understand!" "At Oxford. He came to stay with me: hadn't been in Oxford this seventeen years--and this is the end of it." Not one word was spoken for above a quarter of an hour. Then Mr. Thornton said: "And she!" and stopped full short. "Margaret you mean. Yes! I am going to tell her. Poor fellow! how full his thoughts were of her all last night! Good God! Last night only. And how immeasurably distant he is now! But I take Margaret as my child for his sake. I said last night I would take her for her own sake. Well, I take her for both." Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before he could get out the words: "What will become of her?" "I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself for one. I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if by hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a daughter. But there are those Lennoxes!" "Who are they?" asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest. "Oh, smart London people, who very likely will think that they've the best right to her. Captain Lennox married her cousin--the girl she was brought up with. Good enough people, I dare say. And there's her Aunt, Mrs. Shaw. There might be a way open, perhaps, by my offering to marry that worthy lady! but that would be quite a pis aller. And then there's that brother!" "What brother? A brother of her aunt's?" "No, no; a clever Lennox (the captain's a fool, you must understand); a young barrister, who will be setting his cap at Margaret. I know he has had her in his mind these five years or more; one of his chums told me as much; and he was only kept back by want of fortune. Now that will be done away with." "How?" asked Mr. Thornton, too earnestly curious to be aware of the impertinence of his question. "Why, she'll have my money at my death. And if this Henry Lennox is half good enough for her, and she likes him--well! I might find another way of getting a home through a marriage. I'm dreadfully afraid of being tempted, at an unguarded moment, by her aunt." Neither Mr. Bell nor Mr. Thornton was in a laughing humour; so the oddity of any of the speeches which the former made was unnoticed by them. Mr. Bell whistled, without emitting any sound beyond a long hissing breath; changed his seat, without finding comfort or rest; while Mr. Thornton sat immovably still, his eyes fixed on one spot in the newspaper, which he had taken up in order to give himself leisure to think. "Where have you been?" asked Mr. Bell, at length. "To Havre. Trying to detect the secret of the great rise in the price of cotton." "Ugh! Cotton, and speculations, and smoke, well-cleansed and well-cared-for machinery, and unwashed and neglected hands. Poor old Hale! Poor old Hale! If you could have known the change which it was to him from Helstone. Do you know the New Forest at all?" "Yes." (Very shortly.) "Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton. What part were you in? Were you ever at Helstone? a little picturesque village, like some in the Odenwald? You know Helstone?" "I have seen it. It was a great change to leave it and come to Milton." He took up his newspaper with a determined air, as if resolved to avoid further conversation; and Mr. Bell was fain to resort to his former occupation of trying to find out how he could best break the news to Margaret. She was at an upstairs window; she saw him alight; she guessed the truth with an instinctive flash. She stood in the middle of the drawing-room, as if arrested in her first impulse to rush downstairs, and as if by the same restraining thought she had been turned to stone; so white and immovable was she. "Oh! don't tell me! I know it from your face! You would have sent--you would not have left him--if he were alive! Oh, papa, papa!"

So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing any brightness of hope. Mrs. Thornton had entirely ceased to come to the house. Mr. Thornton came occasionally, but only to visit her father in his study. Mr. Hale spoke of him always with the same high regard. And from what Margaret could gather, he had ceased to visit not from any umbrage, but because his business affairs had required close attention since the strike. Nay, Margaret discovered that he even spoke from time to time of her, always in the same calm, friendly way. The dreary peacefulness of this time had been preceded by so long a period of anxiety and care that her mind had lost its elasticity. She occupied herself in teaching the two younger Boucher children, and worked hard at goodness; worked hard, I say truly, for despite her efforts, her heart seemed dead; her life seemed bleak and dreary. The only thing she did well was the silent comforting of her father. There was not a wish of his that she did not strive to foresee, and to fulfil. They were quiet wishes to be sure, and hardly named without apology. All the more beautiful was her meek spirit of obedience. March brought the news of Frederick's marriage. He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was only natural, and he with little Spanish turns of phrase. Frederick had received a letter from Henry Lennox, announcing how little hope there was of his ever clearing himself at a court-martial, in the absence of the missing witnesses. At this, Frederick wrote Margaret a pretty vehement letter, renouncing England as his country; he declared that he would not take a pardon if it were offered him, nor live in England if he had permission to do so. All of which made Margaret cry sorely at first; but on consideration, she saw in such expression his sharp disappointment; and she felt that there was nothing for it but patience. In the next letter, Frederick spoke so joyfully of the future that he had no thought for the past; and Margaret needed patience herself. But the pretty, timid, girlish letters of Dolores were beginning to have a charm for both Margaret and her father. She was so evidently anxious to make a favourable impression upon her lover's English relations, that her care peeped out at every erasure; and the letters announcing the marriage were accompanied by a splendid black lace mantilla, chosen by Dolores herself for her unseen sister-in-law. Frederick's position was raised by this marriage to as high a level as they could desire. Barbour and Co. was one of the most extensive Spanish houses, and into it he was received as a junior partner. Margaret smiled a little, and then sighed as she remembered her old tirades against trade. Here was her chevalier of a brother turned merchant, trader! But then she rebelled against herself. Trade or no trade, Frederick was very, very happy. Dolores must be charming, and the mantilla was exquisite! And then she returned to the present life. Her father had occasionally experienced a distressing difficulty in breathing. This made Margaret urge him to accept Mr. Bell's invitation to visit him at Oxford in April. The invitation included Margaret; but she felt that it would be a greater relief to her to remain quietly at home, entirely free from any responsibility, and so rest her mind and heart in a manner which she had not been able to do for more than two years. When her father had gone, Margaret felt how great had been the pressure on her time and spirits. It was almost stunning to feel herself so much at liberty; no one depending on her for cheering care; no invalid to plan for; she might be idle, and silent - and she might be unhappy if she liked. For months, all her own personal troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn over them, and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace. So she sat almost motionless for hours in the drawing-room, going over the bitterness of every remembrance with an unwincing resolution. Only once she cried aloud, at the stinging thought of the faithlessness which led to that falsehood. Her plans for Frederick had all failed, and the temptation to lie seemed now a dead mockery. The lie had been so despicably foolish, and faith in the power of truth would have been so infinitely wiser! In her nervous agitation, she unconsciously opened a book of her father's that lay upon the table. The words that caught her eye seemed made for her state: '"Now, my poor heart, we are falling into the pit, which we had resolved to escape. Ah! Let us rise again, and leave it for ever. Let us claim the mercy of God, and hope that it will help us to be firmer henceforth; let us return to the way of humility. Courage! Let us be on our guard, and God will help us."' 'The way of humility,' thought Margaret. 'That is what I have missed! But courage, little heart. By God's help we may find the lost path.' So she rose up, and determined at once to set to on some work which should take her out of herself. To begin with, she called in Martha, and tried to find out what was below her grave, respectful, servant-like manner. She found it difficult to induce Martha to speak of any of her personal interests; but at last she touched the right chord, in naming Mrs. Thornton. Martha's whole face brightened, and, on a little encouragement, out came a long story. Her father had been connected with Mrs. Thornton's husband, but circumstances had separated the two families until Martha was nearly grown up. Then, her father having sunk lower and lower from his original occupation as a clerk, and her mother being dead, she and her sister, to use Martha's own expression, would have been 'lost' but for Mrs. Thornton; who sought them out and cared for them. 'I had the fever, and was delicate; and Mrs. Thornton, and Mr. Thornton too, had me nursed in their own house, and sent me to the sea and all. The doctors said the fever was catching, but they cared none for that - only Miss Fanny, and she went a-visiting these folk that she is going to marry into.' 'Miss Fanny is going to be married!' exclaimed Margaret. 'Yes; and to a rich gentleman, only he's a deal older than she is. His name is Watson; and his mills are somewhere out beyond Hayleigh; it's a very good marriage.' At this piece of information, Margaret was silent long enough for Martha to recover her propriety. She swept up the hearth and quitted the room with the same wooden face with which she had entered it. Margaret had to pull herself up from indulging a bad trick, which she had lately fallen into - of trying to imagine how every event would affect Mr. Thornton: whether he would like it or dislike it. The next day she had the little Boucher children for their lessons, and took a long walk, and ended by a visit to Mary Higgins. She found Nicholas already come home from his work. He too seemed to have entered a little more on the way of humility; he was quieter, and less self-asserting. 'So th' oud gentleman's away on his travels, is he?' said he. 'Little 'uns telled me so. Eh! but they're sharp 'uns, they are. My measter is spinning about th' world somewhere.' 'Is that the reason you're so early home tonight?' asked Margaret innocently. 'Thou know'st nought about it,' said he contemptuously. 'I'm not one wi' two faces - one for my measter, and t'other for his back. No! yon Thornton's good enough to fight wi', but too good to be cheated. It were you as getten me the place, and I thank yo' for it. Thornton's is not a bad mill. Stand down, lad, and say your pretty hymn to Miss Margaret. Steady on thy legs, and right arm out. One to stop, two to stay, three mak' ready, and four away!' The little fellow repeated a Methodist hymn, whose swinging rhythm had caught his ear. When Margaret had duly applauded, Nicholas called for another, to her surprise, as she found him taking an interest in the sacred things which he had formerly scorned. It was past the usual tea-time when she reached home; but she had the comfort of feeling that no one had been kept waiting for her. After tea she resolved to examine a large packet of letters, and pick out those that were to be destroyed. Among them were four or five of Mr. Henry Lennox's, relating to Frederick's affairs; and she carefully read them over again, in order to judge exactly her brother's chances. But the little personal revelation of character contained in them forced itself on her notice. It was evident, from the stiff wording, that Mr. Lennox had never forgotten his proposal to her. They were clever letters; but they contained nothing hearty or genial. They were to be kept, however; so she laid them carefully on one side. Then she fell into a reverie; and the thought of her father ran strangely in her head that night. She almost blamed herself for having felt his absence as a relief; but these two days had set her up afresh, with new strength and brighter hope. The morbid scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw her position and her work more truly. If only Mr. Thornton would restore her the lost friendship - or only come from time to time to cheer her father - though she should never see him, she felt as if the course of her future life, though not brilliant in prospect, might lie clear and even before her. She sighed as she rose up to go to bed. In spite of the plain duty of devotion to her father, there lay at her heart a pang of sorrow. And Mr. Hale thought of Margaret, that April evening, just as strangely and as persistently as she was thinking of him. He had been fatigued by going about among his old friends and familiar places. He had worried about his friends' reception of his altered opinions; but as soon as they saw the face of the man whom they had once loved, they forgot his views; or only remembered them enough to give an additional tender gravity to their manner. Mr. Hale had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to his delicacy of thought and feeling took him to their hearts. And the renewal of this kindliness, after so much time and change, overpowered him more than any disapproval could have done. 'I'm afraid we've done too much,' said Mr. Bell. 'You're suffering now from having lived so long in that Milton air.' 'I am tired,' said Mr. Hale. 'But it is not Milton air. I'm fifty-five.' 'Nonsense! I'm upwards of sixty, and feel no loss of strength. Fifty-five! why, you're quite a young man.' Mr. Hale shook his head. 'These last few years!' said he. But after a pause, he said with trembling earnestness: 'Bell! if I could have foreseen all that would come of my change of opinion - even if I could have known how she would have suffered - I would not undo my acknowledgment that I no longer held the same faith as my church. I would have done just the same as far as leaving the church goes. I might have acted more wisely, in all that I subsequently did for my family. But I don't think God endued me with over-much wisdom or strength,' he added, falling back into his chair. 'He gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right,' said Mr. Bell; 'and I don't see that we need any higher or holier strength than that; or wisdom either.' There was a pause. Mr. Hale spoke first: 'About Margaret. If I die-' 'Nonsense!' 'What will become of her - I often think? I suppose the Lennoxes will ask her to live with them. Her aunt Shaw loved her well in her own quiet way; but she forgets to love the absent.' 'A very common fault. What sort of people are the Lennoxes?' 'He, handsome, fluent, and agreeable. Edith, a sweet little spoiled beauty. Margaret loves her with all her heart.' 'Now, Hale; you know that girl of yours has got pretty nearly all my heart. That visit that I paid to you at Milton made me her slave. I went, a willing old victim, following the car of the conqueror. For, indeed, she looks as grand and serene as one who has struggled, and yet has the victory secure in sight. All I have is at her service, if she needs it; and will be hers when I die. Moreover, I myself will be her chevalier, sixty and gouty though I be. Seriously, old friend, your daughter shall be my principal charge in life, and all the help that I can give shall be hers. But you're going to outlive me by many a long year. You spare, thin men are always cheating Death! It's the stout, florid fellows like me that go off first.' If Mr. Bell had had a prophetic eye he might have seen the angel with the grave and composed face standing very nigh, beckoning to his friend. That night Mr. Hale laid his head down on the pillow on which it never more should stir with life. The servant who entered his room in the morning received no answer to his speech; drew near the bed, and saw the calm, beautiful face lying white and cold. There had been no pain - no struggle. His heart must have stopped as he lay down. Mr. Bell was stunned by the shock. 'Poor old Hale! Dr. Forbes says it is the natural end of a heart complaint. You wore out that tender heart of yours before its time. Poor old friend! Wallis, pack up a carpet-bag for me. Pack it up, I say. I must go to Milton by the next train.' The bag was packed, the cab ordered, the railway reached in twenty minutes. The London train arrived, and Mr. Bell was hurried in by the impatient guard. He threw himself back in his seat, trying, with closed eyes, to understand how one alive yesterday could be dead today; and shortly tears stole out between his grizzled eye-lashes. On feeling them he opened his keen eyes, and looked as severely cheerful as he could. He was not going to blubber before a set of strangers. Not he! There was no set of strangers, only one sitting far from him on the same side. Mr. Bell peered at him; and behind the great sheet of the outspread Times, he recognised Mr. Thornton. 'Why, Thornton! is that you?' said he, moving to a closer seat. He shook Mr. Thornton vehemently by the hand, until his own hand was needed to wipe away tears. He had last seen Mr. Thornton in his friend's company. 'I'm going to Milton on a melancholy errand. Going to break to Hale's daughter the news of his sudden death!' 'Death! Mr. Hale dead!' 'Ay; I keep saying it to myself, "Hale is dead!" but it doesn't make it any more real. He went to bed well, to all appearance, last night, and was quite cold this morning when my servant went to call him.' 'Where? I don't understand!' 'At Oxford. He came to stay with me.' 'And she!' Mr. Thornton stopped short. 'Margaret, you mean. Yes! I am going to tell her. Poor fellow! how full his thoughts were of her all last night! But I take Margaret as my child for his sake.' Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before he could get out the words: 'What will become of her!' 'I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself for one. I would take a live dragon into my house, if, by hiring such a chaperone, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a daughter. But there are those Lennoxes!' 'Who are they?' asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest. 'Oh, smart London people, who very likely will think they've the best right to her. Captain Lennox married her cousin - the girl she was brought up with. Good enough people, I dare say. There's her aunt, Mrs. Shaw. And then there's that brother!' 'What brother?' 'A clever Lennox, a young barrister, who will be setting his cap at Margaret. I know he has had her in his mind this five years or more: one of his chums told me as much; and he was only kept back by her want of fortune. Now that will be done away with.' 'How?' asked Mr. Thornton, earnestly curious. 'Why, she'll have my money at my death. And if this Henry Lennox is half good enough for her, and she likes him - well!' Mr. Bell whistled, and changed his seat, without finding comfort or rest. Mr. Thornton sat immoveable, his eyes fixed on one spot in the newspaper. 'Where have you been?' asked Mr. Bell, at length. 'To Havre. Trying to detect the secret of the great rise in the price of cotton.' 'Ugh! Cotton, and speculations, and smoke. Poor old Hale! If you could have known the change which it was to him from Helstone. Do you know the New Forest at all?' 'Yes.' (Very shortly). 'Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton. Were you ever at Helstone? - a little picturesque village?' 'I have seen it. It was a great change for them to leave it and come to Milton.' He took up his newspaper with a determined air, as if to avoid further conversation; and Mr. Bell went back to wondering how to break the news to Margaret. She was at an upstairs window; she saw him arrive, and guessed the truth with an instinctive flash. She stood in the middle of the drawing-room as if turned to stone, so white and still was she. 'Oh! don't tell me! I know it from your face! You would not have left him - if he were alive! Oh papa, papa!'

North and South

Chapter 41: THE JOURNEY'S END

"Thought fights with thought; out springs a spark of truth From the collision of the sword and shield." W. S. LANDOR. "Margaret," said her father, the next day, "we must return Mrs. Thornton's call. Your mother is not very well, and thinks she cannot walk so far; but you and I will go this afternoon." As they went, Mr. Hale began about his wife's health, with a kind of veiled anxiety, which Margaret was glad to see awakened at last. "Did you consult the doctor, Margaret? Did you send for him?" "No, papa, you spoke of his coming to see me. Now I was well. But if I only knew of some good doctor, I would go this afternoon, and ask him to come, for I am sure mamma is seriously indisposed." She put the truth thus plainly and strongly because her father had so completely shut his mind against the idea, when she had last named her fears. But now the case was changed. He answered in a despondent tone: "Do you think she has any hidden complaint? Do you think she is really very ill? Has Dixon said anything? Oh, Margaret! I am haunted by the fear that our coming to Milton has killed her. My poor Maria!" "Oh, papa! don't imagine such things," said Margaret, shocked. "She is not well, that is all. Many a one is not well for a time; and with good advice gets better and stronger than ever." "But has Dixon said anything about her?" "No! You know Dixon enjoys making a mystery out of trifles; and she has been a little mysterious about mamma's health, which has alarmed me rather, that is all. Without any reason I dare say. You know, papa, you said the other day I was getting fanciful." "I hope and trust you are. But don't think of what I said then. I like you to be fanciful about your mother's health! Don't be afraid of telling me your fancies. I like to hear them, though I dare say, I spoke as if I was annoyed. But we will ask Mrs. Thornton if she can tell us of a good doctor. We won't throw away our money on any but some one first-rate. Stay, we turn up this street." The street did not look as if it could contain any house large enough for Mrs. Thornton's habitation. Her son's presence never gave any impression as to the kind of house he lived in; but, unconsciously, Margaret had imagined that tall, massive, handsomely dressed Mrs. Thornton must live in a house of the same character as herself. Now Marlborough Street consisted of long rows of small houses, with a blank wall here and there; at least that was all they could see from the point at which they entered it. "He told me he lived in Marlborough Street, I'm sure," said Mr. Hale, with a much perplexed air. "Perhaps it is one of the economies he still practises, to live in a very small house. But here are plenty of people about; let me ask." She accordingly inquired of a passer-by, and was informed that Mr. Thornton lived close to the mill, and had the factory lodge-door pointed out to her, at the end of the long dead wall they had noticed. The lodge-door was like a common garden-door; on one side of it were great closed gates for the ingress and egress of lorries and wagons. The lodge-keeper admitted them into a great oblong yard, on one side of which were offices for the transaction of business; on the opposite, an immense many-windowed mill, whence proceeded the continual clank of machinery and the long groaning roar of the steam-engine, enough to deafen those who lived within the enclosure. Opposite to the wall, along which the street ran, on one of the narrow sides of the oblong, was a handsome stone-coped house,--blackened, to be sure, by the smoke, but with paint, windows, and steps kept scrupulously clean. It was evidently a house which had been built some fifty or sixty years. The stone facings--the long, narrow windows, and the number of them--the flights of steps up to the front door, ascending from either side, and guarded by railing--all witnessed to its age. Margaret only wondered why people who could afford to live in so good a house, and keep it in such perfect order, did not prefer a much smaller dwelling in the country, or even some suburb; not in the continual whirl and din of the factory. Her unaccustomed ears could hardly catch her father's voice, as they stood on the steps awaiting the opening of the door. The yard, too, with the great doors in the dead wall as a boundary, was but a dismal look-out for the sitting-rooms of the house--as Margaret found when they had mounted the old-fashioned stairs, and been ushered into the drawing-room, the three windows of which went over the front door and the room on the right-hand side of the entrance. There was no one in the drawing-room. It seemed as though no one had been in it since the day when the furniture was bagged up with as much care as if the house was to be overwhelmed with lava, and discovered a thousand years hence. The walls were pink and gold; the pattern on the carpet represented bunches of flowers on a light ground, but it was carefully covered up in the centre by a linen drugget, glazed and colourless. The window-curtains were lace; each chair and sofa had its own particular veil of netting or knitting. Great alabaster groups occupied every flat surface, safe from dust under their glass shades. In the middle of the room, right under the bagged-up chandelier, was a large circular table, with smartly-bound books arranged at regular intervals round the circumference of its polished surface, like gaily coloured spokes of a wheel. Everything reflected light, nothing absorbed it. The whole room had a painfully spotted, spangled, speckled look about it, which impressed Margaret so unpleasantly that she was hardly conscious of the peculiar cleanliness required to keep everything so white and pure in such an atmosphere, or of the trouble that must be willingly expended to secure that effect of icy, snowy discomfort. Wherever she looked there was evidence of care and labour, but not care and labour to procure ease, to help on habits of tranquil home employment; solely to ornament and then to preserve ornament from dirt or destruction. They had leisure to observe, and to speak to each other in low voices, before Mrs. Thornton appeared. They were talking of what all the world might hear; but it is a common effect of such a room as this to make people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken the unused echoes. At last Mrs. Thornton came in, rustling in handsome black silk, as was her wont; her muslins and laces rivalling, not excelling, the pure whiteness of the muslins and netting of the room. Margaret explained how it was that her mother could not accompany them to return Mrs. Thornton's call; but in her anxiety not to bring back her father's fears too vividly, she gave but a bungling account, and left the impression on Mrs. Thornton's mind that Mrs. Hale's was some temporary or fanciful fine-ladyish indisposition, which might have been put aside had there been a strong enough motive; or that if it was too severe to allow her to come out that day, the call might have been deferred. Remembering, too, the horses to her carriage, hired for her own visit to the Hales, and how Fanny had been ordered to go by Mr. Thornton, in order to pay every respect to them, Mrs. Thornton drew up slightly offended, and gave Margaret no sympathy--indeed, hardly any credit for the statement of her mother's indisposition. "How is Mr. Thornton?" asked Mr. Hale. "I was afraid he was not well, from his hurried note yesterday." "My son is rarely ill; and when he is, he never speaks about it, or makes it an excuse for not doing anything. He told me he could not get leisure to read with you last night, sir. He regretted it, I am sure; he values the hours spent with you." "I am sure they are equally agreeable to me," said Mr. Hale. "It makes me feel young again to see his enjoyment and appreciation of all that is fine in classical literature." "I have no doubt that classics are very desirable for people who have leisure. But I confess, it was against my judgment that my son renewed his study of them. The time and place in which he lives, seem to me to require all his energy and attention. Classics may do very well for men who loiter away their lives in the country or in colleges; but Milton men ought to have their thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of to-day. At least, that is my opinion." This last clause she gave out with "the pride that apes humility." "But, surely, if the mind is too long directed to one object only, it will get stiff and rigid, and unable to take in many interests," said Margaret. "I do not quite understand what you mean by a mind getting stiff and rigid. Nor do I admire those whirligig characters that are full of this thing to-day, to be utterly forgetful of it in their new interest to-morrow. Having many interests does not suit the life of a Milton manufacturer. It is or ought to be enough for him to have one great desire, and to bring all the purposes of his life to bear on the fulfilment of that." "And that is--?" asked Mr. Hale. Her sallow cheek flushed, and her eye lightened, as she answered: "To hold and maintain a high, honourable place among the merchants of his country--the men of his town. Such a place my son has earned for himself. Go where you will--I don't say in England only, but in Europe--the name of John Thornton of Milton is known and respected amongst all men of business. Of course, it is unknown in the fashionable circles," she continued scornfully. "Idle gentlemen and ladies are not likely to know much of a Milton manufacturer, unless he gets into parliament, or marries a lord's daughter." Both Mr. Hale and Margaret had an uneasy, ludicrous consciousness that they had never heard of this great name, until Mr. Bell had written them word that Mr. Thornton would be a good friend to have in Milton. The proud mother's world was not their world of Harley street gentilities on the one hand, or country clergymen and Hampshire squires on the other. Margaret's face, in spite of all her endeavours to keep it simply listening in its expression, told the sensitive Mrs. Thornton this feeling of hers. "You think you never heard of this wonderful son of mine, Miss Hale. You think I'm an old woman whose ideas are hounded by Milton, and whose own crow is the whitest ever seen." "No," said Margaret, with some spirit. "It may be true that I was thinking I had hardly heard Mr. Thornton's name before I came to Milton. But since I have come here, I have heard enough to make me respect and admire him, and to feel how much justice and truth there is in what you have said of him." "Who spoke to you of him?" asked Mrs. Thornton, a little mollified, yet jealous lest any one else's words should not have done him full justice. Margaret hesitated before she replied. She did not like this authoritative questioning. Mr. Hale came in, as he thought, to the rescue. "It was what Mr. Thornton said himself, that made us know the kind of man he was. Was it not, Margaret?" Mrs. Thornton drew herself up, and said-- "My son is not the one to tell of his own doings. May I again ask you, Miss Hale, from whose account you formed your favourable opinion of him? A mother is curious and greedy of commendation of her children, you know." Margaret replied, "It was as much from what Mr. Thornton withheld of that which we had been told of his previous life by Mr. Bell,--it was more that than what he said, that made us all feel what reason you have to be proud of him." "Mr. Bell! What can he know of John? He, living a lazy life in a drowsy college. But I'm obliged to you, Miss Hale. Many a missy young lady would have shrunk from giving an old woman the pleasure of hearing that her son was well spoken of." "Why?" asked Margaret, looking straight at Mrs. Thornton, in bewilderment. "Why! because I suppose they might have consciences that told them how surely they were making the old mother into an advocate for them, in case they had any plans on the son's heart." She smiled a grim smile, for she had been pleased by Margaret's frankness; and perhaps she felt that she had been asking questions too much as if she had a right to catechise. Margaret laughed outright at the notion presented to her; laughed so merrily that it grated on Mrs. Thornton's ear, as if the words that called forth that laugh, must have been utterly and entirely ludicrous. Margaret stopped her merriment as soon as she saw Mrs. Thornton's annoyed look. "I beg your pardon, madam. But I really am very much obliged to you for exonerating me from making any plans on Mr. Thornton's heart." "Young ladies have, before now," said Mrs. Thornton, stiffly. "I hope Miss Thornton is well," put in Mr. Hale, desirous of changing the current of the conversation. "She is as well as she ever is. She is not strong," replied Mrs. Thornton, shortly. "And Mr. Thornton? I suppose I may hope to see him on Thursday?" "I cannot answer for my son's engagements. There is some uncomfortable work going on in the town; a threatening of a strike. If so, his experience and judgment will make him much consulted by his friends. But I should think he could come on Thursday. At any rate, I am sure he will let you know if he cannot." "A strike!" asked Margaret. "What for? What are they going to strike for?" "For the mastership and ownership of other people's property," said Mrs. Thornton, with a fierce snort. "That is what they always strike for. If my son's work-people strike, I will only say they are a pack of ungrateful hounds. But I have no doubt they will." "They are wanting higher wages, I suppose?" asked Mr. Hale. "That is the face of the thing. But the truth is, they want to be masters, and make the masters into slaves on their own ground. They are always trying at it; they always have it in their minds; and every five or six years, there comes a struggle between masters and men. They'll find themselves mistaken this time, I fancy,--a little out of their reckoning. If they turn out, they mayn't find it so easy to go in again. I believe, the masters have a thing or two in their heads which will teach the men not to strike again in a hurry, if they try it this time." "Does it make the town very rough?" asked Margaret. "Of course it does. But surely you are not a coward, are you? Milton is not the place for cowards. I have known the time when I have had to thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men, all swearing they would have Makinson's blood as soon as he ventured to show his nose out of his factory; and he, knowing nothing of it, some one had to go and tell him, or he was a dead man; and it needed to be a woman,--so I went. And when I got in, I could not get out. It was as much as my life was worth. So I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the factory doors. And I would have lifted those heavy stones, and dropped them with as good an aim as the best man there, but that I fainted with the heat I had gone through. If you live in Milton, you must learn to have a brave heart, Miss Hale." "I would do my best," said Margaret rather pale. "I do not know whether I am brave or not till I am tried; but I am afraid I should be a coward." "South country people are often frightened by what our Darkshire men and women only call living and struggling. But when you've been ten years among a people who are always owing their betters a grudge, and only waiting for an opportunity to pay it off, you'll know whether you are a coward or not, take my word for it." Mr. Thornton came that evening to Mr. Hale's. He was shown up into the drawing-room, where Mr. Hale was reading aloud to his wife and daughter. "I am come partly to bring you a note from my mother, and partly to apologise for not keeping to my time yesterday. The note contains the address you asked for; Dr. Donaldson." "Thank you!" said Margaret, hastily, holding out her hand to take the note, for she did not wish her mother to hear that they had been making any inquiry about a doctor. She was pleased that Mr. Thornton seemed immediately to understand her feeling; he gave her the note without another word of explanation. Mr. Hale began to talk about the strike. Mr. Thornton's face assumed a likeness to his mother's worst expression, which immediately repelled the watching Margaret. "Yes; the fools will have a strike. Let them. It suits us well enough. But we gave them a chance. They think trade is flourishing as it was last year. We see the storm on the horizon and draw in our sails. But because we don't explain our reasons, they won't believe we're acting reasonably. We must give them line and letter for the way we choose to spend or save our money. Henderson tried a dodge with his men, out at Ashley, and failed. He rather wanted a strike; it would have suited his book well enough. So when the men came to ask for the five per cent. they are claiming, he told 'em he'd think about it, and give them his answer on the pay day; knowing all the while what his answer would be, of course, but thinking he'd strengthen their conceit of their own way. However, they were too deep for him, and heard something about the bad prospects of trade. So in they came on the Friday, and drew back their claim, and now he's obliged to go on working. But we Milton masters have to-day sent in our decision. We won't advance a penny. We tell them we may have to lower wages; but can't afford to raise. So here we stand, waiting for their next attack." "And what will that be?" asked Mr. Hale. "I conjecture a simultaneous strike. You will see Milton without smoke in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale." "But why," asked she, "could you not explain what good reason you had for expecting a bad trade? I don't know whether I use the right words, but you will understand what I mean." "Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure, or your economy in the use of your own money? We, the owners of capital, have a right to choose what we will do with it." "A human right," said Margaret, very low. "I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said." "I would rather not repeat it," said she; "it related to a feeling which I do not think you would share." "Won't you try me?" pleaded he; his thoughts suddenly bent upon learning what she had said. She was displeased with his pertinacity, but did not choose to affix too much importance to her words. "I said you had a human right. I meant that there seemed no reason but religious ones, why you should not do what you like with your own." "I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don't you give me credit for having some, though not the same as yours?" He was speaking in a subdued voice, as if to her alone. She did not wish to be so exclusively addressed. She replied out in her usual tone: "I do not think that I have any occasion to consider your special religious opinions in the affair. All I meant to say is, that there is no human law to prevent the employers from utterly wasting or throwing away all their money, if they choose; but that there are passages in the Bible which would rather imply--to me at least--that they neglected their duties as stewards if they did so. However, I know so little about strikes and rate of wages, and capital, and labour, that I had better not talk to a political economist like you." "Nay, the more reason," said he eagerly. "I shall only be too glad to explain to you all that may seem anomalous or mysterious to a stranger; especially at a time like this, when our doings are sure to be canvassed by every scribbler who can hold a pen." "Thank you," she answered, coldly. "Of course, I shall apply to my father in the first instance for any information he can give me, if I get puzzled with living here amongst this strange society." "You think it strange. Why?" "I don't know--I suppose because, on the very face of it, I see two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own: I never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people always running each other down." "Who have you heard running the masters down? I don't ask who you have heard abusing the men; for I see you persist in misunderstanding what I said the other day. But who have you heard abusing the masters?" Margaret reddened; then smiled as she said, "I am not fond of being catechised. I refuse to answer your question. Besides, it has nothing to do with the fact. You must take my word for it, that I have heard some people, or, it may be, only some one of the workpeople speak as though it were the interest of the employers to keep them from acquiring money--that it would make them too independent if they had a sum in the savings' bank." "I dare say it was that man Higgins who told you all this," said Mrs. Hale. Mr. Thornton did not appear to hear what Margaret evidently did not wish him to know. But he caught it nevertheless. "I heard, moreover, that it was considered to the advantage of the masters to have ignorant workmen--not hedge-lawyers, as Captain Lennox used to call those men in his company who questioned and would know the reason for every order." This latter part of her sentence she addressed rather to her father than to Mr. Thornton. Who is Captain Lennox? asked Mr. Thornton of himself, with a strange kind of displeasure, that prevented him for the moment from replying to her! Her father took up the conversation. "You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen and known before this how much is being done for education in Milton." "No!" she said, with sudden meekness. "I know I do not care enough about schools. But the knowledge and the ignorance of which I was speaking did not relate to reading and writing,--the teaching or information one can give to a child. I am sure, that what was meant was ignorance of the wisdom that shall guide men and women. I hardly know what that is. But he--that is my informant--spoke as if the masters would like their hands to be merely tall, large children--living in the present moment--with a blind unreasoning kind of obedience." "In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the masters," said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone. Margaret did not reply. She was displeased at the personal character Mr. Thornton affixed to what she had said. Mr. Hale spoke next: "I must confess that, although I have not become so intimately acquainted with any workmen as Margaret has, I am very much struck by the antagonism between the employer and the employed, on the very surface of things. I even gather this impression from what you yourself have from time to time said." Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke. Margaret had just left the room, and he was vexed at the state of feeling between himself and her. However, the little annoyance, by making him cooler and more thoughtful, gave a greater dignity to what he said: "My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my workpeople, and vice-versa. Miss Hale, I know, does not like to hear men called 'hands,' so I won't use that word, though it comes most readily to my lips as the technical term, whose origin, whatever it was, dates before my time. On some future day--in some millennium--in Utopia, this unity may be brought into practice--just as I can fancy a republic the most perfect form of government." "We will read Plato's Republic as soon as we have finished Homer." "Well, in the Platonic year, it may fall out that we are all--men, women, and children--fit for a republic; but give me a constitutional monarchy in our present state of morals and intelligence. In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us. Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet firm authority. I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider our people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so. I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them; so that in the hours in which I come in contact with them I must necessarily be an autocrat. I will use my best discretion--from no humbug or philanthropic feeling, of which we have had rather too much in the North--to make wise laws and come to just decisions in the conduct of my business--laws and decisions which work for my own good in the first instance--for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my resolution. Let them turn out! I shall suffer as well as they: but in the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one jot." Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting at her work; but she did not speak. Mr. Hale answered-- "I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little I know, I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and manhood, in the life of the multitude as well as that of the individual. Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of 'Come when you're called,' and 'Do as you're bid!' But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease. If I get wrong in my reasoning, recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy." "Very lately," said Margaret, "I heard a story of what happened in Nuremberg only three or four years ago. A rich man there lived alone in one of the immense mansions which were formerly both dwellings and warehouses. It was reported that he had a child, but no one knew of it for certain. For forty years this rumour kept rising and falling--never utterly dying away. After his death it was found to be true. He had a son--an overgrown man, with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error. But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose in the world, every bad counsellor had power over him. He did not know good from evil. His father had made the blunder of bringing him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to take charge of him, in order to save him from starvation. He could not even use words effectively enough to be a successful beggar." "I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position of the master to that of a parent, so I ought not to complain of your turning the simile into a weapon against me. But, Mr. Hale, when you were setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you said he humoured his children in their desire for independent action. Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have any independent action during business hours; I hardly know what you would mean by it then. And I say, that the masters would be trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way that I, for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered too much with the life they lead out of the mills. Because they labour ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their time. I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of men or the most powerful--I should equally rebel and resent his interference. I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of England than in the South." "I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none of the equality of friendship between the adviser and advised classes? Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man: constantly afraid of his rights being trenched upon?" "I only state the fact. I am sorry to say, I have an appointment at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them to-night, without trying to account for them; which, indeed, would make no difference in determining how to act as things stand--the facts must be granted." "But," said Margaret in a low voice, "it seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world--." Her father made a sign to her to be silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had to say. He was already standing up and preparing to go. "You must grant me this one point. Given a strong feeling of independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude my views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another (hating it as I should do most vehemently myself), merely because he has labour to sell and I capital to buy?" "Not in the least," said Margaret, determined to say just this one thing; "not in the least because of your labour and capital positions, whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing with a set of men over whom you have, whether you reject the use of it or not, immense power, just because your lives and your welfare are so constantly and intimately interwoven. God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent. We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character--his life. And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has dependants clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them off, any more than the great rock he resembles can shake off--" "Pray don't go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already," said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she said only irritated him. "Just tell me, Miss Hale, are you yourself ever influenced--no, that is not a fair way of putting it;--but if you are ever conscious of being influenced by others, and not by circumstances, have those others been working directly or indirectly? Have they been labouring to exhort, to enjoin, to act rightly for the sake of example, or have they been simple, true men, taking up their duty, and doing it unflinchingly, without a thought of how their actions were to make this man industrious, that man saving? Why, if I were a workman, I should be twenty times more impressed by the knowledge that my master was honest, punctual, quick, resolute in all his doings (and hands are keener spies even than valets), than by any amount of interference, however kindly meant, with my ways of going on out of work-hours. I do not choose to think too closely on what I am myself; but, I believe, I rely on the straightforward honesty of my hands, and the open nature of their opposition, in contra-distinction to the way in which the turn-out will be managed in some mills, just because they know I scorn to take a single dishonourable advantage, or do an underhand thing myself. It goes farther than a whole course of lectures on 'Honesty is the Best Policy'--life diluted into words. No, no! What the master is, that will the men be, without over-much taking thought on his part." "That is a great admission," said Margaret, laughing. "When I see men violent and obstinate, in pursuit of their rights, I may safely infer that the master is the same; that he is a little ignorant of that spirit which suffereth long, and is kind, and seeketh not her own." "You are just like all strangers who don't understand the working of our system, Miss Hale," said he, hastily. "You suppose that our men are puppets of dough, ready to be moulded into any amiable form we please. You forget we have only to do with them for less than a third of their lives; and you seem not to perceive that the duties of a manufacturer are far larger and wider than those merely of an employer of labour: we have a wide commercial character to maintain, which makes us into the great pioneers of civilisation." "It strikes me," said Mr. Hale, smiling, "that you might pioneer a little at home. They are a rough, heathenish set of fellows, these Milton men of yours." "They are that," replied Mr. Thornton. "Rose-water surgery won't do for them. Cromwell would have made a capital mill-owner, Miss Hale. I wish we had him to put down this strike for us." "Cromwell is no hero of mine," she said, coldly. "But I am trying to reconcile your admiration of despotism with your respect for other men's independence of character." He reddened at her tone. "I choose to be the unquestioned and irresponsible master of my hands, during the hours they labour for me. But those hours past, our relation ceases; and then comes in the same respect for their independence that I myself exact." He did not speak again for a minute, he was too much vexed. But he shook it off, and bade Mr. and Mrs. Hale good night. Then, drawing near to Margaret, he said in a lower voice-- "I spoke hastily to you once this evening, and I am afraid, rather rudely. But you know I am but an uncouth Milton manufacturer; will you forgive me?" "Certainly," said she, smiling up in his face, the expression of which was somewhat anxious and oppressed, and hardly cleared away as he met her sweet sunny countenance, out of which all the north-wind effect of their discussion had entirely vanished. But she did not put out her hand to him, and again he felt the omission, and set it down to pride.

'Margaret,' said her father, the next day, 'we must return Mrs. Thornton's call. Your mother is not very well, and thinks she cannot walk so far; but you and I will go this afternoon.' As they went, Mr. Hale began talking about his wife's health, with an anxiety which Margaret was glad to see awakened at last. 'Did you consult the doctor, Margaret? Did you send for him?' 'No, papa; but if I only knew of some good doctor, I would ask him to come, for I am sure mamma is seriously indisposed.' She put the truth thus plainly and strongly because her father had so completely shut his mind against the idea before. But now he answered despondently: 'Do you think she is really very ill? Has Dixon said anything? Oh, Margaret! I am haunted by the fear that our coming to Milton has killed her. My poor Maria!' 'Oh, papa! don't imagine such things,' said Margaret, shocked. 'She is not well, that is all.' 'But has Dixon said anything?' 'No! You know Dixon enjoys making a mystery out of trifles; and she has been a little mysterious about mamma's health, which has alarmed me rather, that is all.' 'We will ask Mrs. Thornton if she can tell us of a good doctor. She lives up this street.' The street did not look as if it could contain any house large enough to be Mrs. Thornton's. Margaret had imagined that tall, handsomely dressed Mrs. Thornton must live in a house of the same character as herself. Marlborough Street consisted of long rows of small houses, with a blank wall here and there. 'It is this street, I'm sure,' said Mr. Hale, perplexed. 'There are plenty of people about. Let me ask.' She accordingly inquired of a passer-by, and was informed that Mr. Thornton lived close to the mill; and had the factory lodge-door pointed out to her, at the end of a long wall. Beside the lodge-door were great closed gates for the ingress and egress of lorries and wagons. The lodge-keeper admitted them into a large oblong yard; on one side of it were offices, and on the other, an immense many-windowed mill, from which came the continual clank of machinery and the long groaning roar of the steam-engine, enough to deafen those who lived nearby. Opposite the street was a handsome stone-coped house - blackened by smoke, to be sure, but with paint, windows and steps kept scrupulously clean. It appeared to have been built some fifty or sixty years before, with the stone facings and long, narrow windows of that time. Margaret wondered why people who could afford to live in so good a house did not prefer a dwelling in the country, or even some suburb; not in the continual whirl and din of the factory. She could hardly hear her father's voice, as they stood on the steps awaiting the opening of the door. The yard, too, made but a dismal view for the windows - as Margaret found when they had mounted the old-fashioned stairs, and been ushered into the drawing-room. There was no one there. The room seemed uninhabited. The walls were pink and gold; the pattern on the carpet represented bunches of flowers, but it was carefully covered up by a colourless linen drugget. The window-curtains were lace; each chair and sofa had its own veil of netting. In the middle of the room, under the bagged-up chandelier, was a large circular table, with smartly-bound books arranged at regular intervals round its polished surface, like gaily-coloured spokes of a wheel. Everything reflected light, nothing absorbed it. The whole room had a painfully spangled, speckled look, which impressed Margaret so unpleasantly that she was hardly conscious of the peculiar cleanliness required to keep everything so white and pure in such an atmosphere. They had time to look around, and to speak to each other in low voices, before Mrs. Thornton appeared. They were talking of what all the world might hear; but in such a room people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken the unused echoes. At last Mrs. Thornton came in, rustling in handsome black silk. Margaret explained why her mother was not with them; but in her anxiety not to alarm her father, she gave a bungling account, and left the impression on Mrs. Thornton's mind that Mrs. Hale's was some fanciful fine-ladyish illness, which might have been put aside had she really wished. Mrs. Thornton drew up slightly offended, and gave Margaret no sympathy. 'How is Mr. Thornton?' asked Mr. Hale. 'I was afraid he was not well, from his hurried note yesterday.' 'My son is rarely ill; and when he is, he never makes it an excuse for not doing anything. He told me he had no time to read with you last night, sir. He regretted it, I am sure; he values the hours spent with you.' 'They are equally agreeable to me,' said Mr. Hale. 'It makes me feel young again to see his appreciation of fine classical literature.' 'I have no doubt the classics are very desirable for people who have leisure. But it was against my judgment that my son renewed his study of them. Classics may do very well for men who loiter away their lives in the country or in colleges; but Milton men ought to have their thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of today. At least, that is my opinion.' 'But, surely, if the mind is too long directed to one object only, it will get stiff and rigid, and unable to take in many interests,' said Margaret. 'I do not quite understand what you mean. Nor do I admire those whirligig characters that are full of one thing today, only to forget it in their new interest tomorrow. Having many interests does not suit the life of a Milton manufacturer. It ought to be enough for him to have one great desire, and to concentrate on that.' 'And that is?' asked Mr. Hale. Her sallow cheek flushed, and her eye lightened, as she answered: 'To hold a high, honourable place among the merchants of his country. Such a place my son has earned for himself. Go where you will - not only in England, but in Europe - the name of John Thornton of Milton is respected amongst all men of business. Of course, it is unknown in fashionable circles,' she continued scornfully. 'Idle gentlemen and ladies are not likely to know much of a Milton manufacturer.' Both Mr. Hale and Margaret had an uneasy, ludicrous consciousness that they had never heard of this great name, until Mr. Bell had written to them about Mr. Thornton. Margaret's face, in spite of all her endeavours to keep it straight, told the sensitive Mrs. Thornton this feeling. 'You think you never heard of this wonderful son of mine, Miss Hale. You think I'm an old woman whose ideas are bounded by Milton.' 'No,' said Margaret, with some spirit. 'It may be true that I had hardly heard Mr. Thornton's name before I came here. But since I have come, I have heard enough to make me respect and admire him, and to feel there is much in what you have said.' 'Who spoke to you of him?' asked Mrs. Thornton, a little mollified, yet jealous lest anyone else's words should not have done him full justice. Margaret hesitated; she did not like this authoritative questioning. Mr. Hale came in, as he thought, to the rescue. 'It was what Mr. Thornton said himself, that made us know the kind of man he was.' Mrs. Thornton drew herself up, and said, 'My son is not one to tell of his own doings. May I again ask you, Miss Hale, who told you of him?' Margaret replied, 'It was what Mr. Thornton withheld of that which we had been told of his previous life by Mr. Bell - it was more that than what he said, that made us feel what reason you have to be proud of him.' 'Mr. Bell! What can he know of John? He, living a lazy life in a drowsy college. But I'm obliged to you, Miss Hale. Many a missy young lady would have shrunk from giving an old woman the pleasure of hearing that her son was well spoken of.' 'Why?' asked Margaret, looking straight at Mrs. Thornton, in bewilderment. 'Why! because I suppose they might have felt bashful, in case they had any plans on the son's heart.' She smiled a grim smile, for she had been pleased by Margaret's frankness. But Margaret laughed merrily at this notion. She stopped as soon as she saw Mrs. Thornton's annoyed look. 'I beg your pardon, madam. But I am very much obliged to you for exonerating me from making any plans on Mr. Thornton's heart.' 'Young ladies have, before now,' said Mrs. Thornton stiffly. 'I hope Miss Thornton is well,' put in Mr. Hale, to change the subject. 'She is as well as she ever is. She is not strong,' replied Mrs. Thornton, shortly. 'And Mr. Thornton? May I hope to see him on Thursday?' 'I cannot answer for my son's engagements. There is some uncomfortable work going on; a threatening of a strike. If so, his experience and judgment will make him much consulted by his friends. But I should think he could come on Thursday.' 'A strike?' asked Margaret. 'What for?' 'For the mastership and ownership of other people's property,' said Mrs. Thornton, with a fierce snort. 'That is what they always strike for. If my son's work-people strike, they are a pack of ungrateful hounds. But I have no doubt they will.' 'They want higher wages, I suppose?' asked Mr. Hale. 'On the face of it. But the truth is, they want to be masters, and make the masters into slaves. They are always trying it; every five or six years, there comes a struggle between masters and men. But this time, if they turn out, they mayn't find it so easy to go in again. I believe the masters have an idea or two which will teach the men not to strike again in a hurry.' 'Does it not make the town very rough?' asked Margaret. 'Of course it does. You are not a coward, are you? Milton is not the place for cowards. I have known the time when I have had to thread my way through a crowd of angry men, all swearing they would have Makinson's blood as soon as he ventured out of his factory; someone had to go and warn him, and it needed to be a woman - so I went. And when I had got in, I could not get out. It was as much as my life was worth. So I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the factory doors. And I would have lifted those stones and dropped them, had I not fainted with the heat. If you live in Milton, you must have a brave heart, Miss Hale.' 'I would do my best,' said Margaret, rather pale, 'though I am afraid I should be a coward.' 'South country people are often frightened here. But when you've been ten years among a people who always have a grudge against their betters, and are only waiting for an opportunity to pay it off, you'll know whether you are a coward or not, take my word for it.' Mr. Thornton came that evening to Mr. Hale's. He was shown into the drawing-room. 'I am come partly to bring you a note from my mother, and partly to apologise for not keeping to my time yesterday. The note contains the address you asked for; Dr. Donaldson.' 'Thank you!' said Margaret, hastily, holding out her hand to take the note, for she did not wish her mother to hear. She was pleased that Mr. Thornton seemed immediately to understand; he gave her the note without another word. Mr. Hale began to talk about the strike. Mr. Thornton's face assumed a likeness to his mother's worst expression, which immediately repelled Margaret. 'Yes; the fools will strike. Let them. It suits us well enough. They think trade is flourishing as it was last year. We see the storm on the horizon and draw in our sails. But because we don't explain our reasons, they won't believe we're acting reasonably. Henderson tried a dodge with his men, out at Ashley, and failed. He rather wanted a strike; so when the men came to ask for five per cent more, he told 'em he'd think about it, and give them his answer on pay day; knowing all the while what his answer would be. However, they heard something about the bad prospects of trade, so they withdrew their claim, and now he's obliged to go on working. But we Milton masters have decided we won't advance a penny. We tell them we may have to lower wages; but can't afford to raise. So here we stand, waiting for their next attack.' 'And what will that be?' asked Mr. Hale. 'I conjecture, a simultaneous strike.' 'But why could you not explain what good reason you have for expecting bad trade?' asked Margaret. 'Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure? We have a right to choose what we do with our own money.' 'A human right,' said Margaret, very low. 'I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said.' 'I would rather not repeat it,' said she; 'it related to a feeling which I do not think you would share.' 'Won't you try me?' pleaded he. 'I said you had a human right. However, there may be religious reasons why you should not do what you like with your own.' 'I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don't you give me credit for having some?' He was speaking in a subdued voice, as if to her alone. She did not wish to be so exclusively addressed, and replied in her usual tone: 'I do not mean to consider your special religious opinions in the affair. All I meant to say is, that there is no human law to prevent employers from utterly wasting their money, if they choose; but that there are passages in the Bible which would imply - to me at least - that they neglected their duty as stewards if they did so. However, I know so little about strikes, and capital, and labour, that I had better not talk to a political economist like you.' 'Nay, the more reason,' said he, eagerly. 'I shall only be too glad to explain to you all that may seem mysterious.' 'Thank you,' she answered, coldly. 'Of course, I shall apply to my father first for information, if I get puzzled with living amongst this strange society.' 'Why strange?' 'I don't know - I suppose because I see two classes dependent on each other, yet each thinking the interests of the other are opposed to their own. I never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people always running each other down.' 'Who have you heard running the masters down? I don't ask who you have heard abusing the men; for I see you persist in misunderstanding what I said the other day. But who have you heard abusing the masters?' Margaret reddened; then smiled as she said, 'I refuse to answer. You must take my word for it, that I have heard one of the workpeople speak as though it were in the interest of the employers to keep them from acquiring money - that it would make them too independent if they had savings.' 'I dare say it was that man Higgins,' said Mrs. Hale. Mr. Thornton pretended not to hear what Margaret evidently did not wish him to know. 'I heard, moreover,' said Margaret, ' that it was considered to the advantage of the masters to have ignorant workmen - not hedge-lawyers, as Captain Lennox used to call those men who questioned the reason for every order.' Who is Captain Lennox? asked Mr. Thornton of himself, with a strange displeasure. Her father took up the conversation. 'You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen and known how much is being done for education in Milton.' 'No!' said she, with sudden meekness. 'I know I do not care enough about schools. But the knowledge and the ignorance of which I was speaking, did not relate to the teaching of children, but rather to ignorance of the wisdom that shall guide men and women. I hardly know what that is. But my informant spoke as if the masters would like their workers to be merely large children - living in the present moment, with blind obedience.' 'In short, Miss Hale, your informant found a ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the masters,' said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone. Margaret, displeased, did not reply, but left the room. 'I must confess,' said Mr. Hale, 'that I am very much struck by the apparent antagonism between the employer and the employed. I even gather this impression from what you yourself have said.' Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke. The little annoyance between him and Margaret made him more thoughtful, and gave a greater dignity to his reply: 'My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my workpeople and vice-versa. Miss Hale, I know, does not like to hear men called "hands," so I won't use that word, though it is the usual term. On some future day - in some Utopia - this unity may come about - just as I can fancy a republic the most perfect form of government.' 'We will read Plato's Republic as soon as we have finished Homer.' 'Well, in the future, we may be fit for a republic: but give me a constitutional monarchy in our present state. In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us. Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people are happiest under the laws of a discreet, firm authority. As Miss Hale says, I consider our people to be in the condition of children, but it is not the masters who keep them so. I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them; so that in the factory I must be an autocrat. I will try to make wise laws and just decisions, which work for my own good in the first instance, and for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give them my reasons, nor flinch from my resolution. Let them turn out on strike! I shall suffer as well as they: but at the end they will find I have not given way one jot.' Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting sewing; but she did not speak. Mr. Hale answered. 'I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly into a troublesome adolescence, in the life of the multitude as well as the individual. Now, the error which many parents commit at this time is insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as earlier, when the child's only duty was to obey the simple laws of "Come when you're called" and "Do as you're told!" But a wise parent allows independent action, so as to become a friend and adviser when his rule shall cease.' Margaret said, 'I heard a story of a rich man in Nuremberg only three or four years ago. He lived alone in an immense mansion. It was reported that he had a child, but no one knew of it for certain. For forty years this rumour went round. After his death it was found to be true. He had a son - an overgrown man with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had brought up in that strange way, to save him from temptation and error. But, of course, when this great child was turned loose into the world, he did not know good from evil. His father had made the blunder of confusing ignorance with innocence; and after fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to take charge of him, to save him from starvation.' 'Mr. Hale, you said a wise man would allow independent action. Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have any independent action during business hours; so I hardly know what you would mean. And I say that the masters would not be justified in interfering too much with the life the hands lead outside the mills. Because they labour ten hours a day for us, I do not see that we have any right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their time. I value my own independence so highly that I would not care to have another man perpetually advising and lecturing me. He might be the wisest of men, but I should rebel and resent his interference. I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of England than in the South.' 'Is not that because there has been no equality of friendship between the adviser and advised classes? Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man?' 'I only state the fact. I am sorry to say I have an appointment at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them tonight.' 'But,' said Margaret in a low voice, 'it seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world-' Her father made a sign to her to be silent. Mr. Thornton was already standing up and preparing to go, saying, 'You must grant me this one point. Given a strong feeling of independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to impose my views of how other men shall act, merely because they have labour to sell and I capital to buy?' 'Not in the least,' said Margaret, determined just to say this one thing; 'not in the least because of your labour and capital positions, whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing with a set of men over whom you have immense power, with your lives and welfare constantly interwoven. God has made us mutually dependent. We may ignore this, or refuse to acknowledge it; but the thing must be, nevertheless. The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their influence on his character - his life. And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has dependants clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them off, any more than the great rock he resembles can shake off-' 'Pray don't go into any more similes, Margaret,' said her father, smiling, yet uneasy. However, Mr. Thornton did not mind being detained; he rather liked hearing Margaret talk, although what she said irritated him. 'Just tell me, Miss Hale - if you are ever conscious of being influenced by others, have those others been working directly or indirectly? Have they exhorted you to act rightly, or have they been simply doing their duty unflinchingly? Why, if I were a workman, I should be twenty times more impressed by knowing that my master was honest, punctual, and resolute, than by any amount of interference, however kindly meant. I rely on the straightforward honesty of my hands, and the open nature of their opposition, in contrast to the way in which the turnout will be managed in some mills - because they know I will not take a dishonourable advantage, or do an underhand thing myself. It goes farther than a whole course of lectures on "Honesty is the Best Policy" - life diluted into words. No, no! What the master is, that will the men be.' 'That is a great admission,' said Margaret, laughing. 'When I see men violent and obstinate in pursuit of their rights, I may safely infer that the master is the same: that he is a little ignorant of that spirit which suffereth long, and is kind and selfless.' 'You are just like all strangers who don't understand the working of our system, Miss Hale,' said he, hastily. 'You suppose that our men are puppets of dough, ready to be moulded into any form we please. You forget we have only to do with them for less than a third of their lives; and you seem not to perceive that the duties of a manufacturer are far larger than those merely of an employer of labour. We have commerce to maintain, which makes us into the great pioneers of civilisation.' 'It strikes me,' said Mr. Hale, smiling, 'that you might pioneer a little at home. They are a rough, heathenish set of fellows, these Milton men of yours.' 'They are that,' replied Mr. Thornton. 'Cromwell would have made a capital mill-owner, Miss Hale. I wish we had him to put down this strike for us.' 'Cromwell is no hero of mine,' said she, coldly. 'But I am trying to reconcile your admiration of despotism with your respect for other men's independence of character.' He reddened at her tone. 'I choose to be the unquestioned master of my hands, during the hours that they labour for me. But after those hours, I respect their independence.' Vexed, he did not speak again for a minute. But he shook it off, and bade Mr. and Mrs. Hale good night. To Margaret he said in a lower voice, 'I spoke hastily to you, and I am afraid, rather rudely. But you know I am only an uncouth Milton manufacturer; will you forgive me?' 'Certainly,' said she, smiling. His anxious expression hardly cleared as he met her sweet sunny countenance. But she did not put out her hand to him, and again he felt the omission, and set it down to pride.

North and South

Chapter 15: MASTERS AND MEN

"Where are the sounds that swam along The buoyant air when I was young; The last vibration now is o'er, And they who listened are no more; Ah! let me close my eyes and dream." W. S. LANDOR. The idea of Helstone had been suggested to Mr. Bell's waking mind by his conversation with Mr. Lennox, and all night long it ran riot through his dreams. He was again the tutor in the college where he now held the rank of Fellow; it was again a long vacation, and he was staying with his newly-married friend, the proud husband, and happy Vicar of Helstone. Over babbling brooks they took impossible leaps, which seemed to keep them whole days suspended in the air. Time and space were not, though all other things seemed real. Every event was measured by the emotions of the mind, not by its actual existence, for existence it had none. But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness--the warm odours of flower and herb came sweet upon the sense--the young wife moved about the house with just that mixture of annoyance at her position, as regarded wealth, with pride in her handsome and devoted husband, which Mr. Bell had noticed in real life a quarter of a century ago. The dream was so like life that, when he awoke, his present life seemed a dream. Where was he? In the close, handsomely furnished room of a London hotel! Where were those who spoke to him, moved around him, touched him, not an instant ago? Dead! buried! lost for evermore, as far as earth's for evermore would extend. He was an old man, so lately exultant in the full strength of manhood. The utter loneliness of his life was insupportable to think about. He got up hastily, and tried to forget what never more might be, in a hurried dressing for the breakfast in Harley Street. He could not attend to all the lawyer's details, which, as he saw, made Margaret's eyes dilate, and her lips grow pale, as one by one fate decreed, or so it seemed, every morsel of evidence which would exonerate Frederick, should fall from beneath her feet and disappear. Even Mr. Lennox's well-regulated professional voice took a softer, tenderer tone, as he drew near to the extinction of the last hope. It was not that Margaret had not been perfectly aware of the result before. It was only that the details of each successive disappointment came with such relentless minuteness to quench all hope, that she at last fairly gave way to tears. Mr. Lennox stopped reading. "I had better not go on," said he, in a concerned voice. "It was a foolish proposal of mine. Lieutenant Hale," and even this giving him the title of the service from which he had so harshly been expelled, was soothing to Margaret. "Lieutenant Hale is happy now; more secure in fortune and future prospects than he could ever have been in the navy; and has, doubtless, adopted his wife's country as his own." "That is it," said Margaret. "It seems so selfish in me to regret it," trying to smile, "and yet he is lost to me, and I am so lonely." Mr. Lennox turned over his papers, and wished that he were as rich and prosperous as he believed he should be some day. Mr. Bell blew his nose, but, otherwise, he also kept silence; and Margaret, in a minute or two, had apparently recovered her usual composure. She thanked Mr. Lennox very courteously for his trouble; all the more courteously and graciously because she was conscious that, by her behaviour, he might probably be led to imagine that he had given her needless pain. Yet it was pain she would not have been without. Mr. Bell came up to wish her good-bye. "Margaret!" said he, as he fumbled with his gloves, "I am going down to Helstone to-morrow, to look at the old place. Would you like to come with me? Or would it give you too much pain? Speak out, don't be afraid." "Oh, Mr. Bell," said she--and could say no more. But she took his old gouty hand, and kissed it. "Come, come; that's enough," said he, reddening with awkwardness. "I suppose your aunt Shaw will trust you with me. We'll go to-morrow morning, and we shall get there about two o'clock, I fancy. We'll take a snack, and order dinner at the little inn--the Lennard Arms, it used to be--and go and get an appetite in the forest. Can you stand it, Margaret? It will be a trial, I know, to both of us, but it will be a pleasure to me, at least. And there we'll dine--it will be but doe-venison, if we can get it at all--and then I'll take my nap, while you go out and see old friends. I'll give you back safe and sound, barring railway accidents, and I'll insure your life for a thousand pounds before starting, which may be some comfort to your relations; but otherwise, I'll bring you back to Mrs. Shaw by lunch time on Friday. So, if you say yes, I'll just go upstairs and propose it." "It's no use my trying to say how much I shall like it," said Margaret, through her tears. "Well, then, prove your gratitude by keeping those fountains of yours dry for the next two days. If you don't, I shall feel queer myself about the lachrymal ducts, and I don't like that." "I won't cry a drop," said Margaret, winking her eyes to shake the tears off her eyelashes, and forcing a smile. "There's my good girl. Then we'll go upstairs and settle it all." Margaret was in a state of almost trembling eagerness, while Mr. Bell discussed his plan with her aunt Shaw, who was first startled, then doubtful and perplexed, and in the end, yielding rather to the rough force of Mr. Bell's words than to her own conviction; for to the last, whether it was right or wrong, proper or improper, she could not settle to her own satisfaction, till Margaret's safe return, the happy fulfilment of the project, gave her decision enough to say, "she was sure it had been a very kind thought of Mr. Bell's, and just what she herself had been wishing for Margaret, as giving her the very change which she required, after all the anxious time she had had."

The idea of Helstone had been suggested to Mr. Bell by this conversation, and all night long it ran riot through his dreams. He dreamt he was again the tutor at his college; it was again a long vacation, and he was staying with his newly married friend, the proud and happy Vicar of Helstone. Over babbling brooks they took impossible leaps, which seemed to keep them whole days suspended in the air. Time and space did not exist, though all other things seemed real. Every event was measured by emotion. But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flower and herb were sweet. The young wife moved about her house with that mixture of annoyance at her lowered position, and pride in her devoted husband, which Mr. Bell remembered from a quarter of a century ago. The dream was so like life that, when he awoke, the present seemed like a dream. Where were those who spoke to him, touched him, not an instant ago? Dead! lost for evermore. He was an old man, and the utter loneliness of his life was insupportable to think about. He got up hastily, and tried to forget it, hurriedly dressing for the breakfast in Harley Street. He could not attend to all the lawyer's details, which, as he saw, made Margaret's eyes dilate, and her lips grow pale, as every morsel of evidence which would exonerate Frederick seemed to disappear. Even Mr. Lennox's professional voice took a softer tone as he drew near to the extinction of the last hope. When she gave way to tears, Mr. Lennox stopped reading. 'I had better not go on. It was a foolish proposal of mine. Lieutenant Hale is happy now; more secure in future prospects than he could ever have been in the navy; and has, doubtless, adopted his wife's country as his own.' 'That is it,' said Margaret. 'It seems so selfish of me to regret it,' trying to smile, 'and yet he is lost to me, and I am so lonely.' Mr. Lennox turned over his papers, and wished that he were as rich and prosperous as he believed he should be some day. Mr. Bell blew his nose, but, otherwise, he also kept silence; and Margaret, in a minute or two, had apparently recovered her usual composure, and thanked Mr. Lennox very courteously for his trouble. 'Margaret!' said Mr. Bell, as he fumbled with his gloves. 'I am going down to Helstone tomorrow, to look at the old place. Would you like to come with me? Or would it give you too much pain?' 'Oh, Mr. Bell,' said she - and could say no more. But she took his old gouty hand, and kissed it. 'Come, come,' said he, awkwardly. 'I suppose your aunt Shaw will trust you with me. We'll go tomorrow morning, and we shall get there about two o'clock, I fancy. We'll take a snack, and order dinner at the little inn - the Lennard Arms. And we'll dine on doe-venison - and then I'll take my nap while you go and see old friends. I'll bring you back safe and sound to Mrs. Shaw by lunch-time on Friday. So, if you say yes, I'll just go upstairs and propose it.' 'I shall like it,' said Margaret, through her tears. 'Well, then, prove your gratitude by keeping those fountains of yours dry for the next two days, or you will set me off too.' 'I won't cry a drop,' said Margaret, forcing a smile. 'There's my good girl. Then we'll go upstairs and settle it all.' Aunt Shaw was first startled, then doubtful and perplexed, but in the end, yielded to Mr. Bell. 'She was sure it had been a very kind thought of Mr. Bell's, and just what she herself had been wishing for Margaret, as giving her the very change which she required.'

North and South

Chapter 45: NOT ALL A DREAM

"There's nought so finely spun But it cometh to the sun." Mr. Thornton sate on and on. He felt that his company gave pleasure to Mr. Hale; and was touched by the half-spoken wishful entreaty that he would remain a little longer--the plaintive "Don't go yet," which his poor friend put forth from time to time. He wondered Margaret did not return; but it was with no view of seeing her that he lingered. For the hour--and in the presence of one who was so thoroughly feeling the nothingness of earth--he was reasonable and self-controlled. He was deeply interested in all her father said "Of death, and of the heavy lull, And of the brain that has grown dull." It was curious how the presence of Mr. Thornton had power over Mr. Hale to make him unlock the secret thoughts which he kept shut up even from Margaret. Whether it was that her sympathy would be so keen, and show itself in so lively a manner, that he was afraid of the reaction upon himself, or whether it was that to his speculative mind all kinds of doubts presented themselves at such a time, pleading and crying aloud to be resolved into certainties, and that he knew she would have shrunk from the expression of any such doubts--nay, from him himself as capable of conceiving them--whatever was the reason, he could unburden himself better to Mr. Thornton than to her of all the thoughts and fancies and fears that had been frost-bound in his brain till now. Mr. Thornton said very little; but every sentence he uttered added to Mr. Hale's reliance and regard for him. Was it that he paused in the expression of some remembered agony, Mr. Thornton's two or three words would complete the sentence, and show how deeply its meaning was entered into. Was it a doubt--a fear--a wandering uncertainty seeking rest, but finding none--so tear-blinded were its eyes--Mr. Thornton, instead of being shocked, seemed to have passed through that very stage of thought himself, and could suggest where the exact ray of light was to be found, which should make the dark places plain. Man of action as he was, busy in the world's great battle, there was a deeper religion binding him to God in his heart, in spite of his strong wilfulness, through all his mistakes, than Mr. Hale had ever dreamed. They never spoke of such things again, as it happened; but this one conversation made them peculiar people to each other; knit them together, in a way which no loose indiscriminate talking about sacred things can ever accomplish. When all are admitted, how can there be a Holy of Holies? And all this while, Margaret lay as still and white as death on the study floor! She had sunk under her burden. It had been heavy in weight and long carried; and she had been very meek and patient, till all at once her faith had given way, and she had groped in vain for help! There was a pitiful contraction of suffering upon her beautiful brows, although there was no other sign of consciousness remaining. The mouth--a little while ago, so sullenly projected in defiance--was relaxed and livid. "E par che de la sua labbia si mova Uno spirto soave e pien d'amore, Chi va dicendo a l'anima: sospira!" The first symptom of returning life was a quivering about the lips--a little mute soundless attempt at speech; but the eyes were still closed; and the quivering sank into stillness. Then, feebly leaning on her arms for an instant to steady herself, Margaret gathered herself up, and rose. Her comb had fallen out of her hair; and with an intuitive desire to efface the traces of weakness, and bring herself into order again, she sought for it, although from time to time, in the course of the search, she had to sit down and recover strength. Her head drooped forwards--her hands meekly laid one upon the other--she tried to recall the force of her temptation, by endeavouring to remember the details which had thrown her into such deadly fright; but she could not. She only understood two facts--that Frederick had been in danger of being pursued and detected in London, as not only guilty of manslaughter, but as the more unpardonable leader of the mutiny, and that she had lied to save him. There was one comfort; her lie had saved him, if only by gaining some additional time. If the inspector came again to-morrow, after she had received the letter she longed for to assure her of her brother's safety, she would brave shame, and stand in her bitter penance--she the lofty Margaret--acknowledging before a crowded justice-room, if need were, that she had been as "a dog, and done this thing." But if he came before she heard from Frederick; if he returned, as he had half threatened, in a few hours, why! she would tell that lie again; though how the words would come out, after all this terrible pause for reflection and self-reproach, without betraying her falsehood, she did not know, she could not tell. But her repetition of it would gain time--time for Frederick. She was roused by Dixon's entrance into the room; she had just been letting out Mr. Thornton. He had hardly gone ten steps in the street, before a passing omnibus stopped close by him, and a man got down, and came up to him, touching his hat as he did so. It was the police-inspector. Mr. Thornton had obtained for him his first situation in the police, and had heard from time to time of the progress of his protg, but they had not often met, and at first Mr. Thornton did not remember him. "My name is Watson--George Watson, sir, that you got----" "Ah, yes! Why you are getting on famously, I hear." "Yes, sir. I ought to thank you, sir. But it is on a little matter of business I made so bold as to speak to you now. I believe you were the magistrate who attended to take down the deposition of a poor man who died in the Infirmary last night." "Yes," replied Mr. Thornton. "I went and heard some kind of a rambling statement, which the clerk said was of no great use. I'm afraid he was but a drunken fellow, though there is no doubt he came to his death by violence at last. One of my mother's servants was engaged to him, I believe, and she is in great distress to-day. What about him?" "Why, sir, his death is oddly mixed up with somebody in the house I saw you coming out of just now; it was a Mr. Hales's I believe." "Yes!" said Mr. Thornton, turning sharp round and looking into the inspector's face with sudden interest. "What about it?" "Why, sir, it seems to me that I have got a pretty distinct chain of evidence, inculpating a gentleman who was walking with Miss Hale that night at the Outwood station, as the man who struck or pushed Leonards off the platform and so caused his death. But the young lady denies that she was there at the time." "Miss Hale denies she was there!" repeated Mr. Thornton in an altered voice. "Tell me, what evening was it? What time?" "About six o'clock, on the evening of Thursday, the twenty-sixth." They walked on, side by side, in silence for a minute or two. The inspector was the first to speak. "You see, sir, there is like to be a coroner's inquest; and I've got a young man who is pretty positive,--at least he was at first;--since he has heard of the young lady's denial, he says he should not like to swear; but still he's pretty positive that he saw Miss Hale at the station, walking about with a gentleman, not five minutes before the time, when one of the porters saw a scuffle, which he set down to some of Leonards' impudence--but which led to the fall which caused his death. And seeing you come out of the very house, sir, I thought I might make bold to ask if--you see, it's always awkward having to do with cases of disputed identity, and one doesn't like to doubt the word of a respectable young woman unless one has strong proof to the contrary." "And she denied having been at the station that evening!" repeated Mr. Thornton, in a low, brooding tone. "Yes, sir, twice over, as distinct as could be. I told her I should call again, but seeing you just as I was on my way back from questioning the young man who said it was her, I thought I would ask your advice, both as the magistrate who saw Leonards on his death-bed, and as the gentleman who got me my berth in the force." "You were quite right," said Mr. Thornton. "Don't take any steps till you have seen me again." "The young lady will expect me to call, from what I said." "I only want to delay you an hour. It's now three. Come to my warehouse at four." "Very well, sir!" And they parted company. Mr. Thornton hurried to his warehouse, and, sternly forbidding his clerks to allow any one to interrupt him, he went his way to his own private room, and locked the door. Then he indulged himself in the torture of thinking it all over, and realising every detail. How could he have lulled himself into the unsuspicious calm in which her tearful image had mirrored itself not two hours before, till he had weakly pitied her and yearned towards her, and forgotten the savage, distrustful jealousy with which the sight of her--and that unknown to him--at such an hour--in such a place--had inspired him! How could one so pure have stooped from her decorous and noble manner of bearing! But was it decorous--was it? He hated himself for the idea that forced itself upon him, just for an instant--no more--and yet, while it was present, thrilled him with its old potency of attraction towards her image. And then this falsehood--how terrible must be some dread of shame to be revealed--for, after all, the provocation given by such a man as Leonards was, when excited by drinking, might, in all probability, be more than enough to justify any one who came forward to state the circumstances openly and without reserve! How creeping and deadly that fear which could bow down the truthful Margaret to falsehood! He could almost pity her. What would be the end of it? She could not have considered all she was entering upon; if there was an inquest and the young man came forward. Suddenly he started up. There should be no inquest. He would save Margaret. He would take the responsibility of preventing the inquest, the issue of which, from the uncertainty of the medical testimony (which he had vaguely heard the night before, from the surgeon in attendance), could be but doubtful; the doctors had discovered an internal disease far advanced, and sure to prove fatal; they had stated that death might have been accelerated by the fall, or by the subsequent drinking and exposure to cold. If he had but known how Margaret would have become involved in the affair--if he had but foreseen that he would have stained her whiteness by a falsehood, he could have saved her by a word; for the question, of inquest or no inquest, had hung trembling in the balance only the night before. Miss Hale might love another--was indifferent and contemptuous to him--but he would yet do her faithful acts of service of which she should never know. He might despise her, but the woman whom he had once loved should be kept from shame; and shame it would be to pledge herself to a lie in a public court, or otherwise to stand and acknowledge her reason for desiring darkness rather than light. Very gray and stern did Mr. Thornton look, as he passed out through his wondering clerks. He was away about half an hour; and scarcely less stern did he look when he returned, although his errand had been successful. He wrote two lines on a slip of paper, put it in an envelope, and sealed it up. This he gave to one of the clerks, saying:-- "I appointed Watson--he who was a packer in the warehouse, and who went into the police--to call on me at four o'clock. I have just met a gentleman from Liverpool who wishes to see me before he leaves town. Take care to give this note to Watson when he calls." The note contained these words: "There will be no inquest. Medical evidence not sufficient to justify it. Take no further steps. I have not seen the coroner; but I will take the responsibility." "Well," thought Watson, "it relieves me from an awkward job. None of my witnesses seemed certain of anything except the young woman. She was clear and distinct enough; the porter at the railroad had seen a scuffle! or when he found it was likely to bring him in as a witness, then it might not have been a scuffle, only a little larking, and Leonards might have jumped off the platform himself;--he would not stick firm to anything. And Jennings, the grocer's shopman,--well, he was not quite so bad, but I doubt if I could have got him up to an oath after he heard that Miss Hale flatly denied it. It would have been a troublesome job and no satisfaction. And now I must go and tell them they won't be wanted." He accordingly presented himself again at Mr. Hale's that evening. Her father and Dixon would fain have persuaded Margaret to go to bed; but they, neither of them, knew the reason for her low continued refusals to do so. Dixon had learnt part of the truth--but only part. Margaret would not tell any human being of what she had said, and she did not reveal the fatal termination to Leonards' fall from the platform. So Dixon's curiosity combined with her allegiance to urge Margaret to go to rest, which her appearance, as she lay on the sofa, showed but too clearly that she required. She did not speak except when spoken to; she tried to smile back in reply to her father's anxious looks and words of tender inquiry; but, instead of a smile, the wan lips resolved themselves into a sigh. He was so miserably uneasy that, at last, she consented to go into her own room, and prepare for going to bed. She was indeed inclined to give up the idea that the inspector would call again that night, as it was already past nine o'clock. She stood by her father, holding on to the back of his chair. "You will go to bed soon, papa, won't you? Don't sit up alone!" What his answer was she did not hear; the words were lost in the far smaller sound that magnified itself to her fears, and filled her brain. There was a low ring at the door-bell. She kissed her father and glided down stairs, with a rapidity of motion of which no one would have thought her capable, who had seen her the minute before. She put aside Dixon. "Don't come; I will open the door. I know it is him--I can--I must manage it all myself." "As you please, miss!" said Dixon, testily; but in a moment afterwards, she added, "But you're not fit for it. You are more dead than alive." "Am I?" said Margaret, turning round and showing her eyes all aglow with strange fire, her cheeks flushed, though her lips were baked and livid still. She opened the door to the Inspector, and preceded him into the study. She placed the candle on the table, and snuffed it carefully, before she turned round and faced him. "You are late!" said she. "Well?" She held her breath for the answer. "I am sorry to have given any unnecessary trouble, ma'am; for, after all, they've given up all thoughts of holding an inquest. I have had other work to do and other people to see, or I should have been here before now." "Then it is ended," said Margaret. "There is to be no further enquiry." "I believe I've got Mr. Thornton's note about me," said the Inspector, fumbling in his pocket-book. "Mr. Thornton's!" said Margaret. "Yes! he's a magistrate--ah! here it is." She could not see to read it--no, not although she was close to the candle. The words swam before her. But she held it in her hand, and looked at it as if she were intently studying it. "I'm sure, ma'am, it's a great weight off my mind; for the evidence was so uncertain, you see, that the man had received any blow at all, and if any question of identity came in, it so complicated the case, as I told Mr. Thornton----" "Mr. Thornton!" said Margaret again. "I met him this morning, just as he was coming out of this house, and, as he's an old friend of mine, besides being the magistrate who saw Leonards last night, I made bold to tell him of my difficulty." Margaret sighed deeply. She did not want to hear any more; she was afraid alike of what she had heard, and of what she might hear. She wished that the man would go. She forced herself to speak. "Thank you for calling. It is very late. I dare say it is past ten o'clock. Oh! here is the note!" she continued, suddenly interpreting the meaning of the hand held out to receive it. He was putting it up, when she said, "I think it is a cramped, dazzling sort of writing. I could not read it; will you just read it to me?" He read it aloud to her. "Thank you. You told Mr. Thornton that I was not there?" "Oh, of course, ma'am. I'm sorry now that I acted upon information, which seems to have been so erroneous. At first the young man was so positive; and now he says that he doubted all along, and hopes that his mistake won't have occasioned you such annoyance as to lose their shop your custom. Good night, ma'am." "Good night." She rang the bell for Dixon to show him out. As Dixon returned up the passage Margaret passed her swiftly. "It is all right!" said she, without looking at Dixon; and before the woman could follow her with further questions she had sped upstairs, and entered her bed-chamber, and bolted her door. She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her bed. She was too much exhausted to think. Half-an-hour or more elapsed before the cramped nature of her position, and the chilliness, supervening upon great fatigue, had the power to rouse her numbed faculties. Then she began to recall, to combine, to wonder. The first idea that presented itself to her was, that all this sickening alarm on Frederick's behalf was over; that the strain was past. The next was a wish to remember every word of the Inspector's which related to Mr. Thornton. When had he seen him? What had he said? What had Mr. Thornton done? What were the exact words of his note? And until she could recollect, even to the placing or omitting an article, the very expressions which he had used in the note, her mind refused to go on with its progress. But the next conviction she came to was clear enough;--Mr. Thornton had seen her close to Outwood station on the fatal Thursday night, and had been told of her denial that she was there. She stood a liar in his eyes. She was a liar. But she had no thought of penitence before God; nothing but chaos and night surrounded the one lurid fact that, in Mr. Thornton's eyes, she was degraded. She cared not to think, even to herself, of how much of excuse she might plead. That had nothing to do with Mr. Thornton; she never dreamed that he, or any one else, could find cause for suspicion in what was so natural as her accompanying her brother; but what was really false and wrong was known to him, and he had a right to judge her. "Oh, Frederick! Frederick!" she cried, "what have I not sacrificed for you!" Even when she fell asleep her thoughts were compelled to travel the same circle, only with exaggerated and monstrous circumstances of pain. When she awoke a new idea flashed upon her with all the brightness of the morning. Mr. Thornton had learnt her falsehood before he went to the coroner; that suggested the thought, that he had possibly been influenced so to do with a view of sparing her the repetition of her denial. But she pushed this notion on one side with the sick wilfulness of a child. If it were so, she felt no gratitude to him, as it only showed her how keenly he must have seen that she was disgraced already, before he took such unwonted pains to spare her any further trial of truthfulness, which had already failed so signally. She would have gone through the whole--she would have perjured herself to save Frederick, rather--far rather--than Mr. Thornton should have had the knowledge that prompted him to interfere to save her. What ill-fate brought him in contact with the Inspector? What made him be the very magistrate sent for to receive Leonards' deposition? What had Leonards said? How much of it was intelligible to Mr. Thornton, who might already, for aught she knew, be aware of the old accusation against Frederick, through their mutual friend, Mr. Bell? If so, he had striven to save the son, who came in defiance of the law to attend his mother's death-bed. And under this idea she could feel grateful--not yet, if ever she should, if his interference had been prompted by contempt. Oh! had any one just cause to feel contempt for her? Mr. Thornton, above all people, on whom she had looked down from her imaginary heights till now! She suddenly found herself at his feet, and was strangely distressed at her fall. She shrank from following out the premises to their conclusion, and so acknowledging to herself how much she valued his respect and good opinion. Whenever this idea presented itself to her at the end of a long avenue of thoughts, she turned away from following that path--she would not believe in it. It was later than she fancied, for in the agitation of the previous night, she had forgotten to wind up her watch; and Mr. Hale had given especial orders that she was not to be disturbed by the usual awakening. By and by the door opened cautiously, and Dixon put her head in. Perceiving that Margaret was awake, she came forwards with a letter. "Here's something to do you good, miss. A letter from Master Frederick." "Thank you, Dixon. How late it is!" She spoke very languidly, and suffered Dixon to lay it on the counterpane before her, without putting out a hand to take it. "You want your breakfast, I'm sure. I will bring it you in a minute. Master has got the tray all ready, I know." Margaret did not reply; she let her go; she felt that she must be alone before she could open that letter. She opened it at last. The first thing that caught her eye was the date two days earlier than she received it. He had then written when he had promised, and their alarm might have been spared. But she would read the letter and see. It was hasty enough, but perfectly satisfactory. He had seen Henry Lennox, who knew enough of the case to shake his head over it, in the first instance, and tell him he had done a very daring thing in returning to England, with such an accusation, backed by such powerful influence, hanging over him. But when they had come to talk it over, Mr. Lennox had acknowledged that there might be some chance of his acquittal, if he could but prove his statements by credible witnesses--that in such case it might be worth while to stand his trial, otherwise it would be a great risk. He would examine--he would take every pains. "It struck me," said Frederick, "that your introduction, little sister of mine, went a long way. Is it so? He made so many inquiries, I can assure you. He seemed a sharp, intelligent fellow, and in good practice too, to judge from the signs of business and the number of clerks about him. But these may be only lawyer's dodges. I have just caught a packet on the point of sailing--I am off in five minutes. I may have to come back to England again on this business, so keep my visit secret. I shall send my father some rare old sherry, such as you cannot buy in England,--(such stuff as I've got in the bottle before me)! He needs something of the kind--my dear love to him--God bless him. I'm sure--here's my cab. P.S.--What an escape that was! Take care you don't breathe of my having been--not even to the Shaws." Margaret turned to the envelope: it was marked "Too late." The letter had probably been trusted to some careless waiter, who had forgotten to post it. Oh! what slight cobwebs of chances stand between us and Temptation! Frederick had been safe, and out of England twenty, nay, thirty hours ago; and it was only about seventeen hours since she had told a falsehood to baffle pursuit, which even then would have been vain. How faithless she had been! Where now was her proud motto, "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra?" If she had but dared to bravely tell the truth as regarded herself, defying them to find out what she refused to tell concerning another, how light of heart she would now have felt! Not humbled before God, as having failed in trust towards Him; not degraded and abased in Mr. Thornton's sight. She caught herself up at this with a miserable tremor; here was she classing his low opinion of her alongside with the displeasure of God. How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently? What could it be? Why did she care for what he thought, in spite of all her pride; in spite of herself? She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence, and hear her cries for help in time to come. But Mr. Thornton--why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaken her at last? She sprang out of bed and prayed long and earnestly. It soothed and comforted her so to open her heart. But as soon as she reviewed her position she found the sting was still there; that she was not good enough, nor pure enough to be indifferent to the lowered opinion of a fellow creature: that the thought of how he must be looking upon her with contempt, stood between her and her sense of wrong-doing. She took her letter in to her father as soon as she was drest. There was so slight an allusion to their alarm at the railroad station, that Mr. Hale passed over it without paying any attention to it. Indeed, beyond the mere fact of Frederick having sailed undiscovered and unsuspected, he did not gather much from the letter at the time, he was so uneasy about Margaret's pallid looks. She seemed continually on the point of weeping. "You are sadly overdone, Margaret. It is no wonder. But you must let me nurse you now." He made her lie down on the sofa, and went for a shawl to cover her with. His tenderness released her tears; and she cried bitterly. "Poor child!--poor child!" said he, looking fondly at her, as she lay with her face to the wall, shaking with her sobs. After a while they ceased, and she began to wonder whether she durst give herself the relief of telling her father of all her trouble. But there were more reasons against it than for it. The only one for it was the relief to herself; and against it was the thought that it would add materially to her father's nervousness, if it were indeed necessary for Frederick to come to England again; that he would dwell on the circumstance of his son's having caused the death of a man, however unwittingly and unwillingly; that this knowledge would perpetually recur to trouble him, in various shapes of exaggeration and distortion from the simple truth. And about her own great fault--he would be distressed beyond measure at her want of courage and faith, yet perpetually troubled to make excuses for her. Formerly Margaret would have come to him as priest as well as father, to tell him of her temptation and her sin; but latterly they had not spoken much on such subjects; and she knew not how, in his change of opinions, he would reply if the depth of her soul called unto his. No; she would keep her secret, and bear the burden alone. Alone she would go before God, and cry for His absolution. Alone she would endure her disgraced position in the opinion of Mr. Thornton. She was unspeakably touched by the tender efforts of her father to think of cheerful subjects on which to talk, and so to take her thoughts away from dwelling on all that had happened of late. It was some months since he had been so talkative as he was this day. He would not let her sit up, and offended Dixon desperately by insisting on waiting upon her himself. At last she smiled; a poor, weak little smile; but it gave him the truest pleasure. "It seems strange to think, that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores," said Margaret. The remark was more in character with her father than with her usual self; but to-day they seemed to have changed natures. "Her mother was a Spaniard, I believe: that accounts for her religion. Her father was a stiff Presbyterian when I knew him. But it is a very soft and pretty name." "How young she is!--younger by fourteen months than I am. Just the age that Edith was when she was engaged to Captain Lennox. Papa, we will go and see them in Spain." He shook his head. But he said, "If you wish it Margaret. Only let us come back here. It would seem unfair--unkind to your mother, who always, I'm afraid, disliked Milton so much, if we left it now she is lying here, and cannot go with us. No, dear; you shall go and see them, and bring me back a report of my Spanish daughter." "No, papa, I won't go without you. Who is to take care of you when I am gone?" "I should like to know which of us is taking care of the other. But if you went, I should persuade Mr. Thornton to let me give him double lessons. We would work up the classics famously. That would be a perpetual interest. You might go on, and see Edith at Corfu, if you liked." Margaret did not speak all at once. Then she said rather gravely: "Thank you, papa. But I don't want to go. We will hope that Mr. Lennox will manage so well, that Frederick may bring Dolores to see us when they are married. And as for Edith, the regiment won't remain much longer in Corfu. Perhaps we shall see both of them here before another year is out." Mr. Hale's cheerful subjects had come to an end. Some painful recollections had stolen across his mind, and driven him into silence. By and by Margaret said: "Papa--did you see Nicholas Higgins at the funeral? He was there, and Mary too. Poor fellow! it was his way of showing sympathy. He has a good warm heart under his bluff abrupt ways." "I am sure of it," replied Mr. Hale. "I saw it all along, even while you tried to persuade me that he was all sorts of bad things. We will go and see them to-morrow, if you are strong enough to walk so far." "Oh yes. I want to see them. We did not pay Mary--or rather she refused to take it, Dixon says. We will go so as to catch him just after his dinner, and before he goes to his work." Towards evening Mr. Hale said: "I half expected Mr. Thornton would have called. He spoke of a book yesterday which he had, and which I wanted to see. He said he would try and bring it to-day." Margaret sighed. She knew he would not come. He would be too delicate to run the chance of meeting her, while her shame must be so fresh in his memory. The very mention of his name renewed her trouble, and produced a relapse into the feeling of depressed, pre-occupied exhaustion. She gave way to listless languor. Suddenly it struck her that this was a strange manner to show her patience, or to reward her father for his watchful care of her all through the day. She sate up, and offered to read aloud. His eyes were failing, and he gladly accepted her proposal. She read well: she gave the due emphasis; but had any one asked her, when she had ended, the meaning of what she had been reading, she could not have told. She was smitten with a feeling of ingratitude to Mr. Thornton, inasmuch as, in the morning, she had refused to accept the kindness he had shown her in making further inquiry from the medical men, so as to obviate any inquest being held. Oh! she was grateful! She had been cowardly and false, and had shown her cowardliness and falsehood in action that could not be recalled; but she was not ungrateful. It sent a glow to her heart, to know she could feel towards one who had reason to despise her. His cause for contempt was so just, that she should have respected him less if she had thought he did not feel contempt. It was a pleasure to feel how thoroughly she respected him. He could not prevent her doing that; it was the one comfort in all this misery. Late in the evening, the expected book arrived, "with Mr. Thornton's kind regards, and wishes to know how Mr. Hale is." "Say that I am much better, Dixon, but that Miss Hale--" "No, papa," said Margaret, eagerly--"don't say anything about me. He does not ask." "My dear child, how you are shivering!" said her father, a few minutes afterwards. "You must go to bed directly. You have turned quite pale!" Margaret did not refuse to go, though she was loth to leave her father alone. She needed the relief of solitude after a day of busy thinking, and busier repenting. But she seemed much as usual the next day; the lingering gravity and sadness, and the occasional absence of mind, were not unnatural symptoms in the early days of grief. And almost in proportion to her re-establishment in health, was her father's relapse into his abstracted musings upon the wife he had lost, and the past era in his life that was closed to him for ever.

Mr. Thornton sat on. He felt that his company gave pleasure to Mr. Hale; and was touched by the plaintive entreaty 'Don't go yet,' which his poor friend begged from time to time. He wondered that Margaret did not return; but it was with no view of seeing her that he lingered. He was deeply interested in all her father said. It was curious how Mr. Thornton's presence could unlock the secret thoughts which Mr. Hale kept shut up even from Margaret. Whether he was afraid of his own reaction to her keen sympathy, or whether he felt she would have shrunk from his doubts and fears at such a time - whatever the reason, he could unburden himself better to Mr. Thornton than to her. Mr. Thornton said very little; but every sentence he uttered added to Mr. Hale's regard for him. If he paused in the expression of some remembered agony, Mr. Thornton's two or three words would complete the sentence, and show how deeply he understood. Mr. Thornton, instead of being shocked by any doubts, seemed to have passed through that very stage of thought himself, and could suggest where to find the ray of light which should make the dark places plain. Busy man of action though he was, there was a deep religion binding him to God in his heart, through all his mistakes. They never spoke of such things again, as it happened; but this one conversation knit them together. And all this while, Margaret lay as still and white as death on the study floor! Her burden had been heavy and long carried; and she had been very meek and patient under it, till all at once her faith had given way, and she had groped in vain for help. The first symptom of returning life was a quivering about the lips - a mute attempt at speech, that sank into stillness. Then, feebly leaning on her arms to steady herself, Margaret gathered herself up, and rose. Her comb had fallen out of her hair; and with an intuitive desire to remove the traces of weakness, she sought for it, although in the course of the search, she had to sit down and recover strength. She tried to remember the details which had thrown her into such deadly fright; but she could not. She only understood two facts - that Frederick had been in danger of being pursued and detected in London, and that she had lied to save him. There was one comfort; her lie had gained him time. If the inspector came again tomorrow, after she had received a letter assuring her of her brother's safety, she would brave shame, and acknowledge before a crowded courtroom that she had withheld the truth. But if the inspector came before she heard from Frederick, why! she would tell that lie again; though how the words would come out without betraying her falsehood, she did not know. But it would gain time for Frederick. She was roused by Dixon's entrance into the room; she had just let out Mr. Thornton. He had hardly gone ten steps in the street, before a man came up to him, touching his hat. It was the police-inspector. Mr. Thornton had obtained for him his first situation in the police, and had heard from time to time of his progress, but they had not often met. At first Mr. Thornton did not remember him. 'My name is Watson - George Watson, sir-' 'Ah, yes! I recollect. You are getting on famously, I hear.' 'Yes, I ought to thank you, sir. But it is on a little matter of business I make so bold as to speak to you now. I believe you were the magistrate who attended to take down the deposition of a poor man who died in the Infirmary last night.' 'Yes,' replied Mr. Thornton. 'I went and heard some kind of a rambling statement, which the clerk said was of no great use. I'm afraid he was a drunken fellow, though he came to his death by violence at last. One of my mother's servants was engaged to him, I believe, and she is in great distress. What about him?' 'Why, sir, his death is oddly mixed up with somebody in the house I saw you coming out of just now; Mr. Hale's, I believe.' 'Yes?' said Mr. Thornton, looking into the inspector's face with sudden interest. 'Why, sir, I have got a pretty distinct chain of evidence, inculpating a gentleman who was walking with Miss Hale that night at the Outwood station, as the man who struck or pushed Leonards off the platform. But the young lady denies that she was there at the time.' 'Miss Hale denies she was there!' repeated Mr. Thornton, in an altered voice. 'Tell me, what evening was it? What time?' 'About six o'clock, on the evening of Thursday, the twenty-sixth.' They walked on, side by side, in silence for a minute or two. The inspector was the first to speak. 'You see, sir, there is like to be a coroner's inquest; and I've got a young man who is pretty sure that he saw Miss Hale at the station, walking about with a gentleman, not five minutes before one of the porters saw a scuffle, which he set down to some of Leonards' impudence - but which led to the fall which caused his death. And seeing you come out of the very house, sir, I thought I might make bold to ask - you see, it's awkward, and one doesn't like to doubt the word of a respectable young woman unless one has strong proof to the contrary.' 'And she denied having been at the station that evening!' repeated Mr. Thornton, in a low, brooding tone. 'Yes, sir, twice. I told her I should call again, and I was just on my way there after talking to the witness again when I saw you. I thought I would ask your advice, both as the magistrate who saw Leonards on his death-bed, and as the gentleman who got me my berth in the force.' 'You were quite right,' said Mr. Thornton. 'Don't take any steps till you have seen me again.' 'The young lady will expect me to call.' 'I only want to delay you an hour. It's now three. Come to my warehouse at four.' 'Very well, sir!' And they parted company. Mr. Thornton hurried to his warehouse, and, sternly forbidding his clerks to allow anyone to interrupt him, he went to his private room, and locked the door. Then he indulged himself in the torture of thinking it all over. How could he have lulled himself into pity by her tearful image, and have forgotten the savage, distrustful jealousy with which the sight of her and another man - at such an hour - in such a place - had filled him! How could one so pure have stooped from her decorous and noble manner of bearing! But was it decorous? He hated himself for the idea that forced itself upon him, just for an instant, and yet thrilled him with its old potency of attraction towards her image. And then this falsehood - how terrible her dread must be of some shame to be revealed. After all, the provocation given by such a man as Leonards might be more than enough to justify anyone stating the circumstances openly! How creeping and deadly that fear which could bow down the truthful Margaret to falsehood! He could almost pity her. What would be the end of it? She could not have considered; if there was an inquest and the young man came forward- Suddenly he started up. There should be no inquest. He would save Margaret. He would take the responsibility of preventing the inquest. He had heard the medical testimony from the surgeon the night before, and it was doubtful; the doctors had discovered an internal disease far advanced, and sure to prove fatal. They had stated that death might have been accelerated by the fall, or by the subsequent drinking and exposure to cold. If he had only known how Margaret would have become involved in the affair - if he had foreseen that she would have stained her whiteness by a falsehood, he could have saved her by a word; for the necessity of an inquest had hung in the balance only the night before. Miss Hale might love another - was indifferent and contemptuous to him - but he would yet do her faithful acts of service of which she should never know. He might despise her, but the woman whom he had once loved should be kept from shame; and shame it would be to lie in a public court. Very grey and stern did Mr. Thornton look, as he passed out through his wondering clerks. He was away about half an hour; and scarcely less stern did he look when he returned, although his errand had been successful. He wrote two lines on a slip of paper, put it in an envelope, and sealed it up. This he gave to one of the clerks, saying: 'I asked Watson - he who was a packer in the warehouse, and who went into the police - to call on me at four o'clock. But I need to see a gentleman from Liverpool before he leaves town. Give this note to Watson when he calls.' The note contained these words: 'There will be no inquest. Medical evidence not sufficient to justify it. Take no further steps. I have not seen the coroner; but I will take the responsibility.' 'Well,' thought Watson, 'it relieves me from an awkward job. None of my witnesses seemed certain of anything except the young woman. The porter had seen a scuffle; but when he found it was likely to bring him in as a witness, then it might not have been a scuffle, only a little larking, and Leonards might have jumped off the platform - he would not stick to anything. And Jennings, the shopman - well, I doubt if I could have got him up to an oath after he heard that Miss Hale denied it. It would have been a troublesome job. And now I must go and tell them they won't be wanted.' He accordingly went to Mr. Hale's that evening. Her father and Dixon had tried to persuade Margaret to go to bed; but neither of them knew the reason for her continued refusals to do so. Dixon had learnt only part of the truth. Margaret would not tell any human being of what she had said, and she did not reveal the fatal end to Leonards' fall. Mr. Hale was so miserably uneasy at her wan appearance that, at last, she consented to prepare for bed. She thought the inspector would not call again that night, as it was already past nine o'clock. 'You will go to bed soon, papa, won't you? Don't sit up alone!' What his answer was she did not hear; for there was a low ring at the door-bell. She kissed her father and glided rapidly downstairs. 'Don't come, Dixon; I will open the door. I know it is him - I must manage it myself.' 'As you please, miss!' said Dixon testily; 'but you are more dead than alive.' 'Am I?' said Margaret. Her eyes were aglow, and her cheeks flushed, though her lips were livid still. She opened the door to the Inspector, and led him into the study. 'You are late!' said she. 'Well?' She held her breath for the answer. 'I'm sorry to have given any unnecessary trouble, ma'am. After all, they've given up all thoughts of holding an inquest. I have had people to see, or I should have been here before now.' 'Then it is ended,' said Margaret. 'There is to be no further enquiry.' 'I believe I've got Mr. Thornton's note about me,' said the Inspector, fumbling in his pocket-book. 'Mr. Thornton's!' 'Yes! he's a magistrate - ah! here it is.' She could not read it. The words swam before her. But she held it, and looked at it as if she were intently studying it. 'I'm sure, ma'am, it's a great weight off my mind; for the evidence was so uncertain, you see. I met Mr. Thornton this morning, just as he was coming out of this house, and, as he's an old friend of mine, besides being the magistrate who saw Leonards last night, I made bold to tell him of my difficulty.' Margaret sighed deeply. She did not want to hear any more; she wished that the man would go. She forced herself to speak. 'Thank you for calling. It is very late.' As he held out his hand for the note, she continued, 'It is a cramped sort of writing. I could not read it; will you just read it to me?' He read it aloud to her. 'Thank you. You told Mr. Thornton that I was not there?' 'Oh, of course, ma'am. I'm sorry now that I acted upon information which seems to have been erroneous. At first the young shop-man was so positive; and now he says that he doubted all along, and hopes that his mistake won't have annoyed you so as to lose your custom. Good night, ma'am.' 'Good night.' She rang the bell for Dixon, who showed him out. 'It is all right!' said Margaret to Dixon; and then sped upstairs, entered her bedchamber, and bolted her door. She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her bed. She was too exhausted to think. Half an hour or more elapsed before her cramped position, and the chilliness, roused her. Then she began to recall, to wonder. Her first thought was that all this sickening alarm was over; that the strain was past. The next was a wish to remember every word of the Inspector's which related to Mr. Thornton. When had he seen him? What had Mr. Thornton said? What had he done? Until she could recollect the exact words of his note, her mind refused to go on. But the next conviction she came to was clear enough; Mr. Thornton had seen her close to Outwood station on the fatal night, and had been told of her denial that she was there. She stood as a liar in his eyes. She was a liar. She had no thought of penitence before God; nothing but chaos and night surrounded the one lurid fact that, in Mr. Thornton's eyes, she was degraded. She never dreamed that Mr. Thornton, or anyone, might find cause for suspicion in her accompanying her brother. It was the lie that shamed her. Her false, wrong act was known to him, and he had a right to judge her. 'Oh, Frederick! Frederick!' she cried, 'what have I not sacrificed for you!' Even when she fell asleep her thoughts were compelled to travel the same circle, only with exaggerated and monstrous circumstances of pain. When she awoke a new idea flashed upon her. Mr. Thornton had learnt her falsehood before he went to the coroner; so he had possibly done so in order to spare her the repetition of her denial. But she pushed this notion aside with the sick wilfulness of a child. If it were so, she felt no gratitude to him, as it only showed her how keenly he must have seen that she was disgraced already. She would have gone through the whole - she would have perjured herself again to save Frederick, rather than Mr. Thornton should have had the knowledge that prompted him to save her. What ill-fate brought him in contact with the Inspector? What made him be the very magistrate who received Leonards' deposition? What had Leonards said? For all she knew, Mr. Thornton might already be aware of the accusation against Frederick, through Mr. Bell. If so, he had striven to save the son who came to attend his mother's death-bed. And under this idea she could feel grateful - but not if his interference had been prompted by contempt. Oh! had anyone such just cause to feel contempt for her? Mr. Thornton, above all people, on whom she had looked down from her imaginary heights till now! She suddenly found herself at his feet, and was strangely distressed at her fall. She shrank from admitting to herself how much she valued his respect and good opinion. Whenever this idea presented itself to her at the end of a long avenue of thoughts, she turned away from it. Mr. Hale had given orders that she was not to be disturbed; but by and by the door opened cautiously, and Dixon put her head in. Seeing that Margaret was awake, she came forwards with a letter. 'Here's something to do you good, miss. A letter from Master Frederick.' 'Thank you, Dixon. How late it is!' She spoke very languidly, and let Dixon lay it on the counterpane before her. 'You want your breakfast, I'm sure. I will bring it you in a minute.' Margaret did not reply; she let Dixon go; she felt that she must be alone before she could open that letter. She opened it at last. The first thing that caught her eye was the date: two days previously, so he had written when he had promised. It was hastily written, but perfectly satisfactory. He had seen Henry Lennox, who knew enough of the case to shake his head over it, and tell him he had done a very daring thing in returning to England, with such an accusation hanging over him. But when they had talked it over, Mr. Lennox had acknowledged that there might be some chance of acquittal, if he could find credible witnesses. Otherwise it would be a great risk to stand trial. He would examine the case. 'It struck me,' wrote Frederick, 'that your introduction, little sister of mine, went a long way. Is it so? He made many inquiries, I can assure you. He seemed a sharp, intelligent fellow, and in a good practice too. I have just caught a packet on the point of sailing - I am off in five minutes. I may have to come back to England again on this business, so keep my visit secret. I shall send my father some rare old sherry - my dear love to him - God bless him. - here's my cab. P.S. What an escape that was!' Margaret turned to the envelope; it was marked 'Too late.' The letter had probably been trusted to some careless waiter, who had forgotten to post it. Oh! what slight cobwebs of chance stand between us and Temptation! Frederick had been safely out of England twenty, nay, thirty hours ago; and it was only seventeen hours since she had told a falsehood to baffle pursuit - which would have been in vain. How faithless she had been! If she had only dared to bravely tell the truth about herself, if not him, how light of heart she would now have felt! Not humbled before God; not degraded and abased in Mr. Thornton's sight. She caught herself up at this: here she was classing Mr. Thornton's low opinion alongside the displeasure of God. How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently? Why did she care what he thought in spite of all her pride? She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence. But Mr. Thornton - why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaken her at last? She sprang out of bed and prayed long and earnestly. It soothed and comforted her to open her heart. But as soon as she reviewed her position she found the sting was still there; that she was not good enough, nor pure enough to be indifferent to his low opinion; that the thought of his contempt stood between her and her sense of wrong-doing. She took her letter to her father as soon as she was dressed. There was so slight an allusion to their alarm at the station, that Mr. Hale did not pay it any attention. Indeed, beyond the mere fact of Frederick having sailed undiscovered, he did not gather much from the letter, because he was so uneasy about Margaret's pallid looks. She seemed continually on the point of weeping. 'You are sadly overdone, Margaret. It is no wonder. But you must let me nurse you now.' He made her lie down on the sofa, and went for a shawl to cover her with. His tenderness released her tears; and she cried bitterly. 'Poor child! - poor child!' said he fondly, as she lay with her face to the wall, shaking with sobs. After a while they ceased, and she began to wonder whether she dared tell her father of her trouble. But there were more reasons against it than for it. The only reason for it was the relief to herself; and against it was the thought that it would add greatly to her father's nervousness. He would be troubled by his son's having caused the death of a man, however unwittingly; and he would be distressed beyond measure at her own great fault - her lack of courage and faith - yet would feel the need to make excuses for her. No; she would keep her secret, and bear the burden alone. Alone she would ask for God's absolution. Alone she would endure her disgrace in Mr. Thornton's opinion. She was unspeakably touched by her father's tender efforts to talk of cheerful subjects. It was some months since he had been so talkative. At last she smiled; a poor, weak smile; but it gave him the truest pleasure. 'It seems strange to think that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores, which means sorrows,' said Margaret. 'Her mother was a Spaniard, I believe: that accounts for her religion. Her father is a stiff Presbyterian.' 'How young she is! Papa, we will go and see them in Spain.' He shook his head; but said, 'If you wish it, Margaret. Only let us come back here. It would seem unfair to your mother, who disliked Milton so much, and cannot go with us. No, dear; you shall go and see them, and bring me back a report of my Spanish daughter.' 'I won't go without you, Papa. Who will take care of you when I am gone?' 'I should like to know which of us is taking care of the other. But if you went, I should persuade Mr. Thornton to let me give him double lessons. We would work up the classics famously. You might go on and see Edith at Corfu, if you liked.' Margaret did not speak at once. Then she said gravely: 'Thank you, papa. But I don't want to go. We will hope that Mr. Lennox will manage so well that Frederick may bring Dolores to see us when they are married. As for Edith, the regiment won't remain much longer in Corfu.' Mr. Hale's cheerful subjects had come to an end, and he sat in silence, until Margaret said: 'Papa - did you see Nicholas Higgins at the funeral? He was there, and Mary too. Poor fellow! It was his way of showing sympathy. He has a good warm heart under his abrupt ways.' 'I am sure of it,' replied Mr. Hale. 'We will go and see them tomorrow, if you are strong enough.' 'Oh yes. I want to see them. We did not pay Mary - or rather, she refused to take any money, Dixon says. We will go so as to catch him just after his dinner, and before he goes to his work.' Towards evening Mr. Hale said: 'I half expected Mr. Thornton would have called. Yesterday he spoke of bringing a book which I wanted to see.' Margaret sighed. She knew he would not come. He would be too delicate to run the chance of meeting her, while her shame must be so fresh in his memory. The very mention of his name produced a relapse of her depressed, pre-occupied exhaustion. She gave way to listless languor. Suddenly it struck her that this was a strange way to reward her father for his watchful care of her all day. She sat up and offered to read aloud. He gladly accepted her proposal. She read well: but had anyone asked her afterwards what she had been reading, she could not have said. She was smitten with a feeling of ingratitude to Mr. Thornton; earlier, she had refused to admit the kindness he had shown her in consulting the medical men further, so as to make an inquest unnecessary. Oh! she was grateful! She had been cowardly and false, and could not alter those actions now; but she was not ungrateful. It sent a glow to her heart, to know how she could feel towards one who had reason to despise her. His cause for contempt was so just, that she should have respected him less if he had not felt contempt for her. It was a pleasure to feel how thoroughly she respected him. He could not prevent her doing that; it was the one comfort in all this misery. Late in the evening, the expected book was delivered, 'with Mr. Thornton's kind regards, and wishes to know how Mr. Hale is.' 'Say that I am much better, Dixon, but that Miss Hale-' 'No, papa,' said Margaret, eagerly, 'don't say anything about me. He does not ask.' 'My dear child, how you are shivering!' said her father. 'You must go to bed directly.' Margaret did not refuse. She needed the relief of solitude after a day of busy thinking, and busier repenting. But she seemed much as usual the next day; her gravity and sadness, and occasional absence of mind, were not unnatural symptoms in the early days of grief. Meanwhile her father relapsed into his abstracted musing upon the wife he had lost, and the past that was closed to him for ever.

North and South

Chapter 35: EXPIATION

"And it's hame, hame, hame, Hame fain wad I be." It needed the pretty light papering of the rooms to reconcile them to Milton. It needed more--more that could not be had. The thick yellow November fogs had come on; and the view of the plain in the valley, made by the sweeping bend of the river was all shut out when Mrs. Hale arrived at her new home. Margaret and Dixon had been at work two days, unpacking and arranging, but everything inside the house still looked in disorder; and outside a thick fog crept up to the very windows, and was driven in to every open door in choking white wreaths of unwholsome mist. "Oh, Margaret! are we to live here?" asked Mrs. Hale in blank dismay. Margaret's heart echoed the dreariness of the tone in which this question was put. She could scarcely command herself enough to say, "Oh, the fogs in London are sometimes far worse!" "But then you knew that London itself, and friends lay behind it. Here--well! we are desolate. Oh Dixon, what a place this is!" "Indeed, ma'am, I'm sure it will be your death before long, and then I know who'll--stay! Miss Hale, that's far too heavy for you to lift." "Not at all, thank you, Dixon," replied Margaret coldly. "The best thing we can do for mamma is to get her room quite ready for her to go to bed, while I go and bring her a cup of coffee." Mr. Hale was equally out of spirits, and equally came upon Margaret for sympathy. "Margaret, I do believe this is an unhealthy place. Only suppose that your mother's health or yours should suffer. I wish I had gone into some country place in Wales; this is really terrible," said he, going up to the window. There was no comfort to be given. They were settled in Milton, and must endure smoke and fogs for a season; indeed, all other life seemed shut out from them by as thick a fog of circumstance. Only the day before, Mr. Hale had been reckoning up with dismay how much their removal and fortnight at Heston had cost, and he found it had absorbed nearly all his little stock of ready money. No! here they were, and here they must remain. At night when Margaret realised this, she felt inclined to sit down in a stupor of despair. The heavy smoky air hung about her bedroom, which occupied the long narrow projection at the back of the house. The window, placed at the side of the oblong, looked at the blank wall of a similar projection, not above ten feet distant. It loomed through the fog like a great barrier to hope. Inside the room everything was in confusion. All their efforts had been directed to make her mother's room comfortable. Margaret sat down on a box, the direction card upon which struck her as having been written at Helstone--beautiful, beloved Helstone! She lost herself in dismal thought: but at last she determined to take her mind away from the present; and suddenly remembered that she had a letter from Edith which she had only half read in the bustle of the morning. It was to tell of their arrival at Corfu; their voyage along the Mediterranean--their music, and dancing on board ship; the gay new life opening upon her; her house with its trellised balcony, and its views over white cliffs and deep blue sea. Edith wrote fluently and well, if not graphically. She could not only seize the salient and characteristic points of a scene, but she could enumerate enough of indiscriminate particular for Margaret to make it out for herself. Captain Lennox and another lately married officer shared a villa, high up on the beautiful precipitous rocks overhanging the sea. Their days, late as it was in the year, seemed spent in boating or land-picnics; all out-of-doors, pleasure-seeking and glad, Edith's life seemed like the deep vault of blue sky above her, free--utterly free from fleck or cloud. Her husband had to attend drill, and she, the most musical officer's wife there, had to copy the new and popular tunes out of the most recent English music, for the benefit of the bandmaster; those seemed their most severe and arduous duties. She expressed an affectionate hope that, if the regiment stopped another year at Corfu, Margaret might come out and pay her a long visit. She asked Margaret if she remembered the day twelve-month on which she, Edith, wrote--how it rained all day long in Harley Street; and how she would not put on her new gown to go to a stupid dinner, and get it all wet and splashed in going to the carriage; and how at that very dinner they had first met Captain Lennox. Yes! Margaret remembered it well. Edith and Mrs. Shaw had gone to dinner. Margaret had joined the party in the evening. The recollection of the plentiful luxury of all arrangements, the stately handsomeness of the furniture, the size of the house, the peaceful, untroubled ease of the visitors--all came vividly before her, in strange contrast to the present time. The smooth sea of that old life closed up, without a mark left to tell where they had all been. The habitual dinners, the calls, the dancing evenings, were all going on, going on for ever, though her Aunt Shaw and Edith were no longer there; and she, of course, was even less missed. She doubted if any one of that old set ever thought of her, except Henry Lennox. He too, she knew, would strive to forget her, because of the pain she had caused him. She had heard him often boast of his power of putting any disagreeable thought far away from him. Then she penetrated farther into what might have been. If she had cared for him as a lover, and had accepted him, and this change in her father's opinions and consequent station had taken place, she could not doubt but that it would have been impatiently received by Mr. Lennox. It was a bitter mortification to her in one sense; but she could bear it patiently, because she knew her father's purity of purpose, and that strengthened her to endure his errors, grave and serious though in her estimation they were. But the fact of the world esteeming her father degraded, in its rough wholesale judgment, would have oppressed and irritated Mr. Lennox. As she realised what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was. They were at the lowest now; they could not be worse. Edith's astonishment and her Aunt Shaw's dismay would have to be met bravely, when their letters came. So Margaret rose up and began slowly to undress herself, feeling the full luxury of acting leisurely, late as it was, after all the past hurry of the day. She fell asleep, hoping for some brightness, either internal or external. But if she had known how long it would be before the brightness came, her heart would have sunk low down. The time of the year was most unpropitious to health as well as to spirits. Her mother caught a severe cold, and Dixon herself was evidently not well, although Margaret could not insult her more than by trying to save her, or by taking any care of her. They could hear of no girl to assist her; all were at work in the factories; at least, those who applied were well scolded by Dixon, for thinking that such as they could ever be trusted to work in a gentleman's house. So they had to keep a charwoman in almost constant employ. Margaret longed to send for Charlotte; but besides the objection of her being a better servant than they now could afford to keep, the distance was too great. Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr. Bell, or by the more immediate influence of Mr. Thornton. They were mostly of the age when many boys would be still at school, but, according to the prevalent, and, apparently well-founded notions of Milton, to make a lad into a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimated to the life of the mill, or office, or warehouse. If he were sent to even the Scotch Universities, he came back unsettled for commercial pursuits: how much more so if he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he could not be entered till he was eighteen? So most of the manufacturers placed their sons in situations at from fourteen or fifteen years of age, unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigour of the plant into commerce. Still there were some wiser parents; and some who had sense enough to perceive their own deficiencies, and strive to remedy them. Nay, there were a few no longer youths, but men in the prime of life, who had the stern wisdom to acknowledge their own ignorance, and to learn late what they should have learnt early. Mr. Thornton was perhaps the oldest of Mr. Hale's pupils. He was certainly the favourite. Mr. Hale got into the habit of quoting his opinions so frequently, and with such regard, that it became a little domestic joke to wonder what time, during the hour appointed for instruction, could be given to absolute learning, so much of it appeared to have been spent in conversation. Margaret rather encouraged this light, merry way of viewing her father's acquaintance with Mr. Thornton, because she felt that her mother was inclined to look upon this new friendship of her husband's with jealous eyes. As long as his time had been solely occupied with his books and his parishioners, as at Helstone, she had appeared to care little whether she saw much of him or not; but now that he looked eagerly forward to each renewal of his intercourse with Mr. Thornton, she seemed hurt and annoyed, as if he were slighting her companionship for the first time. Mr. Hale's over-praise had the usual effect of over-praise upon his auditors; they were a little inclined to rebel against Aristides being always called the Just. After a quiet life in a country parsonage for more than twenty years, there was something dazzling to Mr. Hale in the energy which conquered immense difficulties with ease; the power of the machinery of Milton, the power of the men of Milton, impressed him with a sense of grandeur, which he yielded to without caring to inquire into the details of its exercise. But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible? or, in the triumph of the crowded procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have no power to accompany on his march? It fell to Margaret's share to have to look out for a servant to assist Dixon, who had at first undertaken to find just the person she wanted to do all the rough work of the house. But Dixon's ideas of helpful girls were founded on the recollection of tidy elder scholars at Helstone school, who were only too proud to be allowed to come to the parsonage on a busy day, and treated Mrs. Dixon with all the respect, and a good deal more of fright, which they paid to Mr. and Mrs. Hale. Dixon was not unconscious of this awed reverence which was given to her; nor did she dislike it: it flattered her much as Louis the Fourteenth was flattered by his courtiers shading their eyes from the dazzling light of his presence. But nothing short of her faithful love for Mrs. Hale could have made her endure the rough independent way in which all the Milton girls, who made application for the servant's place, replied to her inquiries respecting their qualifications. They even went the length of questioning her back again; having doubts and fears of their own, as to the solvency of a family who lived in a house of thirty pounds a-year, and yet gave themselves airs, and kept two servants, one of them so very high and mighty. Mr. Hale was no longer looked upon as Vicar of Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate. Margaret was weary and impatient of the accounts which Dixon perpetually brought to Mrs. Hale of the behaviour of these would-be servants. Not but what Margaret was repelled by the rough uncourteous manners of these people; not but what she shrunk with fastidious pride from their hail-fellow accost, and severely resented their unconcealed curiosity as to the means and position of any family who lived in Milton, and yet were not engaged in trade of some kind. But the more Margaret felt impertinence, the more likely she was to be silent on the subject; and, at any rate, if she took upon herself to make inquiry for a servant, she could spare her mother the recital of all her disappointments and fancied or real insults. Margaret accordingly went up and down to butchers and grocers, seeking for a nonpareil of a girl; and lowering her hopes and expectations every week, as she found the difficulty of meeting with any one in a manufacturing town who did not prefer the better wages and greater independence of working in a mill. It was something of a trial to Margaret to go out by herself in this busy bustling place. Mrs. Shaw's ideas of propriety and her own helpless dependence on others, had always made her insist that a footman should accompany Edith and Margaret, if they went beyond Harley Street or the immediate neighbourhood. The limits by which this rule of her aunt's had circumscribed Margaret's independence had been silently rebelled against at the time: and she had doubly enjoyed the free walks and rambles of her forest life from the contrast which they presented. She went along there with a boundless fearless step, that occasionally broke out into a run, if she were in a hurry, and occasionally was stilled into perfect repose, as she stood listening to, or watching any of the wild creatures who sang in the leafy courts, or glanced out with their keen bright eyes from the low brushwood or tangled furze. It was a trial to come down from such motion or such stillness, only guided by her own sweet will, to the even and decorous pace necessary in streets. But she could have laughed at herself for minding this change, if it had not been accompanied by what was a more serious annoyance. The side of the town on which Crampton lay was especially a thoroughfare for the factory people. In the back streets around them there were many mills, out of which poured streams of men and women two or three times a day. Until Margaret had learnt the times of their ingress and egress, she was very unfortunate in constantly falling in with them. They came rushing along, with bold, fearless faces, and loud laughs and jests, particularly aimed at all those who appeared to be above them in rank or station. The tones of their unrestrained voices, and their carelessness of all common rules of street politeness, frightened Margaret a little at first. The girls, with their rough, but not unfriendly freedom, would comment on her dress, even touch her shawl or gown to ascertain the exact material; nay, once or twice she was asked questions relative to some article which they particularly admired. There was such a simple reliance on her womanly sympathy with their love of dress, and on her kindliness, that she gladly replied to these inquiries, as soon as she understood them; and half smiled back at their remarks. She did not mind meeting any number of girls, loud spoken and boisterous though they might be. But she alternately dreaded and fired up against the workmen, who commented not on her dress, but on her looks, in the same open, fearless manner. She, who had hitherto felt that even the most refined remark on her personal appearance was an impertinence, had to endure undisguised admiration from these outspoken men. But the very outspokenness marked their innocence of any intention to hurt her delicacy, as she would have perceived if she had been less frightened by the disorderly tumult. Out of her fright came a flash of indignation which made her face scarlet, and her dark eyes gather flame, as she heard some of their speeches. Yet there were other sayings of theirs, which, when she reached the quiet safety of home, amused her even while they irritated her. For instance, one day, after she had passed a number of men, several of whom had paid her the not unusual compliment of wishing she was their sweetheart, one of the lingerers added, "Your bonny face, my lass, makes the day look brighter." And another day, as she was unconsciously smiling at some passing thought, she was addressed by a poorly-dressed, middle-aged workman, with, "You may well smile, my lass; many a one would smile to have such a bonny face." This man looked so careworn that Margaret could not help giving him an answering smile, glad to think that her looks, such as they were, should have had the power to call up a pleasant thought. He seemed to understand her acknowledging glance, and a silent recognition was established between them whenever the chances of the day brought them across each other's paths. They had never exchanged a word; nothing had been said but that first compliment; yet somehow Margaret looked upon this man with more interest than upon any one else in Milton. Once or twice, on Sundays, she saw him walking with a girl, evidently his daughter, and, if possible, still more unhealthy than he was himself. One day Margaret and her father had been as far as the fields that lay around the town; it was early spring, and she had gathered some of the hedge and ditch flowers, dog-violets, lesser celandines, and the like, with an unspoken lament in her heart for the sweet profusion of the South. Her father had left her to go into Milton upon some business; and on the road home she met her humble friends. The girl looked wistfully at the flowers, and, acting on a sudden impulse, Margaret offered them to her. Her pale blue eyes lightened up as she took them, and her father spoke for her. "Thank yo, Miss. Bessy'll think a deal o' them flowers; that hoo will; and I shall think a deal o' yor kindness. Yo're not of this country, I reckon?" "No!" said Margaret, half sighing. "I come from the South--from Hampshire," she continued, a little afraid of wounding his consciousness of ignorance, if she used a name which he did not understand. "That's beyond London, I reckon? And I come fro' Burnleyways, and forty miles to th' North. And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and made kind o' friends in this big smoky place." Margaret had slackened her pace to a walk alongside of the man and his daughter, whose steps were regulated by the feebleness of the latter. She now spoke to the girl, and there was a sound of tender pity in the tone of her voice as she did so that went right to the heart of the father. "I'm afraid you are not very strong." "No," said the girl, "nor never will be." "Spring is coming," said Margaret, as if to suggest pleasant, hopeful thoughts. "Spring nor summer will do me good," said the girl quietly. Margaret looked up at the man, almost expecting some contradiction from him, or at least some remark that would modify his daughter's utter hopelessness. But instead, he added-- "I'm afeared hoo speaks the truth. I'm afeared hoo's too far gone in a waste." "I shall have a spring where I am boun' to, and flowers, and amaranths, and shining robes besides." "Poor lass, poor lass!" said her father in a low tone. "I'm none so sure o' that; but it's a comfort to thee, poor lass, poor lass. Poor father! it'll be soon." Margaret was shocked by his words--shocked but not repelled; rather attracted and interested. "Where do you live? I think we must be neighbours, we meet so often on this road." "We put up at nine Frances Street, second turn to th' left at after yo've past th' Goulden Dragon." "And your name? I must not forget that." "I'm none ashamed o' my name. It's Nicholas Higgins. Hoo's called Bessy Higgins. Whatten yo' asking for?" Margaret was surprised at this last question, for at Helstone it would have been an understood thing, after the enquiries she had made, that she intended to come and call upon any poor neighbour whose name and habitation she had asked for. "I thought--I meant to come and see you." She suddenly felt rather shy of offering the visit, without having any reason to give for her wish to make it, beyond a kindly interest in a stranger. It seemed all at once to take the shape of an impertinence on her part; she read this meaning too in the man's eyes. "I'm none so fond of having strange folk in my house." But then relenting, as he saw her heightened colour, he added "Yo're a foreigner, as one may say, and maybe don't know many folk here, and yo've given my wench here flowers out of yo'r own hand;--yo may come if yo like." Margaret was half amused, half-nettled at this answer. She was not sure if she would go where permission was given so like a favour conferred. But when they came to the turn into Frances Street, the girl stopped a minute, and said, "Yo'll not forget yo're to come and see us." "Aye, aye," said the father, impatiently, "hoo'll come. Hoo's a bit set up now, because hoo thinks I might ha' spoken more civilly; but hoo'll think better on it, and come. I can read her proud bonny face like a book. Come along, Bess; there's the mill bell ringing." Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends, and smiling at the man's insight into what had been passing in her mind. From that day Milton became a brighter place to her. It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling her to the town of her habitation. It was that in it she had found a human interest.

It needed more than the pretty papering of the rooms to reconcile them to Milton. The thick yellow November fogs had come on; and the view of the river was shut out when Mrs. Hale arrived at her new home. Margaret and Dixon had been at work for two days, unpacking and arranging, but everything still looked in disorder. Outside, fog crept up to the windows, and was driven in to every open door in choking, unwholesome white wreaths. 'Oh, Margaret! are we to live here?' asked Mrs. Hale in blank dismay. Margaret, dreary at heart, made herself say, 'Oh, the fogs in London are sometimes far worse!' 'But in London you knew that friends lay behind it. Here, we are desolate. Oh Dixon, what a place this is!' 'Indeed, ma'am, I'm sure it will be your death before long! Miss Hale, that's far too heavy for you to lift.' 'Not at all, thank you, Dixon,' replied Margaret coldly. 'The best thing we can do for mamma is to get her room ready for her to go to bed, while I bring her a cup of coffee.' Mr. Hale was equally out of spirits, and equally came to Margaret for sympathy. 'Margaret, I do believe this is an unhealthy place. I wish I had gone to Wales; this is really terrible,' said he. There was no comfort to be given. They were settled in Milton, and must endure smoke and fogs; indeed, all other life seemed shut out from them by as thick a fog of circumstance. Only the day before, Mr. Hale had been reckoning up with dismay how much their removal and fortnight at Heston had cost, and he found it had absorbed nearly all his ready money. No! here they were, and here they must remain. At night, Margaret felt inclined to sit down in a stupor of despair. The heavy smoky air hung about her bedroom, which occupied a long narrow projection at the back of the house. The window looked onto the blank wall of a similar projection, only ten feet distant. It loomed through the fog like a great barrier to hope. Inside the room everything was in confusion. All their efforts had been directed to make her mother's room comfortable. Margaret sat down on a box which had been labelled at Helstone - beautiful Helstone! She lost herself in dismal thought: but at last she remembered that she had a letter from Edith which she had only half read in the bustle. It told of their arrival at Corfu; their voyage along the Mediterranean - the music and dancing on board ship; her gay new life; her house with its trellised balcony, and its views over white cliffs and deep blue sea. Edith wrote fluently and well. Captain Lennox and another lately married officer shared a villa, high up on the beautiful cliffs. Their days seemed spent in boating and picnics, utterly free from any cloud. Edith's husband had to attend drill, and she had to copy out the newest English tunes for the benefit of the bandmaster; those were their most arduous duties. She expressed an affectionate hope that Margaret might come out and pay her a long visit. She asked if Margaret remembered the day a year ago when it rained in Harley Street; and how Edith would not put on her new gown to go to a stupid dinner, and get it all wet; and how at that very dinner they had first met Captain Lennox. Yes! Margaret remembered it well. The recollection of the handsome luxury of the house, the peaceful, untroubled ease there, came vividly before her, in strange contrast to the present. The smooth sea of that old life closed up, without a mark left to tell where it had been. The dinners, the shopping, the dancing, were all going on for ever, though her Aunt Shaw and Edith were no longer there; and she, of course, was even less missed. She doubted if any of that old set ever thought of her, except Henry Lennox. He too would strive to forget her, because of the pain she had caused him. Then she penetrated farther into what might have been. If she had accepted him, and this change in her father's opinions and station had taken place, she knew it would have been impatiently received by Mr. Lennox. She could bear the change, because she knew her father's purity of purpose, and that strengthened her to endure his errors, grave and serious though she thought they were. But it would have oppressed and irritated Mr. Lennox. As she realised what might have been, she grew thankful for what was. They were at the lowest now; they could not be worse. Edith's astonishment and her aunt Shaw's dismay would have to be met bravely, when their letters came. So Margaret rose up and began slowly to undress herself. She fell asleep hoping for some brightness, either internal or external. But if she had known how long it would be before the brightness came, her heart would have sunk low. The time of year was harmful to health as well as spirits. Her mother caught a severe cold, and Dixon was not well, although she would not allow Margaret to try and take care of her. They could find no servant girl to assist her; all were at work in the factories; or at least, Dixon did not approve of any who applied. So they had to keep a charwoman in almost constant employ. Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr. Bell or Mr. Thornton. They were mostly of the age when many boys would be still at school; but according to the prevalent notions of Milton, to make a lad into a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimatised to the life of the mill, or office, or warehouse. If he were sent to even the Scotch Universities, he came back unsettled for commerce; how much more so if he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he could not be entered till he was eighteen? So most of the manufacturers placed their sons in work at fourteen or fifteen, unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole vigour of the plant into commerce. Still there were some wiser parents; and some young men who saw their own deficiencies, and tried to remedy them. There were even some men in the prime of life, who had the stern wisdom to acknowledge their own ignorance, and to learn late what they should have learnt early. Mr. Thornton was perhaps the oldest of Mr. Hale's pupils. He was certainly the favourite. Mr. Hale got into the habit of quoting his opinions so frequently that it became a little domestic joke to wonder how much time in his lessons could have been be devoted to learning, so much of it appeared to have been spent in conversation. Margaret encouraged this merry way of viewing her father's acquaintance with Mr. Thornton, because she felt that her mother was inclined to be jealous of it. When his time had been solely occupied with his books and his parishioners, she had appeared to care little whether she saw much of him or not; but now that he looked eagerly forward to meeting Mr. Thornton, she seemed hurt and annoyed. After his quiet life in a country parsonage, Mr. Hale was somewhat dazzled by the energy which conquered immense difficulties with ease; the power of Milton's machinery, and the power of its men, impressed him with a sense of grandeur. But Margaret went less abroad among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown together with one or two of those who must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible? Or, in the triumph of the procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently lifted aside out of the way of the conqueror, whom they have no power to accompany on his march? Margaret had to look for a servant to help Dixon, who had at first undertaken to find one herself. But Dixon's ideas of helpful girls were founded on the recollection of tidy elder scholars at Helstone school, who treated her with respect, and even fright. Dixon could not endure the rough independent way in which the Milton girls who applied for the servant's place answered her inquiries. They even questioned her back again; having doubts of their own about the solvency of a family who lived in a house at thirty pounds a-year, and yet gave themselves airs, and kept such a high and mighty ladies' maid. Margaret was weary of Dixon's accounts of the behaviour of these would-be servants. True, she herself was repelled by the rough uncourteous manners of these people; she shrunk with fastidious pride from their hail-fellow accost, and resented their unconcealed curiosity as to the income of any family who lived in Milton without being engaged in trade. But if Margaret took it on herself to find a servant, she could spare her mother the recital of Dixon's disappointments and insults. So Margaret went to butchers and grocers, seeking for a suitable girl; and lowered her hopes every week, with the difficulty of finding anyone who did not prefer the better wages and greater independence of working in a mill. It was something of a trial to Margaret to go out by herself in this busy bustling place. Mrs. Shaw had always insisted that a footman should accompany her, if she went beyond Harley Street, and Margaret had silently rebelled: she had doubly enjoyed the free rambles of her forest life, from the contrast. There, she walked with a bounding fearless step, and occasionally broke out into a run, or halted, listening to and watching the wild creatures who sang in the leafy courts, or glanced out with keen eyes from the low brushwood or tangled furze. It was a trial to come down from this to the decorous pace necessary in the streets. But there was a more serious annoyance. In the streets around Crampton there were many mills, out of which poured streams of men and women two or three times a day. They came rushing along, with bold, fearless faces, and loud laughs and jests, aimed at all those above them in rank. Their unrestrained voices, and their carelessness of all common rules of politeness, frightened Margaret a little at first. The girls, with their rough, but not unfriendly freedom, would comment on her dress, and even touch her shawl or gown to check the exact material; once or twice they asked her about some article which they admired. There was such a simple reliance on her womanly sympathy with their love of dress, that she gladly replied to these inquiries, as soon as she understood them; and half-smiled back. She did not mind meeting any number of girls, loud spoken and boisterous though they might be. But she dreaded and fired up against the workmen, who commented not on her dress, but on her looks, in the same open fearless manner. She had always felt that any remark on her personal appearance was an impertinence; now she had to endure undisguised admiration from these outspoken men. Their very out-spokenness showed their innocence of any intention to hurt her, as she would have perceived if she had been less frightened. Out of her fright came a flash of indignation which made her face scarlet, and her dark eyes gather flame, as she heard some of their speeches. Yet there were other sayings of theirs, which, once back home, amused her. For instance, one day she passed several men who paid her the not unusual compliment of wishing she was their sweetheart. One of them added, 'Your bonny face, my lass, makes the day look brighter.' And another day, as she was unconsciously smiling at some thought, she was addressed by a poorly-dressed, middle-aged workman, with: 'You may well smile, my lass; many a one would smile to have such a bonny face.' This man looked so careworn that Margaret could not help giving him an answering smile, glad to think that her looks, such as they were, should have had the power to call up a pleasant thought. He seemed to understand her acknowledging glance, and a silent recognition was established between them whenever their paths crossed. They never exchanged a word beyond that first compliment; yet somehow Margaret looked upon this man with more interest than upon anyone else in Milton. Once or twice, on Sundays, she saw him walking with a girl, evidently his daughter, and, if possible, still more unhealthy than he was himself. One day Margaret and her father had been as far as the fields that lay around the town. It was now early spring, and she had gathered some of the hedge flowers, dog-violets, celandines, and the like, with an unspoken lament in her heart for the sweet profusion of the South. Her father left her to go into Milton upon business; and on the road home she met her humble friends. The girl looked wistfully at the flowers, and, acting on a sudden impulse, Margaret offered them to her. Her pale blue eyes lightened up as she took them, and her father spoke. 'Thank yo, Miss. Bessy'll think a deal o' them flowers; that hoo will; and I shall think a deal o' your kindness. Yo're not of this country, I reckon?' 'No!' said Margaret, half sighing. 'I come from the South - from Hampshire,' she continued, a little afraid of using a name which he did not understand. 'That's beyond London, I reckon? And I come fro' Burnley-ways, forty mile to th' North. And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and made kind o' friends in this big smoky place.' Margaret had slackened her pace to walk alongside the man, whose steps were slowed by the feebleness of his daughter. She now spoke to the girl, with a tender pity that went right to the father's heart. 'I'm afraid you are not very strong.' 'No,' said the girl, 'nor never will be.' 'Spring is coming,' said Margaret, as if to suggest hopeful thoughts. 'Spring nor summer will do me good,' said the girl quietly. Margaret looked up at the man, expecting some contradiction from him. But he said, 'I'm afeared hoo speaks truth. I'm afeared hoo's too far gone.' 'I shall have a spring where I'm bound to, and flowers, and amaranths, and shining robes besides,' said his daughter. 'Poor lass, poor lass!' said her father in a low tone. 'I'm none so sure o' that; but it's a comfort to thee, poor lass - it'll be soon.' Margaret was shocked, but not repelled; rather, interested. 'Where do you live? I think we must be neighbours, we meet so often.' 'We're at nine Frances Street, second to th' left after yo've past th' Goulden Dragon.' 'And your name?' 'It's Nicholas Higgins. Hoo's called Bessy Higgins. Whatten yo' asking for?' Margaret was surprised at this last question, for at Helstone it would have been an understood thing that she intended to call upon any poor neighbour whose name and address she had asked for. 'I thought - I meant to come and see you.' She suddenly felt rather shy of offering the visit, without having any reason for it beyond kindly interest. It seemed to be an impertinence; she read this too in the man's eyes. 'I'm none so fond of having strange folk in my house.' But then, as he saw her heightened colour, he added, 'Yo're a foreigner, and maybe don't know many folk here, and yo've given my wench here flowers; - yo may come if yo like.' Margaret was half-amused, half-nettled at this answer. She was not sure if she would go after all. But when they came to Frances Street, the girl stopped, and said, 'Yo'll not forget yo're to come and see us.' 'Aye, aye,' said the father, impatiently, 'hoo'll come. Hoo's a bit set up now, because hoo thinks I might ha' spoken more civilly; but hoo'll think better on it, and come. I can read her proud bonny face like a book. Come along, Bess; there's the mill bell ringing.' Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends, and smiling at the man's insight into what had been passing in her mind. From that day Milton became a brighter place to her. It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring that reconciled her to the town. It was that in it she had found a human interest.

North and South

Chapter 8: HOME SICKNESS

"For joy or grief, for hope or fear, For all hereafter, as for here, In peace or strife, in storm or shine." ANON. Edith went about on tip-toe, and checked Sholto in all loud speaking that next morning, as if any sudden noise would interrupt the conference that was taking place in the drawing-room. Two o'clock came; and they still sate there with closed doors. Then there was a man's footstep running down stairs; and Edith peeped out of the drawing-room. "Well, Henry?" said she, with a look of interrogation. "Well!" said he, rather shortly. "Come in to lunch!" "No, thank you, I can't. I've lost too much time here already." "Then it's not all settled?" said Edith, despondingly. "No! not at all. It never will be settled, if the 'it' is what I conjecture you mean. That will never be, Edith, so give up thinking about it." "But it would be so nice for us all," pleaded Edith. "I should always feel comfortable about the children, if I had Margaret settled down near to me. As it is, I am always afraid of her going off to Cadiz." "I will try, when I marry, to look out for a young lady who has a knowledge of the management of children. That is all I can do. Miss Hale will not have me. And I shall not ask her." "Then what have you been talking about?" "A thousand things you would not understand: Investments, and leases, and value of land." "Oh, go away if that's all. You and she will be unbearably stupid, if you've been talking all this time about such weary things." "Very well. I'm coming again to-morrow, and bringing Mr. Thornton with me, to have some more talk with Miss Hale." "Mr. Thornton! What has he to do with it?" "He is Miss Hale's tenant," said Mr. Lennox, turning away. "And he wishes to give up his lease." "Oh! very well. I can't understand details, so don't give them me." "The only detail I want you to understand is, to let us have the back drawing-room undisturbed, as it was to-day. In general, the children and servants are so in and out, that I can never get any business satisfactorily explained; and the arrangements we have to make to-morrow are of importance." No one ever knew why Mr. Lennox did not keep to his appointment on the following day. Mr. Thornton came true to his time; and after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour, Margaret came in looking very white and anxious. She began hurriedly: "I am so sorry Mr. Lennox is not here,--he could have done it so much better than I can. He is my adviser in this"---- "I am sorry that I came, if it troubles you. Shall I go to Mr. Lennox's chambers and try and find him?" "No, thank you. I wanted to tell you, how grieved I was to find that I am to lose you as a tenant. But, Mr. Lennox says, things are sure to brighten"---- "Mr. Lennox knows little about it," said Mr. Thornton quietly. "Happy and fortunate in all a man cares for, he does not understand what it is to find oneself no longer young--yet thrown back to the starting-point which requires the hopeful energy of youth--to feel one half of life gone, and nothing done--nothing remaining of wasted opportunity, but the bitter recollection that it has been. Miss Hale, would rather not hear Mr. Lennox's opinion of my affairs. Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others." "You are unjust," said Margaret, gently. "Mr. Lennox has only spoken of the great probability which he believes there to be of your redeeming--your more than redeeming what you have lost--don't speak till I have ended--pray don't." And collecting herself once more, she went on rapidly turning over some law papers, and statement of accounts in a trembling hurried manner. "Oh! here it is! and--he drew me out a proposal--I wish he was here to explain it--showing that if you would take some money of mine, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven pounds, lying just at this moment unused in the bank, and bringing me in only two and a half per cent.--you could pay me much better interest, and might go on working Marlborough Mills." Her voice had cleared itself and become more steady. Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she went on looking for some paper on which were written down the proposals for security; for she was most anxious to have it all looked upon in the light of a mere business arrangement, in which the principal advantage would be on her side. While she sought for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke. His voice was hoarse, and trembling with tender passion, as he said:-- "Margaret!" For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name. "Margaret!" Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered--panted out the words:-- "Take care.--If you do not speak--I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.--Send me away at once, if I must go;--Margaret!--" At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, even hiding it there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close. But they both kept silence. At length she murmured in a broken voice: "Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!" "Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness." After a minute or two he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters. "Do you remember, love?" he murmured. "And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?" "I remember how wrongly I spoke to you,--that is all." "Look here! Lift up your head. I have something to show you!" She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame. "Do you know these roses?" he said, drawing out his pocket-book, in which were treasured up some dead flowers. "No!" she replied, with innocent curiosity. "Did I give them to you?" "No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very probably." She looked at them, wondering for a minute, then she smiled a little as she said-- "They are from Helstone, are they not? I know the deep indentations round the leaves. Oh! have you been there? When were you there?" "I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine. I went there on my return from Havre." "You must give them to me," she said, trying to take them out of his hand with gentle violence. "Very well. Only you must pay me for them!" "How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?" she whispered, after some time of delicious silence. "Let me speak to her." "Oh, no! I owe to her,--but what will she say?" "I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, 'That man!'" "Hush!" said Margaret, "or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, 'That woman!'"

Edith went about on tip-toe, and quietened Sholto that next morning, as if any sudden noise would interrupt the conference that was taking place in the drawing-room. Two o'clock came; and they still sat there with closed doors. Then there was a man's footstep running downstairs; and Edith peeped out of her room. 'Well, Henry?' said she. 'Well!' said he, rather shortly. 'Come in to lunch!' 'No, thank you, I can't. I've lost too much time here already.' 'Then it's not all settled,' said Edith despondingly. 'No! It never will be settled, if the "it" is what I think you mean. That will never be, Edith, so give up thinking about it.' 'But it would be so nice for us all,' pleaded Edith. 'I should always feel comfortable about the children, if I had Margaret settled near me. I am afraid of her going off to Cadiz.' 'I will try, when I marry, to look out for a young lady who has knowledge of the management of children. That is all I can do. Miss Hale would not have me. And I shall not ask her.' 'Then what have you been talking about?' 'A thousand things you would not understand: investments, and leases, and value of land.' 'Oh, go away, if that's all - such weary things.' 'Very well. I'm coming again tomorrow, and bringing Mr. Thornton with me, to have some more talk with Miss Hale.' 'Mr. Thornton! What has he to do with it?' 'He is Miss Hale's tenant,' said Mr. Lennox, turning away. 'And he wishes to give up his lease.' 'Oh! very well. I can't understand details, so don't give them me.' 'The only detail I want you to understand is, to let us have the back drawing-room undisturbed, as it was today, with nobody coming in or out. The arrangements we have to make tomorrow are important.' No one ever knew why Mr. Lennox did not keep his appointment on the following day. Mr. Thornton came true to his time; and, after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour, Margaret came in looking very white and anxious. She began hurriedly: 'I am so sorry Mr. Lennox is not here - he could have done it so much better than I can. He is my adviser in this.' 'I am sorry that I came, if it troubles you. Shall I go to Mr. Lennox's chambers and try and find him?' 'No, thank you. I wanted to tell you how grieved I was to find that I am to lose you as a tenant. But, Mr. Lennox says, things are sure to brighten-' 'Mr. Lennox knows little about it,' said Mr. Thornton quietly. 'Happy and fortunate as he is, he does not understand what it is to find oneself no longer young - yet thrown back to the starting-point which requires the hopeful energy of youth; to feel half of life gone, and nothing done - nothing remaining of wasted opportunity, but the bitter recollection that it has passed. Miss Hale, I would rather not hear Mr. Lennox's opinion of my affairs. Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.' 'You are unjust,' said Margaret, gently. 'Mr. Lennox has only spoken of the great probability which he believes there to be of your redeeming - your more than redeeming what you have lost - pray don't speak till I have ended!' Collecting herself, she went on rapidly turning over some law papers and accounts in a trembling hurried manner. 'Oh! here it is! He drew me out a proposal - I wish he was here to explain it - showing that if you would take some money of mine, eighteen thousand and fifty-seven pounds, lying just at this moment unused in the bank, and bringing me in only two and a half per cent - you could pay me much better interest, and might go on working Marlborough Mills.' Her voice had cleared itself and become more steady. Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she went on looking for a paper on which were written down the proposals for security; for she was most anxious to have it all looked upon in the light of a mere business arrangement, in which the principal advantage would be on her side. While she sought for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke. His voice was hoarse, and trembling with tender passion, as he said- 'Margaret!' For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call. 'Margaret!' Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, bending almost to the table. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered: 'Take care. - If you do not speak - I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way. - Send me away at once, if I must go. - Margaret!' At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close. But they both kept silence. At length she murmured in a broken voice: 'Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!' 'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.' After a minute or two, he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters. 'Do you remember, love?' he murmured. 'And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?' 'I remember how wrongly I spoke to you - that is all.' 'Look here! Lift up your head. I have something to show you!' She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame. 'Do you know these roses?' he said, drawing out his pocket-book, in which were treasured up some dead flowers. 'Did I give them to you?' 'No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very probably.' She looked at them, wondering; then smiled as she said, 'They are from Helstone, are they not? I know the deep indentations round the leaves. Oh! have you been there?' 'I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine. I went there on my return from Havre.' 'You must give them to me,' she said, trying to take them out of his hand with gentle violence. 'Very well. Only you must pay me for them!' 'How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time of delicious silence. 'Let me speak to her.' 'Oh, no! I owe it to her - but what will she say?' 'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man!"' 'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, "That woman!"'

North and South

Chapter 52: "PACK CLOUDS AWAY"

"My own, my father's friend! I cannot part with thee! I ne'er have shown, thou ne'er hast known, How dear thou art to me." ANON. The elements of the dinner-parties which Mrs. Lennox gave, were these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the easy knowledge of the subjects of the day; and Mr. Henry Lennox, and the sprinkling of rising men who were received as his friends, brought the wit, the cleverness, the keen and extensive knowledge of which they knew well enough how to avail themselves without seeming pedantic, or burdening the rapid flow of conversation. These dinners were delightful; but even here Margaret's dissatisfaction found her out. Every talent, every feeling, every acquirement; nay, even every tendency towards virtue, was used up as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire, exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle. They talked about art in a merely sensuous way, dwelling on outside effects, instead of allowing themselves to learn what it has to teach. They lashed themselves up into an enthusiasm about high subjects in company, and never thought about them when they were alone; they squandered their capabilities of appreciation into a mere flow of appropriate words. One day, after the gentlemen had come up into the drawing-room, Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and addressed her in almost the first voluntary words he had spoken to her since she had returned to live in Harley Street. "You did not look pleased at what Shirley was saying at dinner." "Didn't I? My face must be very expressive," replied Margaret. "It always was. It has not lost the trick of being eloquent." "I did not like," said Margaret, hastily, "his way of advocating what he knew to be wrong--so glaringly wrong--even in jest." "But it was very clever. How every word told! Did you remember the happy epithets?" "Yes." "And despise them, you would like to add. Pray don't scruple, though he is my friend." "There! that is the exact tone in you, that"--she stopped short. He listened for a moment to see if she would finish her sentence; but she only reddened, and turned away; before she did so, however, she heard him say, in a very low, clear voice,-- "If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you do me the justice to tell me so, and so give me the chance of learning to please you." All these weeks there was no intelligence of Mr. Bell's going to Milton. He had spoken of it at Helstone as of a journey which he might have to take in a very short time from then; but he must have transacted his business by writing. Margaret thought, ere now, and she knew that if he could, he would avoid going to a place which he disliked, and moreover would little understand the secret importance which she affixed to the explanation that could only be given by word of mouth. She knew that he would feel that it was necessary that it should be done; but whether in summer, autumn, or winter, it would signify very little. It was now August, and there had been no mention of the Spanish journey to which he had alluded to Edith, and Margaret tried to reconcile herself to the fading away of this illusion. But one morning she received a letter, saying that next week he meant to come up to town; he wanted to see her about a plan which he had in his head; and, moreover, he intended to treat himself to a little doctoring, as he had begun to come round to her opinion, that it would be pleasanter to think that his health was more in fault than he, when he found himself irritable and cross. There was altogether a tone of forced cheerfulness in the letter, as Margaret noticed afterwards; but at the time her attention was taken up by Edith's exclamations. "Coming up to town! Oh dear! and I am so worn out by the heat that I don't believe I have strength enough in me for another dinner. Besides, everybody has left but our dear stupid selves, who can't settle where to go to. There would be nobody to meet him." "I'm sure he would much rather come and dine with us quite alone than with the most agreeable strangers you could pick up. Besides, if he is not well he won't wish for invitations. I am glad he has owned it at last. I was sure he was ill from the whole tone of his letters, and yet he would not answer me when I asked him, and I had no third person to whom I could apply for news." "Oh! he is not very ill, or he would not think of Spain." "He never mentions Spain." "No! but his plan that is to be proposed evidently relates to that. But would you really go in such weather as this?" "Oh, it will get cooler every day. Yes! Think of it. I am only afraid I have thought and wished too much--in that absorbing wilful way which is sure to be disappointed--or else gratified, to the letter, while in the spirit it gives no pleasure." "But that's superstitious, I'm sure, Margaret." "No, I don't think it is. Only it ought to warn me, and check me from giving way to such passionate wishes. It is a sort of 'Give me children, or else I die.' I'm afraid my cry is, 'Let me go to Cadiz, or else I die.'" "My dear Margaret! You'll be persuaded to stay there; and then what shall I do? Oh! I wish I could find somebody for you to marry here, that I could be sure of you!" "I shall never marry." "Nonsense, and double nonsense! Why, as Sholto says, you're such an attraction to the house, that he knows ever so many men who will be glad to visit here next year for your sake." Margaret drew herself up haughtily. "Do you know, Edith, I sometimes think your Corfu life has taught you----" "Well!" "Just a shade or two of coarseness." Edith began to sob so bitterly, and to declare so vehemently that Margaret had lost all love for her, and no longer looked upon her as a friend, that Margaret came to think that she had expressed too harsh an opinion for the relief of her own wounded pride, and ended by being Edith's slave for the rest of the day; while that little lady, overcome by wounded feeling, lay like a victim on the sofa, heaving occasionally a profound sigh, till at last she fell asleep. Mr. Bell did not make his appearance even on the day to which he had for a second time deferred his visit. The next morning there came a letter from Wallis, his servant, stating that his master had not been feeling well for some time, which had been the true reason of his putting off his journey; and that at the very time when he should have set out for London, he had been seized with an apoplectic fit; it was, indeed, Wallis added, the opinion of the medical men--that he could not survive the night; and more than probable, that by the time Miss Hale received this letter his poor master would be no more. Margaret received this letter at breakfast-time, and turned very pale as she read it; then, silently putting into Edith's hands, she left the room. Edith was terribly shocked as she read it, and cried in a sobbing, frightened, childish way, much to her husband's distress. Mrs. Shaw was breakfasting in her own room, and upon him devolved the task of reconciling his wife to the near contact into which she seemed to be brought with death, for the first time that she could remember in her life. Here was a man who was to have dined with them to-day lying dead or dying instead! It was some time before she could think of Margaret. Then she started up, and followed her upstairs into her room. Dixon was packing up a few toilette articles, and Margaret was hastily putting on her bonnet, shedding tears all the time, and her hands trembling so that she could hardly tie the strings. "Oh, dear Margaret! how shocking! What are you doing? Are you going out? Sholto would telegraph or do anything you like." "I am going to Oxford. There is a train in half-an-hour. Dixon has offered to go with me, but I could have gone by myself. I must see him again. Besides, he may be better, and want some care. He has been like a father to me. Don't stop me, Edith." "But I must. Mamma won't like it at all. Come and ask her about it, Margaret. You don't know where you're going. I should not mind if he had a house of his own; but in his Fellow's rooms! Come to mamma, and do ask her before you go. It will not take a minute." Margaret yielded, and lost her train. In the suddenness of the event, Mrs. Shaw became bewildered and hysterical, and so the precious time slipped by. But there was another train in a couple of hours; and after various discussions on propriety and impropriety, it was decided that Captain Lennox should accompany Margaret, as the one thing to which she was constant was her resolution to go, alone or otherwise, by the next train, whatever might be said of the propriety or impropriety of the step. Her father's friend, her own friend, was lying at the point of death; and the thought of this came upon her with such vividness, that she was surprised herself at the firmness with which she asserted something of her right to independence of action; and five minutes before the time of starting, she found herself sitting in a railway carriage opposite to Captain Lennox. It was always a comfort to her to think that she had gone, though it was only to hear that he had died in the night. She saw the rooms that he had occupied, and associated them ever after most fondly in her memory with the idea of her father, and his one cherished and faithful friend. They had promised Edith before starting, that if all had ended as they feared, they would return to dinner; so that long, lingering look around the room in which her father had died, had to be interrupted, and a quiet farewell taken of the kind old face that had so often come out with pleasant words, and merry quips and cranks. Captain Lennox fell asleep on their journey home; and Margaret could cry at leisure, and bethink her of this fatal year, and all the woes it had brought to her. No sooner was she fully aware of one loss than another came--not to supersede her grief for the one before, but to re-open wounds and feelings scarcely healed. But at the sound of the tender voices of her aunt and Edith, of merry little Sholto's glee at her arrival, and at the sight of the well-lighted rooms, with their mistress, pretty in her paleness and her eager sorrowful interest, Margaret roused herself from her heavy trance of almost superstitious hopelessness, and began to feel that even around her joy and gladness might gather. She had Edith's place on the sofa; Sholto was taught to carry Aunt Margaret's cup of tea very carefully to her; and by the time she went up to dress, she could thank God for having spared her dear old friend a long or a painful illness. But when night came-solemn night, and all the house was quiet, Margaret still sate watching the beauty of a London sky at such an hour, on such a summer evening; the faint pink reflection of earthly lights on the soft clouds that float tranquilly into the white moonlight, out of the warm gloom which lies motionless around the horizon. Margaret's room had been the day nursery of her childhood, just when it merged into girlhood, and when the feelings and conscience had been first awakened into full activity. On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine she ever read or heard of in romance, a life sans peur et sans reproche; it had seemed to her then that she had only to will, and such a life would be accomplished. And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic. Trusting to herself, she had fallen. It was a just consequence of her sin, that all excuses for it, all temptation to it, should remain for ever unknown to the person in whose opinion it had sunk her lowest. She stood face to face at last with her sin. She knew it for what it was; Mr. Bell's kindly sophistry that nearly all men were guilty of equivocal actions, and that the motive ennobled the evil, had never had much real weight with her. Her own first thought of how, if she had known all, she might have fearlessly told the truth, seemed low and poor. Nay, even now, her anxiety to have her character for truth partially excused in Mr. Thornton's eyes, as Mr. Bell had promised to do, was a very small and petty consideration, now that she was afresh taught by death what life should be. If all the world spoke, acted, or kept silence with intent to deceive,-if dearest interests were at stake, and dearest lives in peril,-if no one should ever know of her truth or her falsehood to measure out their honour or contempt for her by, straight alone where she stood, in the presence of God, she prayed that she might have strength to speak and act the truth for evermore.

The elements of Mrs. Lennox's dinner-parties were these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the easy knowledge of the subjects of the day, and Mr. Henry Lennox and his friends brought the wit and cleverness to the conversation. These dinners were delightful; but even here Margaret felt dissatisfied. Every talent, every feeling, even every tendency towards virtue was used as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle. They talked about art in a merely sensuous way, dwelling on effects, instead of allowing themselves to learn what it has to teach. They lashed themselves up into enthusiasm about high subjects in company, and never thought about them when they were alone; they squandered their capabilities of appreciation into a mere flow of appropriate words. One day, after the gentlemen had come into the drawing-room, Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret. 'You did not look pleased at what Shirley was saying at dinner.' 'Didn't I? My face must be very expressive,' replied Margaret. 'It always was.' 'I did not like,' said Margaret, hastily, 'his way of advocating what he knew to be wrong, even in jest.' 'But it was very clever. Do you remember the happy epithets?' 'Yes.' 'And you despise them, you would like to add. Pray don't scruple, though he is my friend.' 'There! that is the exact tone in you, that-' She stopped short. He waited to see if she would finish her sentence; but she only reddened, and turned away. He said in a very low, clear voice: 'If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you tell me so, and give me the chance of learning to please you?' All these weeks there was no news of Mr. Bell's going to Milton. He must have transacted his business there by writing, Margaret thought. She knew that if he could, he would avoid going to a place which he disliked, and would not understand the secret importance which she affixed to the explanation being given by word of mouth. It was now August, and he had not mentioned the Spanish journey; so Margaret tried to reconcile herself to the fading away of this illusion. But one morning she received a letter, saying that next week he meant to come up to town; he wanted to see her about a plan which he had; and to treat himself to a little doctoring, as he had begun to think that perhaps his health was more in fault than he, when he found himself irritable and cross. There was a tone of forced cheerfulness in the letter, as Margaret noticed afterwards; but at the time her attention was taken up by Edith's exclamations. 'Coming up to town! Oh, dear! and I am so worn out by the heat that I don't believe I have strength for another dinner. Besides, everybody has left town.' 'I'm sure Mr. Bell would much rather dine with us alone than with the most agreeable strangers, especially if he is not well. I am glad he has owned it at last. I was sure he was ill, and yet he would not answer me when I asked him.' 'Oh! he is not very ill, or he would not think of Spain.' 'He never mentions Spain.' 'No! but his plan must relate to that. Dear Margaret! You'll be persuaded to stay there; and then what shall I do? Oh! I wish I could find somebody for you to marry here!' 'I shall never marry.' 'Nonsense! Why, Cosmo says that he knows ever so many men who will be glad to visit here for your sake.' Margaret drew herself up haughtily. 'Do you know, Edith, I sometimes think your Corfu life has taught you just a shade of coarseness.' Edith began to sob so bitterly, and to declare so vehemently that Margaret had lost all love for her, that Margaret came to think that she had been too harsh in relieving her own wounded pride; and ended by being Edith's slave for the rest of the day, while that little lady lay like a victim on the sofa. Mr. Bell did not appear. There came a letter from Wallis, his servant, stating that his master had not been feeling well for some time, so had put off his journey; and that at the very time when he should have set out for London, he had been seized with an apoplectic fit. Wallis added the opinion of the medical men - that Mr. Bell could not survive the night; and that probably by the time Miss Hale received this letter his poor master would be no more. Margaret received the letter at breakfast-time, and turned very pale as she read it. Silently putting it into Edith's hands, she left the room. Edith was terribly shocked, and cried in a sobbing, frightened, childish way, much to her husband's distress. It was the first time his wife had been brought into near contact with death. Here was a man who was to have dined with them today, lying dead or dying! It was some time before Edith could think of Margaret. When she went up to her room, Dixon was packing, and Margaret was hastily putting on her bonnet, her hands trembling so that she could hardly tie the strings. 'Oh, dear Margaret! how shocking! Are you going out? Cosmo would telegraph or do anything you like.' 'I am going to Oxford. There is a train in half-an-hour. Dixon has offered to go with me. I must see Mr. Bell again. Besides, he may be better, and want some care. He has been like a father to me. Don't stop me, Edith.' 'But Mamma won't like it. Come and ask her about it, Margaret. You don't know where you're going. In his Fellow's rooms! Come to mamma, and do ask her.' Margaret yielded, and missed her train. Mrs. Shaw became bewildered and hysterical, and precious time slipped by. But there was another train in a couple of hours; and after various discussions on propriety, it was decided that Captain Lennox should accompany Margaret by the next train. Her father's friend, her own friend, was lying at the point of death; and this thought made her assert firmly her right to independence of action. It was always a comfort to her to think that she had gone, though it was only to hear that he had died in the night. She saw the rooms that he had occupied, and associated them ever after most fondly in her memory with the idea of her father, and his cherished and faithful friend. They had promised Edith that if all had ended as they feared, they would return to dinner; so that Margaret's lingering look around the room, in which her father had died, had to be interrupted, and a quiet farewell taken of the kind old face. Captain Lennox fell asleep on their journey home; and Margaret could cry at leisure, and bethink her of this fatal year, and all its woes. One grief had come after another, re-opening wounds and feelings scarcely healed. But at the sound of the tender voices of her aunt and Edith, and merry little Sholto's glee at her arrival, Margaret roused herself from her heavy trance. She had Edith's place on the sofa; Sholto was taught to carry aunt Margaret's cup of tea very carefully to her; and by the time she went up to dress, she could thank God for having spared her dear old friend a long or painful illness. When solemn night came, and all the house was quiet, Margaret still sat watching the beauty of a London sky on such a summer evening; the faint pink reflection of earthly lights on the soft clouds that float into the white moonlight. This room had been the nursery of her childhood, just when her feelings and conscience had been awakened into full activity. On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine; it had seemed to her then that she had only to will, and such a life would be accomplished. And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic. Trusting to herself, she had fallen. It was only just that all excuses for her sin should remain for ever unknown to the person in whose opinion it had sunk her lowest. She knew her sin for what it was; Mr. Bell's kindly sophistry that nearly all men were guilty of such sins had never had much weight with her. Her anxiety to have her character excused in Mr. Thornton's eyes, as Mr. Bell had promised to do, was a very small and petty consideration, now that she was afresh taught by death what life should be. She stood alone, in the presence of God, and prayed that she might have strength to speak and act the truth for evermore.

North and South

Chapter 48: "NE'ER TO BE FOUND AGAIN"

"Here we go up, up, up; And here we go down, down, downee!" NURSERY SONG. Meanwhile at Milton the chimneys smoked, the ceaseless roar and mighty beat and dazzling whirr of machinery struggled and strove perpetually. Senseless and purposeless were wood and iron and steam in their endless labours; but the persistence of their monotonous work was rivalled in tireless endurance by the strong crowds, who, with sense and with purpose, were busy and restless in seeking after--What? In the streets there were few loiterers,--none walking for mere pleasure; every man's face was set in lines of eagerness or anxiety; news was sought for with fierce avidity; and men jostled each other aside in the Mart and in the Exchange, as they did in life, in the deep selfishness of competition. There was gloom over the town. Few came to buy, and those who did were looked at suspiciously by the sellers; for credit was insecure, and the most stable might have their fortunes affected by the sweep in the great neighbouring port among the shipping houses. Hitherto there had been no failures in Milton; but from the immense speculations that had come to light in making a bad end in America, and yet nearer home, it was known that some Milton houses of business must suffer so severely that every day men's faces asked, if their tongues did not, "What news? Who is gone? How will it affect me?" And if two or three spoke together, they dwelt rather on the names of those who were safe than dared to hint at those likely, in their opinion, to go: for idle breath may, at such times, cause the downfall of some who might otherwise weather the storm; and one going down drags many after. "Thornton is safe," say they. "His business is large--extending every year; but such a head as he has, and so prudent with all his daring!" Then one man draws another aside, and walks a little apart, and with head inclined into his neighbour's ear, he says, "Thornton's business is large; but he has spent his profits in extending it; he has no capital laid by; his machinery is new within these two years, and has cost him--we won't say what!--a word to the wise!" But that Mr. Harrison was a croaker,--a man who had succeeded to his father's trade-made fortune, which he had feared to lose by altering his mode of business to any having a larger scope; yet he grudged every penny made by others more daring and far-sighted. But the truth was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed. He felt it acutely in his vulnerable point--his pride in the commercial character which he had established for himself. Architect of his own fortunes, he attributed this to no special merit or qualities of his own, but to the power, which he believed that commerce gave to every brave, honest, and persevering man, to raise himself to a level from which he might see and read the great game of worldly success, and honestly, by such far-sightedness, command more power and influence than in any other mode of life. Far away, in the East and in the West, where his person would never be known, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, and his word pass like gold. That was the idea of merchant-life with which Mr. Thornton had started. "Her merchants be like princes," said his mother, reading the text aloud, as if it were a trumpet-call to invite her boy to the struggle. He was but like many others--men, women, and children--alive to distant, and dead to near things. He sought to possess the influence of a name in foreign countries and far-away seas,--to become the head of a firm that should be known for generations; and it had taken him long silent years to come even to a glimmering of what he might be now, to-day, here in his own town, his own factory, among his own people. He and they had led parallel lives--very close, but never touching--till the accident (or so it seemed) of his acquaintance with Higgins. Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual of the masses around him, and (take notice) out of the character of master and workman, in the first instance, they had each begun to recognise that "we have all of us one human heart." It was the fine point of the wedge; and until now, when the apprehension of losing his connection with two or three of the workmen whom he had so lately begun to know as men,--of having a plan or two, which were experiments lying very close to his heart, roughly nipped off without trial,--gave a new poignancy to the subtle fear that came over him from time to time; until now, he had never recognised how much and how deep was the interest he had grown of late to feel in his position of manufacturer, simply because it led him into such close contact, and gave him the opportunity of so much power, among a race of people strange, shrewd, ignorant; but, above all, full of character and strong human feeling. He reviewed his position as a Milton manufacturer. The strike a year and a half ago,--or more, for it was now untimely wintry weather, in a late spring,--that strike, when he was young, and he now was old--had prevented his completing some of the large orders he had then on hand. He had locked up a good deal of his capital in new and expensive machinery, and he had also bought cotton largely, for the fulfilment of these orders, taken under contract. That he had not been able to complete them, was owing in some degree to the utter want of skill on the part of the Irish hands whom he had imported; much of their work was damaged and unfit to be sent forth by a house which prided itself on turning out nothing but first-rate articles. For many months, the embarrassment caused by the strike had been an obstacle in Mr. Thornton's way; and often, when his eye fell on Higgins, he could have spoken angrily to him without any present cause, just from feeling how serious was the injury that had arisen from this affair in which he was implicated. But when he became conscious of this sudden, quick resentment, he resolved to curb it. It would not satisfy him to avoid Higgins; he must convince himself that he was master over his own anger, by being particularly careful to allow Higgins access to him, whenever the strict rules of business, or Mr. Thornton's leisure permitted. And by-and-bye, he lost all sense of resentment in wonder how it was, or could be, that two men like himself and Higgins, living by the same trade, working in their different ways at the same object, could look upon each other's position and duties in so strangely different a way. And thence arose that intercourse, which, though it might not have the effect of preventing all future clash of opinion and action, when the occasion arose, would, at any rate, enable both master and man to look upon each other with far more charity and sympathy, and bear with each other more patiently and kindly. Besides this improvement of feeling, both Mr. Thornton and his workmen found out their ignorance as to positive matters of fact, known heretofore to one side, but not to the other. But now had come one of those periods of bad trade, when the market falling brought down the value of all large stocks; Mr. Thornton's fell to nearly half. No orders were coming in; so he lost the interest of the capital he had locked up in machinery; indeed, it was difficult to get payment for the orders completed; yet there was the constant drain of expenses for working the business. Then the bills became due for the cotton he had purchased; and money being scarce, he could only borrow at exorbitant interest, and yet he could not realise any of his property. But he did not despair; he exerted himself day and night to foresee and to provide for all emergencies; he was as calm and gentle to the women in his home as ever; to the workmen in his mill he spoke not many words, but they knew him by this time; and many a curt, decided answer was received by them rather with sympathy for the care they saw pressing upon him, than with the suppressed antagonism which had formerly been smouldering, and ready for hard words and hard judgments on all occasions. "Th' measter's a deal to potter him," said Higgins, one day, as he heard Mr. Thornton's short, sharp inquiry, why such a command had not been obeyed; and caught the sound of the suppressed sigh which he heaved in going past the room where some of the men were working. Higgins and another man stopped over-hours that night, unknown to any one, to get the neglected piece of work done; and Mr. Thornton never knew but that the overlooker, to whom he had given the command in the first instance, had done it himself. "Eh! I reckon I know who'd ha' been sorry for to see our measter sitting so like a piece o' grey calico! Th' oud parson would ha' fretted his woman's heart out, if he'd seen the woeful looks I have seen on our measter's face," thought Higgins, one day, as he was approaching Mr. Thornton in Marlborough Street. "Measter," said he, stopping his employer in his quick resolved walk, and causing that gentleman to look up with a sudden annoyed start, as if his thoughts had been far away. "Have yo' heerd aught of Miss Marget lately?" "Miss--who?" replied Mr. Thornton. "Miss Marget--Miss Hale--th' oud parson's daughter--yo' known who I mean well enough--if yo'll only think a bit--" (there was nothing disrespectful in the tone in which this was said). "Oh yes!" and suddenly the wintry frost-bound look of care had left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown all anxiety away from his mind; and though his mouth was as much compressed as before, his eyes smiled out benignly on his questioner. "She's my landlord now, you know, Higgins. I hear of her through her agent here, every now and then. She's well and among friends--thank you, Higgins." That "thank you" lingered after the other words, and yet came with so much warmth of feeling, let in a new light to the acute Higgins. It might be but a will-o'-th'-wisp, but he thought he would follow it and ascertain whither it would lead him. "And she's not getten married, measter?" "Not yet." The face was cloudy once more. "There is some talk of it, as I understand, with a connection of the family." "Then she'll not be for coming to Milton again, I reckon." "No!" "Stop a minute, measter." Then going up confidentially close, he said, "Is th' young gentleman cleared?" He enforced the depth of his intelligence by a wink of the eye, which only made things more mysterious to Mr. Thornton. "Th' young gentleman, I mean--Master Frederick, they ca'ed him--her brother as was over here, yo' known." "Over here." "Ay, to be sure, at th' missus's death. Yo' need na be feared of my telling; for Mary and me, we knowed it all along, only we held our peace, for we got it through Mary working in th' house." "And he was over. It was her brother." "Sure enough, and I reckoned yo' knowed it, or I'd never ha' let on. Yo' knowed she had a brother?" "Yes, I know all about him. And he was over at Mrs. Hale's death?" "Nay! I'm not going for to tell more. I've maybe getten them into mischief already, for they kept it very close. I nobbut wanted to know if they'd getten him cleared?" "Not that I know of. I know nothing. I only hear of Miss Hale, now, as my landlord, and through her lawyer." He broke off from Higgins, to follow the business on which he had been bent when the latter first accosted him; leaving Higgins baffled in his endeavour. "It was her brother," said Mr. Thornton to himself. "I am glad. I may never see her again; but it is a comfort--a relief--to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!" It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes; which were growing ever gloomier and more gloomy. His agent had largely trusted a house in the American trade, which went down, along with several others, just at this time, like a pack of cards, the fall of one compelling other failures. What were Mr. Thornton's engagements? Could he stand? Night after night he took books and papers into his own private room, and sate up there long after the family were gone to bed. He thought no one knew of this occupation of the hours he should have spent in sleep. One morning, when daylight was stealing in through the crevices of his shutters, and he had never been in bed, and, in hopeless indifference of mind, was thinking that he could do without the hour or two of rest, which was all that he should be able to take before the stir of daily labour began again, the door of his room opened, and his mother stood there, dressed as she had been the day before. She had never laid herself down to slumber any more than he. Their eyes met. Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan, from long watching. "Mother! why are you not in bed?" "Son John," said she, "do you think I can sleep with an easy mind, while you keep awake full of care? You have not told me what your trouble is; but sore trouble you have had these many days past." "Trade is bad." "And you dread----" "I dread nothing," replied he, drawing up his head, and holding it erect. "I know that no man will suffer by me. That was my anxiety." "But how do you stand? Shall you--will it be a failure?" her steady voice trembling in an unwonted manner. "Not a failure. I must give up business, but I pay all men. I might redeem myself--I am sorely tempted--" "How? Oh, John! keep up your name--try all risks for that. How redeem it?" "By a speculation offered to me, but full of risk; but, if successful, placing me high above water-mark, so that no one need ever know the strait I am in. Still, if it fails--" "And if it fails," said she, advancing, and laying her hand on his arm, her eyes full of eager light. She held her breath to hear the end of his speech. "Honest men are ruined by a rogue," said he gloomily. "As I stand now, my creditors' money is safe--every farthing of it; but I don't know where to find my own--it may be all gone, and I penniless at this moment. Therefore, it is my creditors' money that I should risk." "But if it succeeded, they need never know. Is it so desperate a speculation? I am sure it is not, or you would never have thought of it. If it succeeded--" "I should be a rich man, and my peace of conscience would be gone!" "Why! You would have injured no one." "No; but I should have run the risk of ruining many for my own paltry aggrandisement. Mother, I have decided! You won't much grieve over our leaving this house, shall you, dear mother?" "No! but to have you other than what you are will break my heart. What can you do?" "Be always the same John Thornton in whatever circumstances; endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh. But it is hard, mother. I have worked and planned. I have discovered new powers in my situation too late--and now all is over. I am too old to begin again with the same heart. It is hard, mother." He turned away from her, and covered his face with his hands. "I can't think," said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, "how it comes about. Here is my boy--good son, just man, tender heart--and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares no more for his affection than if he had been a common man; he labours, and his labour comes to nought. Other people grow rich, and hold their paltry names high and dry above shame." "Shame never touched me," said he, in a low tone: but she went on. "I sometimes have wondered where justice was gone to, and now I don't believe there is such a thing in the world--now you are come to this; you, my own John Thornton, though you and I may be beggars together--my own dear son!" She fell upon his neck, and kissed him through her tears. "Mother!" said he, holding her gently in his arms, "who has sent me my lot in life, both of good and evil?" She shook her head. She would have nothing to do with religion just then. "Mother," he went on, seeing that she would not speak. "I, too, have been rebellious; but I'm striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helped me when I was a child. Then you said many good words--when my father died, and we were sometimes sorely short of comforts--which we shall never be now; you said brave, noble, trustful words then, mother, which I have never forgotten, though they may have lain dormant. Speak to me again in the old way, mother. Do not let us have to think that the world has too much hardened our hearts. If you would say the old good words, it would make me feel something of the pious simplicity of my childhood. I say them to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all the cares and trials you have had to bear." "I have had a many," said she, sobbing, "but none so sore as this. To see you cast down from your rightful place! I could say it for myself, John, but not for you. Not for you! God has seen fit to be very hard on you, very." She shook with the sobs that come so convulsively when an old person weeps. The silence around her struck her at last; and she quieted herself to listen. No sound. She looked. Her son sate by the table, his arms thrown half across it, his head bent face downwards. "Oh, John!" she said, and she lifted his face up. Such a strange, pallid look of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this look was the forerunner of death; but as the rigidity melted out of the countenance and the natural colour returned, and she saw that he was himself once again, all worldly mortification sank to nothing before the consciousness of the great blessing that he himself, by his simple existence was to her. She thanked God for this, and this alone, with a fervour that swept away all rebellious feelings from her mind. He did not speak readily; but he went and opened the shutters, and let the ruddy light of dawn flood the room. But the wind was in the east; the weather was piercing cold, as it had been for weeks; there would be no demand for light summer goods this year. That hope for the revival of trade must utterly be given up. It was a great comfort to have had this conversation with his mother; and to feel sure that, however they might henceforward keep silence on all these anxieties, they yet understood each other's feelings, and were, if not in harmony, at least in discord with each other, in their way of viewing them. Fanny's husband was vexed at Thornton's refusal to take any share in the speculation which he had offered to him, and withdrew from any possibility of being supposed able to assist him with the ready money, which indeed the speculator needed for his own venture. There was nothing for it at last, but that which Mr. Thornton had dreaded for many weeks; he had to give up the business in which he had been so long engaged with so much honour and success; and look out for a subordinate situation. Marlborough Mills and the adjacent dwelling were held under a long lease; they must if possible be relet. There was an immediate choice of situations offered to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Hamper would have been only too glad to have secured him as a steady and experienced partner for his son, whom he was setting up with a large capital in a neighbouring town; but the young man was half-educated as regarded information, and wholly uneducated as regarded any other responsibility than that of getting money, and brutalised both as to his pleasures and his pains. Mr. Thornton declined having any share in a partnership, which would frustrate what few plans he had that survived the wreck of his fortunes. He would sooner consent to be only a manager, where he could have a certain degree of power beyond the mere money-getting part, than have to fall in with the tyrannical humours of a moneyed partner with whom he felt sure that he should quarrel in a few months. So he waited, and stood on one side with profound humility, as the news swept through the Exchange of the enormous fortune which his brother-in-law had made by his daring speculation. It was a nine days' wonder. Success brought with it its worldly consequence of extreme admiration. No one was considered so wise and far-seeing as Mr. Watson.

Meanwhile at Milton, the chimneys smoked, the ceaseless roar and mighty beat and whirl of machinery strove perpetually. Senseless and purposeless were wood and iron and steam in their endless labours; but they were rivalled in tireless endurance by the strong crowds, who, with sense and with purpose, were restlessly seeking after - what? In the streets there were few loiterers - none walking for mere pleasure. Men sought news with fierce avidity; and jostled each other aside in the Exchange, as they did in life, in the deep selfishness of competition. There was gloom over the town. Few came to buy, and those who did were looked at suspiciously by the sellers; for credit was insecure, and the most stable might have their fortunes affected by the sweep in the great neighbouring port among the shipping houses. Hitherto there had been no failures in Milton; but, from the immense speculations that had made a bad end in America, and nearer home, it was known that some Milton houses of business must suffer severely. When men spoke together, they dwelt rather on the names of those who were safe than those who were likely to go under; for at such times idle rumour may bring down some who might otherwise weather the storm; and one going down drags many after. 'Thornton is safe,' say they. 'His business is large - extending every year; but he's prudent for all his daring.' Then one man draws another aside, and says quietly, 'Thornton's business is large; but he has spent his profits in extending it and buying new machinery; he has no capital laid by.' The truth was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed. He felt it acutely. It wounded his pride in the commercial character which he had established for himself. He attributed this to no special merit of his own, but to the power which he believed that commerce gave to every honest and persevering man to raise himself to a position of influence. Far away, East and West, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, and his word pass like gold. That was his idea of merchant-life. He was like many others - alive to distant, and dead to near things. He sought to become the head of a firm that should be known abroad for generations; and it had taken him long silent years to come even to a glimmering of what he might be, even in his own town, among his own people. He and they had led parallel lives - close, but never touching - till his acquaintance with Higgins. Once brought face to face, master and workman had begun to recognise that 'we have all of us one human heart.' It was the fine point of the wedge. Now, the apprehension of losing some of the workmen whom he had so lately begun to know - and of having plans, very close to his heart, roughly nipped off without trial - gave a new poignancy to the subtle fear that came over him from time to time. Until now, he had never recognised how deep was the interest he had lately grown to feel in his position as manufacturer, simply because it led him into such close contact, and gave him so much power, among a race of people strange, shrewd, ignorant; but full of character and strong human feeling. He reviewed his position. The strike more than a year and a half ago, when he was young, had prevented his completing some of the large orders he had then on hand. He had locked up a good deal of his capital in new and expensive machinery, and he had also bought cotton for the fulfilment of these orders. He had not been able to complete them partly due to the utter lack of skill of the imported Irish hands, whose work was unfit to be sent forth by a house which prided itself on turning out only first-rate articles. For many months, the embarrassment caused by the strike had been an obstacle in Mr. Thornton's way; and when he saw Higgins, he could have spoken angrily to him just because of this sense of injury. But when he became conscious of this resentment, he resolved to curb it. He must convince himself that he was master over his own anger, by being particularly careful to allow Higgins access to him whenever business permitted. And by-and-bye, he lost all sense of resentment in wonder how it was that two men like himself and Higgins, living by the same trade, working at the same object, could look upon each other's position and duties in so strangely different a way. Their meetings did not prevent all future clash of opinion, but they enabled both master and man to treat each other with far more sympathy and patience. In addition, both Mr. Thornton and his workmen discovered their ignorance about facts known to one side, but not to the other. But now had come one of those periods of bad trade, when the falling market brought down the value of all large stocks. Mr. Thornton's fell to nearly half. No orders were coming in, so he lost the interest of the capital he had locked up in machinery; indeed, it was difficult to get payment for the orders he completed; yet there was the constant drain of expenses. Then the bills became due for the cotton he had purchased; and money being scarce, he could only borrow at exorbitant interest. He did not despair. He exerted himself day and night to foresee and provide for all emergencies. He was as calm and gentle to the women in his home as ever; to the workmen in his mill he spoke little, but they knew him by this time; and many a curt answer was received by them with sympathy for the care they saw pressing upon him, rather than their previous antagonism. 'Th' measter's a deal to potter him,' said Higgins one day, as he heard Mr. Thornton's sharp inquiry as to why a command had not been obeyed; and caught the sound of his suppressed sigh. Higgins and another man stopped over-hours that night, unknown to anyone, to get the neglected piece of work done; and Mr. Thornton assumed that the overlooker, to whom he had given the command, had done it himself. 'Eh! I reckon I know who'd ha' been sorry for to see our measter sitting so like a piece o' grey calico! Th' oud parson would ha' fretted his heart out, if he'd seen the measter so woeful,' thought Higgins, one day, as he was approaching Mr. Thornton in Marlborough Street. 'Measter,' said he, causing that gentleman to look up with a sudden annoyed start, as if his thoughts had been far away. 'Have yo' heerd aught of Miss Marget lately?' 'Miss who?' replied Mr. Thornton. 'Miss Hale - th' oud parson's daughter - yo' known who I mean, if yo'll only think a bit.' (There was nothing disrespectful in his tone.) 'Oh yes!' and suddenly, the wintry frost-bound look of care left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown anxiety away from his mind. 'She's my landlord now, you know, Higgins. I hear of her through her agent, every now and then. She's well and among friends - thank you, Higgins.' That lingering 'thank you', which came with so much warmth of feeling, let in a new light to the acute Higgins. It might be but a will-o'-th'-wisp, but he thought he would follow it and see where it led him. 'And she's not getten married, measter?' 'Not yet.' The face was cloudy once more. 'There is some talk of it, as I understand.' 'Then she'll not be coming to Milton again, I reckon.' 'No!' 'Stop a minute, measter.' Going up confidentially close, he said, 'Is th' young gentleman cleared?' and winked his eye, which only made things more mysterious to Mr. Thornton. 'Th' young gentleman - Master Frederick - her brother as was over here, yo' known.' 'Over here?' 'Ay, to be sure, at th' missus's death. Yo' need na be feared of my telling; for Mary and me, we knowed it all along, from Mary working in th' house.' 'And he was over. It was her brother!' 'Sure enough. I reckoned yo' knowed it or I'd never ha' let on. Yo' knowed she had a brother?' 'Yes, I know all about him. And he was over at Mrs. Hale's death?' 'Nay! I'm not going to tell more. I've maybe getten them into mischief already. I nobbut wanted to know if they'd getten him cleared?' 'I don't know. I only hear of Miss Hale now as my landlord, and through her lawyer.' He broke away to go on his business, leaving Higgins baffled in his endeavour. 'It was her brother,' said Mr. Thornton to himself. 'I am glad. I may never see her again; but it is a comfort - a relief - to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!' It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes, which were growing ever gloomier. His agent had trusted a firm in the American trade, which had just gone down along with several others like a pack of cards. Could he still stand? Night after night he took papers into his private room, and sat up long after the family were gone to bed. He thought that no one knew of this. But one morning, when daylight was stealing in through the crevices of his shutters, and he, in hopeless indifference, was thinking that he could do without the hour or two of rest which was all that was possible - the door opened, and his mother stood there, dressed as she had been the day before. She had not lain down to sleep any more than he. Their eyes met. Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan. 'Mother! why are you not in bed?' 'Son John,' said she, 'do you think I can sleep with an easy mind, while you keep awake full of care? You have not told me what your trouble is; but sore trouble you have had these many days past.' 'Trade is bad.' 'And you dread-' 'I dread nothing,' replied he, lifting his head. 'I know now that no man will suffer by me. That was my anxiety.' 'But how do you stand? Will it be a failure?' Her steady voice trembled. 'Not a failure. I must give up business, but I can pay all men. I might redeem myself - I am sorely tempted-' 'How? Oh, John! try anything to keep up your name. How?' 'By a speculation offered to me, full of risk. If successful, no one need ever know the strait I am in. If it fails-' 'If it fails?' She held her breath. 'Honest men are ruined by a rogue,' said he gloomily. 'As I stand now, my creditors' money is safe; but I don't know where to find my own - I may be penniless. Therefore, it is my creditors' money that I would be risking.' 'But if it succeeded, they need never know. Is it so desperate a speculation? If it succeeded, you would have injured no one.' 'No; but I should have run the risk of ruining many for my own selfish ends. Mother, I have decided! You won't much grieve over our leaving this house, shall you, dear mother?' 'No! but to have you other than what you are will break my heart. What can you do?' 'Be always the same John Thornton in whatever circumstances; endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh. But it is hard, mother. I have so worked and planned, and I have discovered new powers too late - now all is over. I am too old to begin again with the same heart. It is hard, mother.' He turned away from her, and covered his face. 'I can't think,' said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, 'how it comes about. Here is a good, just, tender heart - and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares nothing for his affection; he labours, and his labour comes to nought. Other people prosper and grow rich, and hold their paltry names high and dry above shame.' 'Shame never touched me,' said he, in a low tone: but she went on. 'I don't believe there is such a thing as justice in the world, now you are come to this; my own John Thornton, though you and I may be beggars together - my own dear son!' She kissed him through her tears. 'Mother!' said he, holding her gently in his arms, 'who has sent me my lot in life?' She shook her head. She would have nothing to do with religion just then. Seeing that she would not speak, he went on. 'I, too, have been rebellious; but I am striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helped me when I was a child. Then, when my father died, and we were sorely short of comforts, you said brave, noble, trustful words, mother, which I have never forgotten. Speak to me again in the old way. Do not let us think that the world has too much hardened our hearts. I say the old words to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all your cares and trials.' 'I have had many,' said she, sobbing, 'but none so sore as this. To see you cast down from your rightful place! I could say it for myself, John, but not for you! God has seen fit to be very hard on you, very.' She shook with convulsive sobs, until the silence struck her at last. She looked up. Her son sat by the table, his arms thrown half across it, his head face downwards. 'Oh, John!' she said, and she lifted his face up. Such a strange look of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this look was the forerunner of death; but, as the rigidity melted out of his face and his colour returned, she saw that he was himself once again, and she was conscious only of the great blessing of his existence. She thanked God for this, with a fervour that swept away all rebellious feelings. He went and opened the shutters, and let the light of dawn flood the room. The wind was in the east; the weather was piercing cold, as it had been for weeks; there would be no demand for light summer goods this year. It was a great comfort to have had this conversation with his mother; and to feel sure that they understood each other's feelings, and were, if not in harmony, at least not in discord with each other. Fanny's husband Mr. Watson was vexed at Thornton's refusal to take any share in the speculation which he had offered him, and which he himself had taken up. There was nothing for it at last, but that which Mr. Thornton had dreaded for many weeks. He had to give up the business in which he had been so long engaged with so much honour and success; and look out for a subordinate situation. Marlborough Mills and the house must be, if possible, re-let. There was an immediate choice of situations offered to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Hamper would have been glad to have secured him as a steady and experienced partner for his son, whom he was setting up in a neighbouring town; but the young man was uneducated about any other responsibility than that of getting money, and brutalised in both his pleasures and his pains. Mr. Thornton declined having any share in the partnership. He would sooner consent to be only a manager, than have to fall in with the tyrannical humours of a partner with whom he felt sure that he should quarrel. So he waited with profound humility, as the news swept through the Exchange of the enormous fortune which his brother-in-law had made by his daring speculation. It was a nine days' wonder, bringing the world's admiration. No one was considered so wise and far-seeing as Mr. Watson.

North and South

Chapter 50: CHANGES AT MILTON

"Then proudly, proudly up she rose, Tho' the tear was in her e'e, Whate'er ye say, think what ye may, Ye's get na word frae me!" SCOTCH BALLAD. It was not merely that Margaret was known to Mr. Thornton to have spoken falsely,--though she imagined that for this reason only was she so turned in his opinion,--but that this falsehood of hers bore a distinct reference in his mind to some other lover. He could not forget the fond and earnest look that had passed between her and some other man--the attitude of familiar confidence, if not of positive endearment. The thought of this perpetually stung him; it was a picture before his eyes, wherever he went and whatever he was doing. In addition to this (and he ground his teeth as he remembered it), was the hour, dusky twilight; the place, so far away from home, and comparatively unfrequented. His nobler self had said at first, that all this last might be accidental, innocent, justifiable; but once allow her right to love and be beloved (and had he any reason to deny her right?--had not her words been severely explicit when she cast his love away from her?), she might easily have been beguiled into a longer walk, on to a later hour than she had anticipated. But that falsehood! which showed a fatal consciousness of something wrong, and to be concealed, which was unlike her. He did her that justice, though all the time it would have been a relief to believe her utterly unworthy of his esteem. It was this that made the misery--that he passionately loved her, and thought her, even with all her faults, more lovely and more excellent than any other woman; yet he deemed her so attached to some other man, so led away by her affection for him, as to violate her truthful nature. The very falsehood that stained her, was a proof how blindly she loved another--this dark, slight, elegant, handsome man--while he himself was rough, and stern, and strongly made. He lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy. He thought of that look, that attitude!--how he would have laid his life at her feet for such tender glances, such fond detention! He mocked at himself, for having valued the mechanical way in which she had protected him from the fury of the mob; now he had seen how soft and bewitching she looked when with a man she really loved. He remembered, point by point, the sharpness of her words--"There was not a man in all that crowd for whom she would not have done as much, far more readily than for him." He shared with the mob, in her desire of averting bloodshed from them; but this man, this hidden lover, shared with nobody; he had looks, words, hand-cleavings, lies, concealment, all to himself. Mr. Thornton was conscious that he had never been so irritable as he was now, in all his life long; he felt inclined to give a short abrupt answer, more like a bark than a speech, to every one that asked him a question; and this consciousness hurt his pride: he had always piqued himself on his self-control, and control himself he would. So the manner was subdued to a quiet deliberation, but the matter was even harder and sterner than common. He was more than usually silent at home; employing his evenings in a continual pace backwards and forwards, which would have annoyed his mother exceedingly if it had been practised by any one else; and did not tend to promote any forbearance on her part even to this beloved son. "Can you stop--can you sit down for a moment? I have something to say to you, if you would give up that everlasting walk, walk, walk." He sat down instantly, on a chair against the wall. "I want to speak to you about Betsy. She says she must leave us; that her lover's death has so affected her spirits she can't give her heart to her work." "Very well. I suppose other cooks are to be met with." "That's so like a man. It's not merely the cooking, it is that she knows all the ways of the house. Besides, she tells me something about your friend Miss Hale." "Miss Hale is no friend of mine. Mr. Hale is my friend." "I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you." "Let me hear it," said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days. "Betsy says, that the night on which her lover--I forget his name--for she always calls him 'he'----" "Leonards." "The night on which Leonards was last seen at the station--when he was last seen on duty, in fact--Miss Hale was there, walking about with a young man who, Bessy believes, killed Leonards by some blow or push." "Leonards was not killed by any blow or push." "How do you know?" "Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the Infirmary. He told me there was an internal disease of long standing, caused by Leonards' habit of drinking to excess; that the fact of his becoming rapidly worse while in a state of intoxication, settled the question as to whether the last fatal attack was caused by excess of drinking, or the fall." "The fall! What fall?" "Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks." "Then there was a blow or push?" "I believe so." "And who did it?" "As there was no inquest, in consequence of the doctor's opinion I cannot tell you." "But Miss Hale was there?" No answer. "And with a young man?" Still no answer. At last he said: "I tell you, mother, that there was no inquest--no inquiry. No judicial inquiry, I mean." "Betsy says that Woolmer (some man she knows, who is in a grocer's shop out at Crampton) can swear that Miss Hale was at the station at that hour, walking backwards and forwards with a young man." "I don't see what we have to do with that. Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself." "I'm glad to hear you say so," says Mrs. Thornton, eagerly. "It certainly signifies very little to us--not at all to you, after what has passed! but I--I made a promise to Mrs. Hale, that I would not allow her daughter to go wrong without advising and remonstrating with her. I shall certainly let her know my opinion of such conduct." "I do not see any harm in what she did that evening," said Mr. Thornton, getting up, and coming near to his mother; he stood by the chimney-piece with his face turned away from the room. "You would not have approved of Fanny's being seen out, after dark, in rather a lonely place, walking about with a young man. I say nothing of the taste which could choose the time, when her mother lay unburied, for such a promenade. Should you have liked your sister to have been noticed by a grocer's assistant for doing so?" "In the first place, as it is not many years since I myself was a draper's assistant, the mere circumstance of a grocer's assistant noticing any act does not alter the character of the act to me. And in the next place, I see a great deal of difference between Miss Hale and Fanny. I can imagine that the one may have weighty reasons, which may and ought to make her overlook any seeming impropriety in her conduct. I never knew Fanny have weighty reasons for anything. Other people must guard her. I believe Miss Hale is a guardian to herself." "A pretty character of your sister, indeed! Really, John, one would have thought Miss Hale had done enough to make you clear-sighted. She drew you on to an offer, by a bold display of pretended regard for you,--to play you off against this very young man, I've no doubt. Her whole conduct is clear to me now. You believe he is her lover, I suppose--you agree to that." He turned round to his mother; his face was very gray and grim. "Yes, mother. I do believe he is her lover." When he had spoken, he turned round again; he writhed himself about, like one in bodily pain. He leant his face against his hand. Then before she could speak, he turned sharp again: "Mother. He is her lover, whoever he is; but she may need help and womanly counsel;--there may be difficulties or temptations which I don't know. I fear there are. I don't want to know what they are; but as you have ever been a good--ay! and a tender mother to me, go to her, and gain her confidence, and tell her what is best to be done. I know that something is wrong; some dread, which must be a terrible torture to her." "For God's sake, John!" said his mother, now really shocked, "what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you know?" He did not reply to her. "John! I don't know what I shan't think unless you speak. You have no right to say what you have done against her." "Not against her, mother! I _could_ not speak against her." "Well! you have no right to say what you have done, unless you say more. These half-expressions are what ruin a woman's character." "Her character! Mother, you do not dare--" he faced about, and looked into her face with his flaming eyes. Then, drawing himself up into determined composure and dignity, he said, "I will not say any more than this, which is neither more nor less than the simple truth, and I am sure you believe me,--I have good reason to believe, that Miss Hale is in some strait and difficulty connected with an attachment which, of itself, from my knowledge of Miss Hale's character, is perfectly innocent and right. What my reason is, I refuse to tell. But never let me hear any one say a word against her, implying any more serious imputation than that she now needs the counsel of some kind and gentle woman. You promised Mrs. Hale to be that woman!" "No!" said Mrs. Thornton. "I am happy to say, I did not promise kindness and gentleness, for I felt at the time that it might be out of my power to render these to one of Miss Hale's character and disposition. I promised counsel and advice, such as I would give to my own daughter; I shall speak to her as I would do to Fanny, if she had gone gallivanting with a young man in the dusk. I shall speak with relation to the circumstances I know, without being influenced either one way or another by the 'strong reasons' which you will not confide to me. Then I shall have fulfilled my promise, and done my duty. "She will never bear it," said he passionately. "She will have to bear it, if I speak in her dead mother's name." "Well!" said he, breaking away, "don't tell me any more about it. I cannot endure to think of it. It will be better that you should speak to her any way, than that she should not be spoken to at all.--Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room. "And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me." The more Mrs. Thornton thought over what her son had said, in pleading for a merciful judgment for Margaret's indiscretion, the more bitterly she felt inclined towards her. She took a savage pleasure in the idea of "speaking her mind" to her, in the guise of fulfilment of a duty. She enjoyed the thought of showing herself untouched by the "glamour," which she was well aware Margaret had the power of throwing over many people. She snorted scornfully over the picture of the beauty of her victim; her jet black hair, her clear smooth skin, her lucid eyes would not help to save her one word of the just and stern reproach which Mrs. Thornton spent half the night in preparing to her mind. "Is Miss Hale within?" She knew she was, for she had seen her at the window, and she had her feet inside the little hall before Martha had half answered the question. Margaret was sitting alone, writing to Edith, and giving her many particulars of her mother's last days. It was a softening employment, and she had to brush away the unbidden tears as Mrs. Thornton was announced. She was so gentle and ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted; and it became impossible to utter the speech, so easy of arrangement with no one to address it to. Margaret's low rich voice was softer than usual; her manner more gracious, because in her heart she was feeling very grateful to Mrs. Thornton for the courteous attention of her call. She exerted herself to find subjects of interest for conversation; praised Martha, the servant whom Mrs. Thornton had found for them: had asked Edith for a little Greek air, about which she had spoken to Miss Thornton. Mrs. Thornton was fairly discomfited. Her sharp Damascus blade seemed out of place, and useless among rose-leaves. She was silent because she was trying to task herself up to her duty. At last she stung herself into its performance by a suspicion which, in spite of all probability, she allowed to cross her mind, that all this sweetness was put on with a view of propitiating Mr. Thornton; that, somehow, the other attachment had fallen through, and that it suited Miss Hale's purpose to recall her rejected lover. Poor Margaret! there was perhaps so much truth in the suspicion as this; that Mrs. Thornton was the mother of one whose regard she valued, and feared to have lost; and this thought unconsciously added to her natural desire of pleasing one who was showing her kindness by her visit. Mrs. Thornton stood up to go, but yet she seemed to have something more to say. She cleared her throat and began: "Miss Hale, I have a duty to perform. I promised your poor mother that, as far as my poor judgment went, I would not allow you to act in any way wrongly, or (she softened her speech down a little here) inadvertently, without remonstrating; at least without offering advice, whether you took it or not." Margaret stood before her, blushing like any culprit, with her eyes dilating as she gazed at Mrs. Thornton. She thought she had come to speak to her about the falsehood she had told--that Mr. Thornton had employed her to explain the danger she had exposed herself to, of being confuted in full court! and although her heart sank to think he had not rather chosen to come himself, and upbraid her, and receive her penitence, and restore her again to his good opinion, yet she was too much humbled not to bear any blame on this subject patiently and meekly. Mrs. Thornton went on: "At first, when I heard from one of my servants, that you had been seen walking about with a gentleman, so far from home as the Outwood station, at such a time of the evening, I could hardly believe it. But my son, I am sorry to say, confirmed her story. It was indiscreet, to say the least; many a young woman has lost her character before now----" Margaret's eyes flashed fire. This was a new idea--this was too insulting. If Mrs. Thornton had spoken to her about the lie she had told, well and good--she would have owned it, and humiliated herself. But to interfere with her conduct--to speak of her character! she--Mrs. Thornton, a mere stranger--it was too impertinent! She would not answer her--not one word. Mrs. Thornton saw the battle-spirit in Margaret's eyes, and it called up her combativeness also. "For your mother's sake, I have thought it right to warn you against such improprieties; they must degrade you in the long run in the estimation of the world, even if in fact they do not lead you to positive harm." "For my mother's sake," said Margaret, in a tearful voice, "I will bear much; but I cannot bear everything. She never meant me to be exposed to insult, I am sure." "Insult, Miss Hale!" "Yes, madam," said Margaret more steadily, "it is insult. What do you know of me that should lead you to suspect--Oh!" said she, breaking down, and covering her face with her hands--"I know now, Mr. Thornton has told you----" "No, Miss Hale," said Mrs. Thornton, her truthfulness causing her to arrest the confession Margaret was on the point of making, though her curiosity was itching to hear it. "Stop. Mr. Thornton has told me nothing. You do not know my son. You are not worthy to know him. He said this. Listen, young lady, that you may understand, if you can, what sort of a man you rejected. This Milton manufacturer, his great tender heart scorned as it was scorned, said to me only last night, 'Go to her. I have good reason to know that she is in some strait arising out of some attachment; and she needs womanly counsel.' I believe those were his very words. Farther than that--beyond admitting the fact of your being at the Outwood station with a gentleman, on the evening of the twenty-sixth--he has said nothing--not one word against you. If he has knowledge of anything which should make you sob so, he keeps it to himself." Margaret's face was still hidden in her hands, the fingers of which were wet with tears. Mrs. Thornton was a little mollified. "Come, Miss Hale. There may be circumstances, I'll allow, that, if explained, may take off from the seeming impropriety." Still no answer. Margaret was considering what to say; she wished to stand well with Mrs. Thornton; and yet she could not, might not, give any explanation. Mrs. Thornton grew impatient. "I shall be sorry to break off an acquaintance; but for Fanny's sake--as I told my son, if Fanny had done so we should consider it a great disgrace--and Fanny might be led away----" "I can give you no explanation," said Margaret, in a low voice. "I have done wrong, but not in the way you think or know about. I think Mr. Thornton judges me more mercifully than you;"--she had hard work to keep herself from choking with her tears--"but, I believe, madam, you mean to do rightly." "Thank you," said Mrs. Thornton, drawing herself up; "I was not aware that my meaning was doubted. It is the last time I shall interfere. I was unwilling to consent to do it, when your mother asked me. I had not approved of my son's attachment to you, while I only suspected it. You did not appear to me worthy of him. But when you compromised yourself as you did at the time of the riot, and exposed yourself to the comments of servants and workpeople, I felt it was no longer right to set myself against my son's wish of proposing to you--a wish, by the way, which he had always denied entertaining until the day of the riot." Margaret winced, and drew in her breath with a long, hissing sound; of which, however, Mrs. Thornton took no notice. "He came; you had apparently changed your mind. I told my son yesterday, that I thought it possible, short as was the interval, you might have heard or learnt something of this other lover----" "What must you think of me, madam?" asked Margaret, throwing her head back with proud disdain, till her throat curved outwards like a swan's. "You can say nothing more, Mrs. Thornton. I decline every attempt to justify myself for anything. You must allow me to leave the room." And she swept out of it with the noiseless grace of an offended princess. Mrs. Thornton had quite enough of natural humour to make her feel the ludricrousness of the position in which she was left. There was nothing for it but to show herself out. She was not particularly annoyed at Margaret's way of behaving. She did not care enough for her for that. She had taken Mrs. Thornton's remonstrance to the full as keenly to heart as that lady expected; and Margaret's passion at once mollified her visitor, far more than any silence or reserve could have done. It showed the effect of her words. "My young lady," thought Mrs. Thornton to herself; "you've a pretty good temper of your own. If John and you had come together, he would have had to keep a tight hand over you, to make you know your place. But I don't think you will go a-walking again with your beau, at such an hour of the day, in a hurry. You've too much pride and spirit in you for that. I like to see a girl fly out at the notion of being talked about. It shows they're neither giddy, nor bold by nature. As for that girl, she might be bold, but she'd never be giddy. I'll do her that justice. Now as to Fanny, she'd be giddy, and not bold. She's no courage in her, poor thing!" Mr. Thornton was not spending the morning so satisfactorily as his mother. She, at any rate, was fulfilling her determined purpose. He was trying to understand where he stood; what damage the strike had done him. A good deal of his capital was locked up in new and expensive machinery; and he had also bought cotton largely, with a view to some great orders which he had in hand. The strike had thrown him terribly behindhand, as to the completion of these orders. Even with his own accustomed and skilled workpeople, he would have had some difficulty in fulfilling his engagements; as it was, the incompetence of the Irish hands, who had to be trained to their work, at a time requiring unusual activity, was a daily annoyance. It was not a favourable hour for Higgins to make his request. But he had promised Margaret to do it at any cost. So, though every moment added to his repugnance, his pride, and his sullenness of temper, he stood leaning against the dead wall, hour after hour, first on one leg, then on the other. At last the latch was sharply lifted, and out came Mr. Thornton. "I want for to speak to yo', sir." "Can't stay now, my man. I'm too late as it is." "Well, sir, I reckon I can wait till yo' come back." Mr. Thornton was half way down the street. Higgins sighed. But it was no use. To catch him in the street, was his only chance of seeing "the measter!" if he had rung the lodge bell or even gone up to the house to ask for him, he would have been referred to the overlooker. So he stood still again, vouchsafing no answer, but a short nod of recognition to the few men who knew and spoke to him, as the crowd drove out the millyard at dinner-time, and scowling with all his might at the Irish "knobsticks" who had just been imported. At last Mr. Thornton returned. "What! you there still!" "Ay, sir, I mun speak to yo'." "Come in here, then. Stay, we'll go across the yard; the men are not come back, and we shall have it to ourselves. These good people, I see, are at dinner;" said he, closing the door of the porter's lodge. He stopped to speak to the overlooker. The latter said in a low tone: "I suppose you know, sir, that that man is Higgins, one of the leaders of the Union; he that made that speech in Hurstfield." "No, I didn't," said Mr. Thornton, looking round sharply at his follower. Higgins was known to him by name as a turbulent spirit. "Come along," said he, and his tone was rougher than before. "It is men such as this," thought he, "who interrupt commerce and injure the very town they live in: mere demagogues, lovers of power at whatever cost to others." "Well, sir! what do you want with me?" said Mr. Thornton, facing round at him, as soon as they were in the counting-house of the mill. "My name is Higgins"-- "I know that," broke in Mr. Thornton. "What do you want, Mr. Higgins? That's the question." "I want work." "Work! You're a pretty chap to come asking me for work. You don't want impudence, that's very clear." "I've getten enemies and backbiters, like my betters; but I ne'er heerd o' ony of them calling me o'er-modest," said Higgins. His blood was a little roused by Mr. Thornton's manner, more than by his words. Mr. Thornton saw a letter addressed to himself on the table. He took it up and read it through. At the end, he looked up and said, "What are you waiting for?" "An answer to th' question I axed." "I gave it you before. Don't waste any more of your time." "Yo' made a remark, sir, on my impudence' but I were taught that it was manners to say either 'yes' or 'no,' when I were axed a civil question. I should be thankfu' to yo' if yo'd give me work. Hamper will speak to my being a good hand." "I've a notion you'd better not send me to Hamper to ask for a character, my man. I might hear more than you'd like." "I'd take th' risk. Worst they could say of me is, that I did what I thought best, even to my own wrong." "You'd better go and try them, then, and see whether they'll give you work. I've turned off upwards of a hundred of my best hands, for no other fault than following you and such as you; and d'ye think I'll take you on? I might as well put a fire-brand into the midst of the cotton-waste." Higgins turned away: then the recollection of Boucher came over him, and he faced round with the greatest concession he could persuade himself to make. "I'd promise yo', measter, I'd not speak a word as could do harm, if so be yo' did right by us; and I'd promise more: I'd promise that when I seed yo' going wrong, and acting unfair, I'd speak to yo' in private first; and that would be a fair warning. If yo' and I did na agree in our opinion o' your conduct, yo' might turn me off at an hour's notice." "Upon my word, you don't think small beer of yourself! Hamper has had a loss of you. How came he to let you and your wisdom go?" "Well, we parted wi' mutual dissatisfaction. I wouldn't gi'e the pledge they were asking; and they wouldn't have me at no rate. So I'm free to make another engagement; and as I said before, though I should na' say it, I'm a good hand, measter, and a steady man--specially when I can keep fro' drink; and that I shall do now, if I ne'er did afore." "That you may have more money laid up for another strike, I suppose?" "No! I'd be thankful if I was free to do that; it's for to keep th' widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o' yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weft fro' warp." "Well! you'd better turn to something else, if you've any such good intention in your head. I shouldn't advise you to stay in Milton: you're too well known here." "If it were summer," said Higgins, "I'd take to Paddy's work, and go as a navvy, or haymaking, or summat, and ne'er see Milton again. But it's winter, and th' childer will clem." "A pretty navvy you'd make! why you couldn't do half a day's work at digging against an Irishman." "I'd only charge half-a-day for th' twelve hours, if I could only do half-a-day's work in th' time. Yo're not knowing of any place, where they could gi' me a trial, away fro' the mills, if I'm such a firebrand? I'd take any wage they thought I was worth, for the sake of those childer." "Don't you see what you would be? You'd be a knobstick. You'd be taking less wages than the other labourers--all for the sake of another man's children. Think how you'd abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take what he could get to keep his own children. You and your Union would soon be down upon him. No! no! if it's only for the recollection of the way in which you've used the poor knobsticks before now, I say No! to your question. I'll not give you work. I won't say, I don't believe your pretext for coming and asking for work; I know nothing about it. It may be true, or it may not. It's a very unlikely story, at any rate. Let me pass. I'll not give you work. There's your answer." "I hear, sir. I would na ha' troubled you', but that I were bid to come, by one as seemed to think yo'd getten some place in your heart. Hoo were mistook, and I were misled. But I'm not the first man as is misled by a woman." "Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine too. I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world. Be off with you." "I'm obleeged to you for a' yo'r kindness, measter, and most of a' for yo'r civil way o' saying good-bye." Mr. Thornton did not deign a reply. But, looking out of the window a minute later, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard; the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear determination of the man to speak to him. He crossed to the porter's lodge: "How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?" "He was outside the gate before eight o'clock, sir. I think he's been there ever since." "And it is now--?" "Just one, sir." "Five hours," thought Mr. Thornton; "it's a long time for a man to wait, doing nothing but first hoping and then fearing."

It was not merely that Margaret was known to Mr. Thornton to have spoken falsely - though this was the only reason she imagined - but that her falsehood was linked in his mind to some other lover. He could not forget the fond and earnest look that had passed between her and the other man - the attitude of familiar confidence. The thought of this stung him. In addition (and he ground his teeth as he remembered it) was the hour, dusky twilight; the place, so far away from home, and lonely. His nobler self had said at first that all this might be accidental and innocent; but once allow her the right to love and be beloved (and had he any reason to deny that right?) - she might easily have been beguiled into a longer walk, to a later hour than she had anticipated. But that falsehood! which showed a fatal consciousness of something wrong, and to be concealed, which was unlike her. He did her that much justice, though it would have been a relief to believe her utterly unworthy of his esteem. It was this that made the misery - that he passionately loved her, and thought her, even with all her faults, more lovely and more excellent than any other woman; yet he believed her so attached to some other man that she would violate her truthful nature. The falsehood was proof of how blindly she loved another - this dark, slight, handsome man - while he himself was rough, and stern, and strongly made. He lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy. He thought of that look, that attitude! He would have laid his life at her feet for such tender glances! He mocked himself, for having valued the mechanical way in which she had protected him from the fury of the mob; now he had seen how soft and bewitching she looked when with a man she really loved. This man, this hidden lover, had her looks, words, hand-cleavings, lies, concealment, all to himself. Mr. Thornton was conscious that he had never been so irritable in his life as he was now. He felt inclined to give a short abrupt answer, like a bark, to every question; and this hurt his pride, for he had always piqued himself on his self-control. So he subdued his manner, but it was a hard task. He was more than usually silent at home; spending his evenings pacing backwards and forwards, which would have annoyed his mother exceedingly if it had been done by anyone else; and was tiresome even in this beloved son. 'Can you sit down for a moment? I have something to say to you, if you would give up that everlasting walk, walk, walk.' He sat down instantly. 'I want to speak to you about Betsy. She says she must leave us; that her lover's death has so affected her spirits she can't work.' 'Very well. I suppose other cooks are to be found.' 'That's so like a man. It's not merely the cooking, it is that she knows all the ways of the house. Besides, she tells me something about your friend Miss Hale.' 'Miss Hale is no friend of mine. Mr. Hale is my friend.' 'I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you.' 'Let me hear it,' said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days. 'Betsy says, that the night on which her lover - I forget his name-' 'Leonards.' 'The night on which Leonards was last seen at the station - Miss Hale was there, walking with a young man who, Betsy believes, killed Leonards by some blow or push.' 'Leonards was not killed by any blow or push.' 'How do you know?' 'Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the Infirmary. He told me there was a long-standing disease, caused by Leonards' habit of drinking to excess; that his last fatal attack was caused by drinking, not the fall.' 'The fall! What fall?' 'Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks.' 'Then there was a blow or push?' 'I believe so.' 'And who did it?' 'As there was no inquest, I cannot tell you.' 'But Miss Hale was there?' No answer. 'And with a young man?' Still no answer. At last he said: 'I tell you, mother, that there was no judicial inquiry.' 'Betsy says that some man who is in a grocer's shop at Crampton can swear that Miss Hale was at the station, walking with a young man.' 'I don't see what we have to do with that. Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself.' 'I'm glad to hear you say so,' said Mrs. Thornton, eagerly. 'It certainly means nothing to you, after what has passed! but I promised Mrs. Hale that I would not allow her daughter to go wrong without advising her. I shall certainly let her know my opinion of such conduct.' 'I do not see any harm in what she did that evening,' said Mr. Thornton, getting up, and standing by the chimney-piece with his face turned away from the room. 'You would not have approved of Fanny's being seen out, after dark, in a lonely place, with a young man. I say nothing of the choice of time, when her mother lay unburied, for such a promenade. Should you have liked your sister to have been noticed by a grocer's assistant for doing so?' 'In the first place, as it is not many years since I myself was a draper's assistant, that circumstance does not alter the nature of the act to me. And in the next place, I see a great deal of difference between Miss Hale and Fanny. I can imagine that the one may have weighty reasons, which might make her overlook any seeming impropriety in her conduct. I never knew Fanny have weighty reasons for anything.' 'A pretty character of your sister, indeed! Really, John, one would have thought Miss Hale had done enough to make you clear-sighted. She drew you on to an offer, by a bold display of pretended regard - to play you off against this very young man, I've no doubt. Her whole conduct is clear to me now. You believe he is her lover, I suppose?' He turned round to his mother; his face was very grey and grim. 'Yes, mother. I do believe he is her lover.' When he had spoken, he turned again and leant his face against his hand. Then before she could speak, he added: 'Mother. He is her lover; but she may need help and womanly counsel; there may be difficulties or temptations which I don't know. I fear there are. I don't want to know what they are; but as you have always been a good and tender mother to me, go to her, and gain her confidence, and tell her what is best to be done. I know that something is wrong; and it must be a terrible torture to her.' 'For God's sake, John!' said his mother, now really shocked, 'what do you mean? What do you know?' He did not reply. 'John! I don't know what to think unless you speak. You must explain. These half-expressions are what ruin a woman's character.' 'Her character! Mother, you do not dare-' He looked her in the face with flaming eyes. Then, drawing himself up with determined composure, he said, 'I will not say any more than this: that I have good reason to believe that Miss Hale is in some difficulty connected with an attachment which of itself, from my knowledge of Miss Hale's character, is perfectly innocent and right. I refuse to tell my reason. But never let me hear anyone say a word against her, implying anything more serious than that she now needs the counsel of some kind and gentle woman. You promised Mrs. Hale to be that woman!' 'No!' said Mrs. Thornton. 'I am happy to say, I did not promise kindness and gentleness, for I felt that it might be out of my power to offer these to one of Miss Hale's character. I promised counsel and advice, such as I would give to my own daughter. I shall speak to her as I would do to Fanny, if she had gone gallivanting with a young man in the dusk. Then I shall have fulfilled my promise, and done my duty.' 'She will never bear it,' said he passionately. 'She will have to bear it, if I speak in her dead mother's name.' 'Well!' said he, breaking away, 'don't tell me any more about it. I cannot endure to think of it.' As he shut himself into his private room, he continued. 'Oh! that look of love! And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame to be kept dark! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Could you not have loved me? I am uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me.' The more Mrs. Thornton thought over what her son had said, in pleading for a merciful judgment on Margaret, the more bitter she felt towards her. She took a savage pleasure in the idea of 'speaking her mind' to her, in the guise of fulfilling her duty. She enjoyed the thought of showing herself untouched by the enchantment which she felt Margaret had thrown over many people. She snorted scornfully over her victim's beauty; her jet black hair, her smooth skin, her lucid eyes would not save her one word of the just and stern reproach which Mrs. Thornton spent half the night preparing in her mind. 'Is Miss Hale within?' She knew she was, for she had seen her at the window, and she had her feet inside the little hall before Martha had answered. Margaret was sitting alone, writing to Edith about her mother's last days. She had to brush away unbidden tears as Mrs. Thornton was announced. She was so gentle and ladylike that her visitor was somewhat daunted; and it became impossible to utter the speech, so easy to prepare with no one to address it to. Margaret's low rich voice was softer than usual; her manner more gracious, because she was feeling very grateful to Mrs. Thornton for the courteous attention of her call. She exerted herself to make conversation; and praised Martha, the servant whom Mrs. Thornton had found for them. Mrs. Thornton was fairly discomfited. Her sharp blade seemed out of place, and useless among rose-leaves. She was silent until she stung herself into performing her duty by reflecting that all this sweetness was probably put on just to propitiate her. She suspected that the other attachment had fallen through, and Miss Hale hoped to recall her rejected lover. Poor Margaret! It was true that Mrs. Thornton was the mother of one whose regard she valued, and feared to have lost; and this thought unconsciously added to her natural desire of pleasing her. Mrs. Thornton cleared her throat and began: 'Miss Hale, I have a duty to perform. I promised your poor mother that I would not allow you to act in any way wrongly, or (she softened her speech a little here) inadvertently, without remonstrating; at least, without offering advice, whether you took it or not.' Margaret stood blushing, with her eyes dilating. She thought Mrs. Thornton had come to speak to her about the falsehood she had told - that Mr. Thornton had employed her to explain the danger she had exposed herself to, of being confuted in court. Although her heart sank to think he had not chosen to come himself, yet she was too much humbled not to listen patiently and meekly. Mrs. Thornton went on: 'At first, when I heard from one of my servants, that you had been seen walking about with a gentleman, at the Outwood station, late in the evening, I could hardly believe it. But my son, I am sorry to say, confirmed her story. It was indiscreet, to say the least; many a young woman has lost her character before now-' Margaret's eyes flashed fire. This was a new idea - this was insulting. If Mrs. Thornton had spoken to her about the lie, well and good - she would have owned up to it. But to speak of her character! Mrs. Thornton, a mere stranger - it was too impertinent! She would not answer her - not one word. Mrs. Thornton saw the battle-spirit in Margaret's eyes, and it called up her combativeness also. 'For your mother's sake, I thought it right to warn you against such improprieties; they must degrade you in the long run in the world's eyes, even if they do not lead you to positive harm.' 'For my mother's sake,' said Margaret tearfully, 'I will bear much; but she never meant me to be exposed to insult, I am sure.' 'Insult, Miss Hale!' 'Yes, madam,' said Margaret more steadily, 'it is insult. What do you know of me that should lead you to suspect - Oh!' said she, breaking down, and covering her face with her hands - 'I know now, Mr. Thornton has told you-' 'No, Miss Hale,' said Mrs. Thornton, her truthfulness causing her to break in. 'Stop. Mr. Thornton has told me nothing. You do not know my son. You are not worthy to know him. He said this. Listen, young lady, and understand, if you can, what sort of a man you rejected. He said to me last night, "Go to her. I have good reason to know that she is in some difficulty, arising out of an attachment; and she needs womanly counsel." Beyond that - and your being at the station with a gentleman - he has said not one word against you. If he has knowledge of anything which should make you sob so, he keeps it to himself.' Margaret's face was still hidden in her hands. Mrs. Thornton was a little mollified. 'Come, Miss Hale. There may be circumstances, I'll allow, that, if explained, may lessen the impropriety.' Still no answer. Margaret was considering what to say; she wished to stand well with Mrs. Thornton; and yet she could not explain. Mrs. Thornton grew impatient. 'I shall be sorry to break off an acquaintance; but for Fanny's sake-' 'I can give you no explanation,' said Margaret, in a low voice. 'I have done wrong, but not in the way you think. Mr. Thornton judges me more mercifully than you;' - she had hard work to keep herself from choking with her tears - 'but, I believe, madam, you mean to do rightly.' 'Thank you,' said Mrs. Thornton, drawing herself up; 'I was not aware that my meaning was doubted. It is the last time I shall interfere. I did not approve of my son's attachment to you. You did not appear to me worthy of him. But when you compromised yourself at the time of the riot, and exposed yourself to the comments of servants and workpeople, I felt it was no longer right to set myself against my son's wish of proposing to you - a wish, by the way, which he had always denied having until the day of the riot.' Margaret winced, and drew in her breath. Mrs. Thornton went on. 'He came; you had apparently changed your mind. I told my son yesterday, that I thought it possible, short as was the interval, you might have learnt something of this other lover-' 'What must you think of me, madam?' asked Margaret, throwing her head back with proud disdain. 'You can say nothing more, Mrs. Thornton. I decline every attempt to justify myself. You must allow me to leave the room.' And she swept out of it with the noiseless grace of an offended princess. Mrs. Thornton had enough natural humour to make her feel the ludicrousness of the position in which she was left. There was nothing for it but to show herself out. She was not particularly annoyed; she did not care enough about Margaret for that. Margaret's passion had mollified her visitor, far more than any silence could have done. It showed the effect of her words. 'My young lady,' thought Mrs. Thornton, 'you've a pretty good temper of your own. If John and you had come together, he would have had to keep a tight hand over you. But I don't think you will go a-walking again with your beau, at such an hour. You've too much pride for that. I like to see a girl fly out at the notion of being talked about. It shows they're neither giddy, nor bold. As for that girl, she might be bold, but she'd never be giddy. Now as for Fanny, she'd be giddy, and not bold. She's no courage, poor thing!' Mr. Thornton was not spending the morning so satisfactorily as his mother. He was trying to understand what damage the strike had done him. A good deal of his capital was locked up in new and expensive machinery; and he had also bought in cotton with a view to some large orders. The strike had thrown him terribly behindhand in the completion of these orders. Even with his own skilled workpeople, he would have had some difficulty in fulfilling them; as it was, the incompetence of the Irish hands, who had to be trained, was an annoyance. It was not a favourable hour for Higgins to make his request. But he had promised Margaret to do it. So, though every moment added to his repugnance, pride and sullenness, he stood leaning against the wall, hour after hour, first on one leg, then on the other. At last Mr. Thornton came out. 'I want for to speak to yo', sir.' 'Can't stay now, my man. I'm late as it is.' 'Well, sir, I reckon I can wait till yo' come back.' Mr. Thornton was half way down the street. Higgins sighed. It was no use. To catch him in the street was his only chance of seeing 'the measter;' if he had rung the lodge bell, he would have been referred to the overlooker. So he stood still again as the crowd drove out of the millyard at dinner-time, scowling at the imported Irish 'knobsticks'. At last Mr. Thornton returned. 'What! you there still!' 'Ay, sir. I mun speak to yo'.' 'We'll go across the yard; the men are not come back, and we shall have it to ourselves.' He stopped to speak to the overlooker, who said in a low tone: 'I suppose you know, sir, that that man is Higgins, one of the leaders of the Union.' 'No, I didn't,' said Mr. Thornton, looking round sharply. Higgins was known to him by name as a turbulent spirit. 'Come along,' said he, more roughly than before. 'It is men such as this,' he thought, 'who interrupt commerce and injure the very town they live in: mere demagogues, lovers of power, at whatever cost to others.' 'Well, sir! what do you want?' he said, as soon as they were in the counting-house. 'My name is Higgins-' 'I know that,' broke in Mr. Thornton. 'What do you want, Mr. Higgins?' 'I want work.' 'Work! You don't lack impudence, that's very clear.' 'I've getten enemies, like my betters; but I ne'er heerd o' ony of them calling me o'er-modest,' said Higgins. His blood was a little roused by Mr. Thornton's manner. Mr. Thornton took up a letter from the table and read it through. At the end, he looked up and said, 'What are you waiting for?' 'An answer.' 'I gave it you before. Don't waste any more of your time.' 'Yo' made a remark, sir, on my impudence: but I were taught that it was manners to say either "yes" or "no," when axed a civil question. I should be thankfu' to yo' if yo'd give me work. Hamper will speak to my being a good hand.' 'You'd better not send me to Hamper to ask for a character, my man. I might hear more than you'd like.' 'I'd take th' risk. Worst they could say of me is, that I did what I thought best, even to my own wrong.' 'You'd better go and try them, then, and see whether they'll give you work. I've turned off a hundred of my best hands, for no other fault than following such as you. D'ye think I'll take you on? I might as well put a firebrand into the midst of the cotton-waste.' Higgins turned away; then he remembered Boucher, and tried once more. 'I'd promise yo', measter, I'd not speak a word as could do harm, if yo' did right by us; and I'd promise more: I'd promise that when I seed yo' going wrong, and acting unfair, I'd speak to yo' in private first; and that would be a fair warning. If yo' and I did na agree in our opinion, yo' might turn me off at an hour's notice.' 'Upon my word, you don't think small beer of yourself! Hamper has had a loss of you. How came he to let you and your wisdom go?' 'Well, we parted wi' mutual dissatisfaction. I wouldn't agree to their pledge; and they wouldn't have me. But I'm a good hand, measter, and a steady man - specially when I can keep fro' drink; and that I shall do now, if I ne'er did afore.' 'So that you may save money for another strike, I suppose?' 'No! It's for to keep th' widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o' yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weft fro' warp.' 'Well! you'd better turn to something else.' 'If it were summer,' said Higgins, 'I'd do Paddy's work, and go as a navvy, or haymaking, or summut. But it's winter, and th' childer will clem.' 'A pretty navvy you'd make! why, you couldn't do half a day's digging against an Irishman.' 'I'd only charge half-a-day for twelve hours, if I could only do half-a-day's work in th' time. Yo're not knowing of any place, where they could gi' me a trial? I'd take any wage they thought I was worth, for the sake of those childer.' 'Don't you see what you would be? You'd be a knobstick. You'd be taking less wages than the other labourers - all for the sake of another man's children. Think how you'd abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take what he could get. You and your Union would soon be down upon him. No! if only because of the way in which you've used the poor knobsticks before now, I say No! I'll not give you work. As for your pretext for coming and asking for work, it may be true, or it may not. It's a very unlikely story, at any rate. Let me pass. I'll not give you work. There's your answer.' 'I hear, sir. I would na ha' troubled yo', but that I were bid to come, by one as seemed to think yo'd getten some soft place in your heart. Hoo were mistook, and I were misled. But I'm not the first man as is misled by a woman.' 'Tell her to mind her own business the next time. I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world. Be off with you.' 'I'm obleeged to yo' for your kindness, measter, and for your civil way o' saying good-bye.' Mr. Thornton did not deign to reply. But, looking out of the window a minute after, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard: the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute determination of the man to speak to him. He crossed to the porter's lodge. 'How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?' 'He was outside the gate before eight o'clock, sir.' 'And it is now-?' 'Just one, sir.' 'Five hours,' thought Mr. Thornton; 'it's a long time for a man to wait, doing nothing but hoping and fearing.'

North and South

Chapter 38: PROMISES FULFILLED

"What! remain to be. Denounced--dragged, it may be, in chains." WERNER. All the next day they sate together--they three. Mr. Hale hardly ever spoke but when his children asked him questions, and forced him, as it were, into the present. Frederick's grief was no more to be seen or heard; the first paroxysm had passed over, and now he was ashamed of having been so battered down by emotion; and though his sorrow for the loss of his mother was a deep real feeling, and would last out his life, it was never to be spoken of again. Margaret, not so passionate at first, was more suffering now. At times she cried a good deal; and her manner, even when speaking on different things, had a mournful tenderness about it, which was deepened whenever her looks fell upon Frederick, and she thought of his rapidly approaching departure. She was glad he was going, on her father's account, however much she might grieve over it on her own. The anxious terror in which Mr. Hale lived lest his son should be detected and captured, far outweighed the pleasure he derived from his presence. The nervousness had increased since Mrs. Hale's death, probably because he dwelt upon it more exclusively. He started at every unusual sound, and was never comfortable unless Frederick sate out of the immediate view of any one entering the room. Towards evening he said: "You will go with Frederick to the station, Margaret? I shall want to know he is safely off. You will bring me word that he is clear of Milton, at any rate?" "Certainly," said Margaret. "I shall like it, if you won't be lonely without me, papa." "No, no! I should always be fancying some one had known him, and that he had been stopped, unless you could tell me you had seen him off. And go to the Outwood station. It is quite as near, and not so many people about. Take a cab there. There is less risk of his being seen. What time is your train, Fred?" "Ten minutes past six; very nearly dark. So what will you do, Margaret?" "Oh, I can manage. I am getting very brave and very hard. It is a well-lighted road all the way home, if it should be dark. But I was out last week much later." Margaret was thankful when the parting was over--the parting from the dead mother and the living father. She hurried Frederick into the cab, in order to shorten a scene which she saw was so bitterly painful to her father, who would accompany his son as he took his last look at his mother. Partly in consequence of this, and partly owing to one of the very common mistakes in the "Railway Guide" as to the times when trains arrive at the smaller stations, they found, on reaching Outwood, that they had nearly twenty minutes to spare. The booking-office was not open, so they could not even take the ticket. They accordingly went down the flight of steps that led to the level of the ground below the railway. There was a broad cinder-path diagonally crossing a field which lay alongside of the carriage-road, and they went there to walk backwards and forwards for the few minutes they had to spare. Margaret's hand lay in Frederick's arm. He took hold of it affectionately. "Margaret! I am going to consult Mr. Lennox as to the chance of exculpating myself so that I may return to England whenever I choose, more for your sake than for the sake of anyone else. I can't bear to think of your lonely position if any thing should happen to my father. He looks sadly changed--terribly shaken. I wish you could get him to think of the Cadiz plan, for many reasons. What could you do if he were taken away? You have no friend near. We are curiously bare of relations." Margaret could hardly keep from crying at the tender anxiety with which Frederick was bringing before her an event which she herself felt was not very improbable, so severely had the cares of the last few months told upon Mr. Hale. But she tried to rally as she said: "There have been such strange unexpected changes in my life during these last two years, that I feel more than ever that it is not worth while to calculate too closely what I should do if any future event took place. I try to think only upon the present." She paused; they were standing still for a moment, close on the field side of the stile leading into the road; the setting sun fell on their faces. Frederick held her hand in his, and looked with wistful anxiety into her face, reading there more care and trouble than she would betray by words. She went on: "We shall write often to one another, and I will promise--for I see it will set your mind at ease--to tell you every worry I have. Papa is"--she started a little, a hardly visible start--but Frederick felt the sudden motion of the hand he held, and turned his full face to the road, along which a horseman was slowly riding, just passing the very stile where they stood. Margaret bowed; her bow was stiffly returned. "Who is that?" said Frederick, almost before he was out of hearing. Margaret was a little drooping, a little flushed, as she replied: "Mr. Thornton; you saw him before, you know." "Only his back. He is an unprepossessing-looking fellow. What a scowl he has!" "Something has happened to vex him," said Margaret apologetically. "You would not have thought him unprepossessing if you had seen him with mamma." "I fancy it must be time to go and take my ticket. If I had known how dark it would be, we wouldn't have sent back the cab, Margaret." "Oh, don't fidget about that. I can take a cab here, if I like; or go back by the rail-road, when I should have shops and people and lamps all the way from the Milton station-house. Don't think of me; take care of yourself. I am sick with the thought that Leonards may be in the same train with you. Look well into the carriage before you get in." They went back to the station. Margaret insisted on going into the full light of the flaring gas inside to take the ticket. Some idle-looking young men were lounging about with the station-master. Margaret thought she had seen the face of one of them before, and returned him a proud look of offended dignity for his somewhat impertinent stare of undisguised admiration. She went hastily to her brother, who was standing outside, and took hold of his arm. "Have you got your bag? Let us walk about here on the platform," said she, a little flurried at the idea of so soon being left alone, and her bravery oozing out rather faster than she liked to acknowledge even to herself. She heard a step following them along the flags; it stopped when they stopped, looking out along the line and hearing the whizz of the coming train. They did not speak; their hearts were too full. Another moment, and the train would be here; a minute more, and he would be gone. Margaret almost repented the urgency with which she had entreated him to go to London; it was throwing more chances of detection in his way. If he had sailed for Spain by Liverpool, he might have been off in two or three hours. Frederick turned round, right facing the lamp, where the gas darted up in vivid anticipation of the train. A man in the dress of a railway porter started forward; a bad-looking man, who seemed to have drunk himself into a state of brutality, although his senses were in perfect order. "By your leave, miss!" said he, pushing Margaret rudely on one side, and seizing Frederick by the collar. "Your name is Hale, I believe?" In an instant, how, Margaret did not see, for everything danced before her eyes--but by some sleight of wrestling, Frederick had tripped him up, and he fell from the height of three or four feet, which the platform was elevated above the space of soft ground, by the side of the railroad. There he lay. "Run, run!" gasped Margaret. "The train is here. It was Leonards, was it? oh, run! I will carry your bag." And she took him by the arm to push him along with all her feeble force. A door was opened in a carriage--he jumped in; and as he leant out to say, "God bless you, Margaret!" the train rushed past her; and she was left standing alone. She was so terribly sick and faint that she was thankful to be able to turn into the ladies' waiting-room, and sit down for an instant. At first she could do nothing but gasp for breath. It was such a hurry; such a sickening alarm; such a near chance. If the train had not been there at the moment, the man would have jumped up again and called for assistance to arrest him. She wondered if the man had got up: she tried to remember if she had seen him move: she wondered if he could have been seriously hurt. She ventured out; the platform was all alight, but still quite deserted; she went to the end, and looked over, somewhat fearfully. No one was there; and then she was glad she had made herself go, and inspect, for otherwise terrible thoughts would have haunted her dreams. And even as it was, she was so trembling and affrighted that she felt she could not walk home along the road, which did indeed seem lonely and dark, as she gazed down upon it from the blaze of the station. She would wait till the down train passed and take her seat in it. But what if Leonards recognized her as Frederick's companion! She peered about, before venturing into the booking-office to take her ticket. There were only some railway officials standing about; and talking loud to one another. "So Leonards has been drinking again!" said one, seemingly in authority. "He'll need all his boasted influence to keep his place this time." "Where is he?" asked another, while Margaret, her back towards them, was counting her change with trembling fingers, not daring to turn round until she heard the answer to this question. "I don't know. He came in not five minutes ago, with some long story or other about a fall he'd had, swearing awfully: and wanted to borrow some money from me to go to London by the next up-train. He made all sorts of tipsy promises, but I'd something else to do than listen to him; I told him to go about his business; and he went off at the front door." "He's at the nearest vaults, I'll be bound," said the first speaker. "Your money would have gone there too, if you'd been such a fool as to lend it." "Catch me! I knew better what his London meant. Why, he has never paid me off that five shillings"--and so they went on. And now all Margaret's anxiety was for the train to come. She hid herself once more in the ladies' waiting-room, and fancied every noise was Leonards' step--every loud and boisterous voice was his. But no one came near her until the train drew up; when she was civilly helped into a carriage by a porter, into whose face she durst not look till they were in motion, and then she saw that it was not Leonards'.

All the next day they sat together - they three. Mr. Hale hardly spoke except when his children asked him questions, and forced him, as it were, into the present. Frederick's grief was no more to be seen or heard; for now he was ashamed of having been so battered down by emotion; and though his sorrow was deep and real, and would last out his life, it was never to be spoken of again. Margaret, not so passionate at first, was suffering more now. At times she cried a good deal; and her mournful tenderness was deepened whenever she looked at Frederick, and thought of his rapidly approaching departure. She was glad he was going, however, on her father's account. The anxious terror in which Mr. Hale lived lest his son should be detected far out-weighed the pleasure he took from his presence. He started at every unusual sound; and was not comfortable unless Frederick sat out of view of anyone entering the room. Towards evening he said: 'You will go with Frederick to the station, Margaret? I shall want to know he is safely off - I should be fancying someone had recognised him, and stopped him, unless you could tell me you had seen him off. And go to the Outwood station. There are not so many people about. What time is your train, Fred?' 'Ten minutes past six; very nearly dark.' 'But it is a well-lit road all the way home,' said Margaret. 'I was out last week much later.' Margaret was thankful when Frederick's parting with his father was over. She hurried Frederick into the cab, in order to shorten a scene which she saw was bitterly painful to her father. In consequence they found, on reaching Outwood, that they had nearly twenty minutes to spare. The booking-office was not open, so they could not even buy the ticket. So they went down the flight of steps below the railway, where there was a path crossing a field alongside the road, and walked backwards and forwards for a few minutes. Frederick took his sister's hand affectionately. 'Margaret! I will consult Mr. Lennox as to the chance of exculpating myself, so that I may return to England whenever I choose. I can't bear to think of your lonely position if anything should happen to my father. He looks sadly changed - terribly shaken. I wish you could get him to think of the Cadiz plan. What could you do if he were taken away? You have no friend near.' Margaret could hardly keep from crying. Frederick was bringing before her an event which she herself felt was not improbable, so severely had the cares of the last few months affected Mr. Hale. But she said: 'There have been such unexpected changes in my life during these last two years, that it is not worth while trying to predict the future. I try to think only of the present.' She paused; they stood still for a moment, by the stile leading into the road; the setting sun fell on their faces. Frederick held her hand, and looked with wistful anxiety into her face, as she went on: 'We shall write often to one another, and I will promise to tell you every worry I have. Papa is' - she started a little, and Frederick turned to look at the road, along which a horseman was slowly riding, just passing the stile where they stood. Margaret bowed; her bow was stiffly returned. 'Who is that?' said Frederick, once he was past. Margaret was a little drooping, a little flushed, as she replied: 'Mr. Thornton; you saw him before, you know.' 'Only his back. He is an unprepossessing-looking fellow. What a scowl he has!' 'Something has happened to vex him,' said Margaret, apologetically. 'It must be time to go and get my ticket. If I had known how dark it would be, we wouldn't have sent away the cab.' 'Oh, don't fidget about that. I can take a cab here, if I like; or go back by train, when I should have people and lamps all the way from Milton Station. Don't think of me; take care of yourself. I am sick with the thought that Leonards may be in the same train with you. Check the carriage before you get in.' They went back to the station, and Margaret bought the ticket. Some idle-looking young men were lounging about. Margaret thought she had seen one of them before, and returned him a proud look of offended dignity for his impertinent stare of admiration. She went hastily outside to her brother, and took hold of his arm. 'Have you got your bag? Let us walk about here on the platform,' said she, a little flurried, her bravery oozing out rather faster than she liked to acknowledge even to herself. She heard a step following them along the flagstones; it stopped when they stopped, looking out along the line and hearing the whizz of the coming train. They did not speak; their hearts were too full. Another moment, and the train would be here, and he would be gone. Margaret almost repented entreating him to go to London; it was throwing more chances of detection in his way. If he had sailed for Spain from Liverpool, he might have been off in two or three hours. Frederick turned round, facing the gas-lamp. A man dressed as a railway porter started forward; a bad-looking man, who seemed to have drunk himself into a state of brutality. 'By your leave, miss!' said he, pushing Margaret rudely aside, and seizing Frederick by the collar. 'Your name is Hale, I believe?' In an instant - how, Margaret did not see, for everything danced before her eyes - Frederick had tripped him up, and he fell three or four feet from the platform to the soft ground below. There he lay. 'Run, run!' gasped Margaret. 'The train is here. It was Leonards, was it? oh, run! I will carry your bag.' A door opened in a carriage - he jumped in; and as he leant out to say, 'God bless you!' the train rushed past her; and she was left standing alone. She was terribly sick and faint. She was thankful to be able to turn into the ladies' waiting-room, and sit down for an instant. At first she could do nothing but gasp for breath. It was such a hurry; such a sickening alarm. If the train had not arrived, the man would have jumped up again and called for assistance to arrest Frederick. She wondered if the man had got up; she wondered if he could have been seriously hurt. She ventured out; the platform was lit, but quite deserted. She went to the end, and looked over, somewhat fearfully. No one was there; and then she was glad she had made herself go and inspect it, for otherwise terrible thoughts would have haunted her dreams. Even as it was, she was so frightened that she felt she could not walk home. She would wait for the down train. But what if Leonards recognised her as Frederick's companion! She peered about, before venturing into the booking-office to buy her ticket. There were only some railway officials standing about, talking loudly. 'So Leonards has been drinking again!' said one. 'He'll need all his boasted influence to keep his place this time.' 'Where is he?' asked another, while Margaret, her back towards them, was counting her change with trembling fingers, not daring to turn round until she heard the answer. 'I don't know. He came in not five minutes ago, with some story or other about a fall he'd had, swearing awfully; and wanted to borrow some money to go to London by the next up-train. I'd better things to do than listen to him; so I told him to go about his business; and he went off.' 'He's at the nearest inn, I'll be bound,' said the first speaker. 'Your money would have gone there too, if you'd been such a fool as to lend it.' 'Catch me doing that! I know better. Why, he has never paid me back that five shillings' - and so they went on. Now all Margaret's anxiety was for the train to come. She hid once more in the ladies' waiting-room, and fancied every noise was Leonards' step - every loud and boisterous voice was his. But the train drew up; she was civilly helped into a carriage by a porter, at whom she dared not look till they were in motion, and then she saw that it was not Leonards.

North and South

Chapter 32: MISCHANCES

"There's iron, they say, in all our blood, And a grain or two perhaps is good; But his, he makes me harshly feel, Has got a little too much of steel." ANON. "Margaret!" said Mr. Hale as he returned from showing his guest downstairs; "I could not help watching your face with some anxiety, when Mr. Thornton made his confession of having been a shop-boy. I knew it all along from Mr. Bell; so I was aware of what was coming; but I half expected to see you get up and leave the room." "Oh, papa! you don't mean that you thought me so silly? I really liked that account of himself better than anything else he said. Everything else revolted me, from its hardness; but he spoke about himself so simply--with so little of the pretence that makes the vulgarity of shop-people, and with such tender respect for his mother, that I was less likely to leave the room then than when he was boasting about Milton, as if there was not such another place in the world; or quietly professing to despise people for careless, wasteful improvidence, without ever seeming to think it his duty to try to make them different,--to give them anything of the training which his mother gave him, and to which he evidently owes his position, whatever that may be. No! his statement of having been a shop-boy was the thing I liked best of all." "I am surprised at you, Margaret," said her mother. "You who were always accusing people of being shoppy at Helstone! I don't think, Mr. Hale, you have done quite right in introducing such a person to us without telling us what he had been. I really was very much afraid of showing him how much shocked I was at some parts of what he said. His father 'dying in miserable circumstances.' Why it might have been in the workhouse." "I am not sure it was not worse than being in the workhouse," replied her husband. "I heard a good deal of his previous life from Mr. Bell before we came here; and as he has told you a part, I will fill up what he left out. His father speculated wildly, failed, and then killed himself, because he could not bear the disgrace. All his former friends shrunk from the disclosures that had to be made of his dishonest gambling--wild, hopeless struggles, made with other people's money, to regain his own moderate portion of wealth. No one came forward to help the mother and this boy. There was another child, I believe, a girl; too young to earn money, but of course she had to be kept. At least, no friend came forward immediately, and Mrs. Thornton is not one, I fancy, to wait till tardy kindness comes to find her out. So they left Milton. I knew he had gone into a shop, and that his earnings, with some fragment of property secured to his mother, had been made to keep them for a long time. Mr. Bell said they absolutely lived upon water-porridge for years--how, he did not know; but long after the creditors had given up hope of any payment of old Mr. Thornton's debts (if, indeed, they ever had hoped at all about it, after his suicide), this young man returned to Milton, and went quietly round to each creditor, paying him the first instalment of the money owing to him. No noise--no gathering together of creditors--it was done very silently and quietly, but all was paid at last; helped on materially by the circumstance of one of the creditors, a crabbed old fellow (Mr. Bell says), taking in Mr. Thornton as a kind of partner." "That really is fine," said Margaret. "What a pity such a nature should be tainted by his position as a Milton manufacturer." "How tainted?" asked her father. "Oh, papa, by that testing everything by the standard of wealth. When he spoke of the mechanical powers, he evidently looked upon them only as new ways of extending trade and making money. And the poor men around him--they were poor because they were vicious--out of the pale of his sympathies because they had not his iron nature, and the capabilities that it gives him for being rich." "Not vicious; he never said that. Improvident and self-indulgent were his words." Margaret was collecting her mother's working materials, and preparing to go to bed. Just as she was leaving the room, she hesitated--she was inclined to make an acknowledgment which she thought would please her father, but which to be full and true must include a little annoyance. However, out it came. "Papa, I do think Mr. Thornton a very remarkable man; but personally I don't like him at all." "And I do!" said her father laughing. "Personally, as you call it, and all. I don't set him up for a hero, or anything of that kind. But good-night, child. Your mother looks sadly tired to-night, Margaret." Margaret had noticed her mother's jaded appearance with anxiety for some time past, and this remark of her father's sent her up to bed with a dim fear lying like a weight on her heart. The life in Milton was so different from what Mrs. Hale had been accustomed to live in Helstone, in and out perpetually into the fresh and open air; the air itself was so different, deprived of all revivifying principle as it seemed to be here; the domestic worries pressed so very closely, and in so new and sordid a form, upon all the women in the family, that there was good reason to fear that her mother's health might be becoming seriously affected. There were several other signs of something wrong about Mrs. Hale. She and Dixon held mysterious consultations in her bedroom, from which Dixon would come out crying and cross, as was her custom when any distress of her mistress called upon her sympathy. Once Margaret had gone into the chamber soon after Dixon left it, and found her mother on her knees, and as Margaret stole out she caught a few words which were evidently a prayer for strength and patience to endure severe bodily suffering. Margaret yearned to re-unite the bond of intimate confidence which had been broken by her long residence at her aunt Shaw's, and strove by gentle caresses and softened words to creep into the warmest place in her mother's heart. But though she received caresses and fond words back again, in such profusion as would have gladdened her formerly, yet she felt that there was a secret withheld from her, and she believed it bore serious reference to her mother's health. She lay awake very long this night, planning how to lessen the evil influence of their Milton life on her mother. A servant to give Dixon permanent assistance should be got, if she gave up her whole time to the search; and then, at any rate, her mother might have all the personal attention she required, and had been accustomed to her whole life. Visiting register offices, seeing all manner of unlikely people, and very few in the least likely, absorbed Margaret's time and thoughts for several days. One afternoon she met Bessy Higgins in the street, and stopped to speak to her. "Well, Bessy, how are you? Better, I hope, now the wind has changed." "Better and not better, if yo' know what that means." "Not exactly," replied Margaret, smiling. "I'm better in not being torn to pieces by coughing o' nights, but I'm weary and tired o' Milton, and longing to get away to the land o' Beulah? and when I think I'm farther and farther off, my heart sinks, and I'm no better; I'm worse." Margaret turned round to walk alongside of the girl in her feeble progress homeward. But for a minute or two she did not speak. At last she said in a low voice, "Bessy, do you wish to die?" For she shrank from death herself, with all the clinging to life so natural to the young and healthy. Bessy was silent in her turn for a minute or two. Then she replied, "If yo'd led the life I have, and getten as weary of it as I have, and thought at times, 'maybe it'll last for fifty or sixty years--it does wi' some,'--and got dizzy and dazed, and sick, as each of them sixty years seemed to spin about me, and mock me with its length of hours and minutes, and endless bits o' time--oh, wench! I tell thee thou'd been glad enough when th' doctor said he feared thou'd never see another winter." "Why, Bessy, what kind of a life has yours been?" "Nought worse than many others,' I reckon. Only I fretted against it, and they didn't." "But what was it? You know, I'm a stranger here, so perhaps I'm not so quick at understanding what you mean as if I'd lived all my life at Milton." "If yo'd ha' come to our house when yo' said yo' would, I could maybe ha' told you. But father says yo're just like th' rest on 'em; its out o' sight out o' mind wi' you." "I don't know who the rest are; and I've been very busy; and, to tell the truth, I had forgotten my promise--" "Yo' offered it; we asked none of it." "I had forgotten what I said for the time," continued Margaret quietly. "I should have thought of it again when I was less busy. May I go with you now?" Bessy gave a quick glance at Margaret's face, to see if the wish expressed was really felt. The sharpness in her eye turned to a wistful longing as she met Margaret's soft and friendly gaze. "I ha' none so many to care for me; if yo' care yo' may come." So they walked on together in silence. As they turned up into a small court, out of a squalid street, Bessy said, "Yo'll not be daunted if father's at home, and speaks a bit gruffish at first. He took a mind to ye, yo' see, and he thought a deal o' your coming to see us; and just because he liked yo' he was vexed and put about." "Don't fear, Bessy." But Nicholas was not at home when they entered. A great slatternly girl, not so old as Bessy, but taller and stronger, was busy at the wash-tub, knocking about the furniture in a rough capable way, but altogether making so much noise that Margaret shrunk, out of sympathy with poor Bessy, who had sat down on the first chair, as if completely tired out with her walk. Margaret asked the sister for a cup of water, and while she ran to fetch it (knocking down the fire-irons, and tumbling over a chair in her way), she unloosed Bessy's bonnet strings, to relieve her catching breath. "Do you think such life as this is worth caring for?" gasped Bessy, at last. Margaret did not speak, but held the water to her lips. Bessy took a long and feverish draught, and then fell back and shut her eyes. Margaret heard her murmur to herself: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more: neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." Margaret bent over and said, "Bessy don't be impatient with your life, whatever it is--or may have been. Remember who gave it you, and made it what it is!" She was startled by hearing Nicholas speak behind her; he had come in without her noticing him. "Now, I'll not have my wench preached to. She's bad enough, as it is, with her dreams and her methodee fancies, and her visions of cities with goulden gates and precious stones. But if it amuses her I let it abe, but I'm none going to have more stuff poured into her." "But surely," said Margaret, facing round, "you believe in what I said, that God gave her life, and ordered what kind of life it was to be?" "I believe what I see, and no more. That's what I believe, young woman. I don't believe all I hear--no! not by a big deal. I did hear a young lass make an ado about knowing where we lived, and coming to see us. And my wench here thought a deal about it, and flushed up many a time, when hoo little knew as I was looking at her, at the sound of a strange step. But hoo's come at last,--and hoo's welcome, as long as hoo'll keep from preaching on what hoo knows nought about." Bessy had been watching Margaret's face; she half sate up to speak now, laying her hand on Margaret's arm with a gesture of entreaty. "Don't be vexed wi' him--there's many a one thinks like him: many and many a one here. If yo' could hear them speak, yo'd not be shocked at him; he's a rare good man, is father--but oh!" said she, falling back in despair, "what he says at times makes me long to die more than ever, for I want to know so many things, and am so tossed about wi' wonder." "Poor wench--poor old wench--I'm loth to vex thee, I am; but a man mun speak out for the truth, and when I see the world going all wrong at this time o' day, bothering itself wi' things it knows nought about, and leaving undone all the things that lie in disorder close at its hand--why, I say, leave a' this talk about religion alone, and set to work on what yo' see and know. That's my creed. It's simple, and not far to fetch, nor hard to work." But the girl only pleaded the more with Margaret. "Don't think hardly on him--he's a good man, he is. I sometimes think I shall be moped wi' sorrow even in the City of God, if father is not there." The feverish colour came into her cheek, and the feverish flame into her eye. "But you will be there, father! you shall! Oh! my heart!" She put her hand to it, and became ghastly pale. Margaret held her in her arms, and put the weary head to rest upon her bosom. She lifted the thin soft hair from off the temples, and bathed them with water. Nicholas understood all her signs for different articles with the quickness of love, and even the round-eyed sister moved with laborious gentleness at Margaret's "hush!" Presently the spasm that foreshadowed death had passed away, and Bessy roused herself and said,-- "I'll go to bed,--it's best place; but," catching at Margaret's gown, "yo'll come again,--I know yo' will--but just say it!" "I will come again to-morrow," said Margaret. Bessy leant back against her father, who prepared to carry her upstairs; but as Margaret rose to go, he struggled to say something; "I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask Him to bless thee." Margaret went away very sad and thoughtful. She was late for tea at home. At Helstone unpunctuality at meal-times was a great fault in her mother's eyes; but now this, as well as many other little irregularities, seemed to have lost their power of irritation, and Margaret almost longed for the old complainings. "Have you met with a servant, dear?" "No, mamma; that Anne Buckley would never have done." "Suppose I try," said Mr. Hale. "Everybody else has had their turn at this great difficulty. Now let me try. I may be the Cinderella to put on the slipper after all." Margaret could hardly smile at this little joke, so oppressed was she by her visit to the Higginses. "What would you do, papa? How would you set about it?" "Why, I should apply to some good house-mother to recommend me one known to herself or her servants." "Very good. But we must first catch our house-mother." "You have caught her. Or rather she is coming into the snare, and you will catch her to-morrow, if you're skilful." "What do you mean, Mr. Hale?" asked his wife, her curiosity aroused. "Why, my paragon pupil (as Margaret calls him) has told me that his mother intends to call on Mrs. and Miss Hale to-morrow." "Mrs. Thornton!" exclaimed Mrs. Hale. "The mother of whom he spoke to us?" said Margaret. "Mrs. Thornton; the only mother he has, I believe," said Mr. Hale, quietly. "I shall like to see her. She must be an uncommon person," her mother added. "Perhaps she may have a relation who might suit us, and be glad of our place. She sounded to be such a careful economical person, that I should like any one out of the same family." "My dear," said Mr. Hale alarmed. "Pray don't go off on that idea. I fancy Mrs. Thornton is as haughty and proud in her way as our little Margaret here is in hers, and that she completely ignores that old time of trial, and poverty, and economy, of which he speaks so openly. I am sure, at any rate, she would not like strangers to know anything about it." "Take notice that is not my kind of haughtiness, papa, if I have any at all; which I don't agree to, though you're always accusing me of it." "I don't know positively that it is hers either; but from little things I have gathered from him, I fancy so." They cared too little to ask in what manner her son had spoken about her. Margaret only wanted to know if she must stay in to receive this call, as it would prevent her going to see how Bessy was, until late in the day, since the early morning was always occupied in household affairs; and then she recollected that her mother must not be left to have the whole weight of entertaining her visitor.

'Margaret!' said Mr. Hale, as he returned from showing his guest downstairs; 'I could not help watching your face with some anxiety, when Mr. Thornton confessed to having been a shop-boy. I half expected you to get up and leave the room.' 'Oh, papa! you don't mean that you thought me so silly? I really liked that account of himself better than anything else he said. Everything else revolted me, from its hardness; but he spoke about himself so simply - with so little vulgar pretence, and with such tender respect for his mother, that I was less likely to leave the room then than when he was boasting about Milton; or quietly professing to despise people for improvidence. He did not seem to think it his duty to try to make them different, to give them any of the training which his mother gave him. No! his statement of having been a shop-boy was the thing I liked best of all.' 'I am surprised at you, Margaret,' said her mother. 'You, who were always accusing people of being shoppy at Helstone! I don't think, Mr. Hale, you have done quite right in introducing such a person to us without telling us what he had been. I was shocked when he said his father died "in miserable circumstances." Why, it might have been in the workhouse.' 'I heard a good deal about his previous life from Mr. Bell,' replied her husband; 'so I can tell you that his father speculated wildly, failed, and then killed himself, because he could not bear the disgrace. All his former friends shrunk from the family. No one came forwards to help the mother and this boy. There was another child too, I believe, a younger girl. So they left Milton. I knew he had gone into a shop, and that his earnings supported them. Mr. Bell said they absolutely lived upon water-porridge for years; but long after the creditors had given up hope of receiving any payment of old Mr. Thornton's debts, this young man returned to Milton, and went quietly round to each creditor, paying him the first instalment of the money owing. It was done very silently, but all was paid at last; helped because one of the creditors, a crabbed old fellow, took in Mr. Thornton as a kind of partner.' 'That really is fine,' said Margaret. 'What a pity such a nature should be tainted by his position as a manufacturer.' 'How tainted?' asked her father. 'Oh, papa, by that testing everything by the standard of wealth. He spoke of mechanical power only as a way of making money. And the poor men around him - they were poor because they were vicious, and had not his iron nature.' 'Not vicious; he never said that. Improvident and self-indulgent were his words.' Margaret was about to leave the room and go to bed; but she hesitated. She wanted to say something which she thought would please her father, but which to be true must include a little annoyance. However, out it came. 'Papa, I do think Mr. Thornton a very remarkable man; but personally I don't like him at all.' 'And I do!' said her father laughing. 'I don't set him up for a hero, though. Good night, child. Your mother looks sadly tired tonight.' Margaret had noticed her mother's appearance with anxiety for some time, and this remark of her father's sent her up to bed with a dim fear weighing on her heart. The life in Milton was so different from what Mrs. Hale had been used to in Helstone, with its fresh and open air, and domestic worries pressed so closely, that she feared that her mother's health might be becoming seriously affected. There were other signs of something wrong with Mrs. Hale. She and Dixon held mysterious consultations in her bedroom, from which Dixon would come out crying and cross. Once Margaret had gone into the chamber soon after Dixon left it, and found her mother on her knees. As Margaret stole out again, she caught a few words of a prayer for strength to endure severe bodily suffering. Margaret yearned for the intimate confidence which had been broken by her long residence at her aunt Shaw's, and strove by gentle caresses and soft words to creep into the warmest place in her mother's heart. But though she received caresses and fond words back in plenty, yet she felt that there was a secret withheld from her, and she believed it was about her mother's health. She lay awake very long this night, planning how to lessen the evil influence of their Milton life on her mother. A servant to help Dixon should be got, if she gave up her whole time to the search; and then, at any rate, her mother might have all the personal attention she required. Visiting agencies and interviewing unlikely people absorbed Margaret's time and thoughts for several days. One afternoon she met Bessy Higgins in the street, and stopped to speak to her. 'Well, Bessy, how are you? Better, I hope.' 'Better and not better, if yo' know what that means.' 'Not exactly,' replied Margaret, smiling. 'I'm better in not being torn to pieces by coughing o'nights, but I'm weary and tired o' Milton, and longing to get away to heaven; and when I think I'm farther off, my heart sinks, and I'm no better; I'm worse.' Margaret turned silently to walk alongside the girl in her feeble progress homeward. At last she said in a low voice, 'Bessy, do you wish to die?' Bessy was silent in her turn for a minute or two. Then she replied, 'If yo'd led the life I have, and getten as weary of it as I have, and thought "maybe it'll last for fifty or sixty years," and got dizzy and sick, as each of them sixty years seemed to spin about me, and mock me with its endless time - oh, wench! Thou'd been glad enough when th' doctor said he feared thou'd never see another winter.' 'Why, Bessy, what kind of a life has yours been?' 'Nought worse than many others, I reckon.' 'But what was it? You know, I'm a stranger here, so perhaps I'm not so quick at understanding life in Milton.' 'If yo'd ha' come to our house when yo' said yo' would, I could maybe ha' told you. But father says yo're just like th' rest of 'em; out o' sight, out o' mind.' 'I don't know who the rest are; and I've been very busy; and, to tell the truth, I had forgotten my promise-' 'Yo' offered it! we asked none of it.' 'I had forgotten what I said,' continued Margaret quietly. 'I should have remembered it when I was less busy. May I go with you now?' Bessy gave a quick glance at Margaret's face. The sharpness in her eye turned to a wistful longing as she met Margaret's soft and friendly gaze. 'If yo' care yo' may come.' So they walked on together in silence. As they turned up into a small court, opening out of a squalid street, Bessy said, 'Yo'll not be daunted if father's at home, and speaks a bit gruffish at first. He took a mind to ye, yo' see, and he thought a deal o' your coming to see us; and just because he liked yo' he were vexed.' 'Don't fear, Bessy.' But Nicholas was not at home when they entered. A slatternly girl, not so old as Bessy, but taller and stronger, was busy at the wash-tub, knocking about the furniture in a rough capable way. Bessy sat down, exhausted, and Margaret asked this sister for a cup of water. While she ran to fetch it (tumbling over a chair in her way), Margaret unloosed Bessy's bonnet strings, to let her catch her breath. 'Do you think such life as this is worth caring for?' gasped Bessy, at last. Margaret did not speak, but held the water to her lips. Bessy took a long drink, and then fell back and shut her eyes. Margaret heard her murmur: 'They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.' Margaret said, 'Bessy, don't be impatient with your life. Remember who gave it you, and made it what it is!' She was startled by hearing Nicholas speak behind her; he had come in without her noticing. 'Now, I'll not have my wench preached to. She's bad enough as it is, with her dreams and her fancies, and her visions of cities with golden gates. If it amuses her I let it be, but I'm not going to have more stuff poured into her.' 'But surely,' said Margaret, facing him, 'you believe that God gave her life, and ordered what kind of life it was to be?' 'I believe what I see, and no more, young woman. I don't believe all I hear! For I did hear a young lass make an ado about knowing where we lived, and coming to see us. And my wench here thought a deal about it, and flushed up many a time at the sound of a strange step. But hoo's come at last - and hoo's welcome, as long as hoo'll keep from preaching on what hoo knows nought about.' Bessy had been watching Margaret's face; she half sat up, laying her hand on Margaret's arm. 'Don't be vexed wi' him - there's many a one thinks like him; and he's a rare good man, is father - but oh!' said she, falling back in despair, 'what he says at times makes me long to die more than ever, for I want to know so many things, and am so tossed about wi' wonder.' 'Poor wench - I'm sorry to vex thee, I am; but a man mun speak out for the truth, and when I see the world going all wrong, bothering itself wi' things it knows nought about, and leaving undone all the things that lie in disorder close at hand - why, I say, leave this talk about religion alone, and set to work on what yo' see and know. That's my creed. It's simple.' But the girl only pleaded again: 'Don't think badly of him - he's a good man. I sometimes think I shall be moped wi' sorrow even in the City of God, if father is not there.' A feverish flame came into her eye. 'But you will be there, father! you shall! Oh! my heart!' She put her hand to it, and became ghastly pale. Margaret held her in her arms, and lifted the thin soft hair from off the temples. Nicholas understood her signs for water with the quickness of love, and even the round-eyed sister moved with laborious gentleness. Presently the spasm passed away. Bessy roused herself and said, 'I'll go to bed - it's best place; but,' catching at Margaret's gown, 'yo'll come again - say it!' 'I will come tomorrow,' said Margaret. Bessy leant back against her father, who prepared to carry her upstairs; but first he struggled to say something: 'I could wish there were a God, if only to ask Him to bless thee.' Margaret went away very sad and thoughtful. She was late for tea at home. At Helstone unpunctuality at meal-times was a great fault in her mother's eyes; but no more, and Margaret almost longed for the old complainings. 'Have you found a servant, dear?' 'No, mamma, not yet.' 'Suppose I try,' said Mr. Hale. 'Everybody else has had their turn. I may be the Cinderella to put on the slipper after all.' Margaret could hardly smile at this little joke, so oppressed was she by her visit to the Higginses. 'How would you set about it, Papa?' 'Why, I would apply to some good house-mother to recommend me someone.' 'Very good. But we must first catch our house-mother.' 'You have caught her. Or rather, you will catch her tomorrow, if you're skilful.' 'What do you mean, Mr. Hale?' asked his wife curiously. 'Why, my paragon pupil has told me that his mother intends to call on you both tomorrow.' 'Mrs. Thornton!' exclaimed Mrs. Hale. 'I shall like to see her. She must be an uncommon person. Perhaps she may have a relation who might suit us, and be glad of the job.' 'My dear,' said Mr. Hale, alarmed. 'Pray don't think that! I fancy Mrs. Thornton is as haughty and proud in her way, as our little Margaret is in hers, and that she completely ignores that old time of poverty of which her son speaks so openly. I am sure she would not like strangers to know anything about It.' 'Note that that is not my kind of haughtiness, papa, if I have any at all; which I don't agree to. Must I stay in to receive this call?' Margaret thought it would prevent her going to see Bessy until late in the day; and then she recollected that her mother must not be left to have the whole weight of entertaining her visitor.

North and South

Chapter 11: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

"A dull rotation, never at a stay, Yesterday's face twin image of to-day." COWPER. "Of what each one should be, he sees the form and rule, And till he reach to that, his joy can ne'er be full." RUCKERT. It was very well for Margaret that the extreme quiet of the Harley Street house, during Edith's recovery from her confinement, gave her the natural rest which she needed. It gave her time to comprehend the sudden change which had taken place in her circumstances within the last two months. She found herself at once an inmate of a luxurious house, where the bare knowledge of the existence of every trouble or care seemed scarcely to have penetrated. The wheels of the machinery of daily life were well oiled, and went along with delicious smoothness. Mrs. Shaw and Edith could hardly make enough of Margaret, on her return to what they persisted in calling her home. And she felt that it was almost ungrateful in her to have a secret feeling that the Helstone vicarage--nay, even the poor little house at Milton, with her anxious father and her invalid mother, and all the small household cares of comparative poverty, composed her idea of home. Edith was impatient to get well, in order to fill Margaret's bed-room with all the soft comforts, and pretty knick-knacks, with which her own abounded. Mrs. Shaw and her maid found plenty of occupation in restoring Margaret's wardrobe to a state of elegant variety. Captain Lennox was easy, kind, and gentlemanly; sate with his wife in her dressing-room an hour or two every day; played with his little boy for another hour, and lounged away the rest of his time at his club, when he was not engaged out to dinner. Just before Margaret had recovered from her necessity for quiet and repose--before she had begun to feel her life wanting and dull--Edith came downstairs and resumed her usual part in the household; and Margaret fell into the old habit of watching, and admiring, and ministering to her cousin. She gladly took all charge of the semblances of duties off Edith's hands; answered notes, reminded her of engagements, tended her when no gaiety was in prospect, and she was consequently rather inclined to fancy herself ill. But all the rest of the family were in the full business of the London season, and Margaret was often left alone. Then her thoughts went back to Milton, with a strange sense of the contrast between the life there, and here. She was getting surfeited of the eventless ease in which no struggle or endeavour was required. She was afraid lest she should even become sleepily deadened into forgetfulness of anything beyond the life which was lapping her round with luxury. There might be toilers and moilers there in London, but she never saw them; the very servants lived in an underground world of their own, of which she knew neither the hopes nor the fears; they only seemed to start into existence when some want or whim of their master and mistress needed them. There was a strange unsatisfied vacuum in Margaret's heart and mode of life; and, once when she had dimly hinted this to Edith, the latter, wearied with dancing the night before, languidly stroked Margaret's cheek as she sat by her in the old attitude,--she on a footstool by the sofa where Edith lay. "Poor child!" said Edith. "It is a little sad for you to be left, night after night, just at this time when all the world is so gay. But we shall be having our dinner-parties soon--as soon as Henry comes back from circuit--and then there will be a little pleasant variety for you. No wonder it is moped, poor darling!" Margaret did not feel as if the dinner-parties would be a panacea. But Edith piqued herself on her dinner-parties; "so different," as she said, "from the old dowager dinners under mamma's rgime;" and Mrs. Shaw herself seemed to take exactly the same kind of pleasure in the very different arrangements and circle of acquaintances which were to Captain and Mrs. Lennox's taste, as she did in the more formal and ponderous entertainments which she herself used to give. Captain Lennox was always extremely kind and brotherly to Margaret. She was really very fond of him, excepting when he was anxiously attentive to Edith's dress and appearance, with a view to her beauty making a sufficient impression on the world. Then all the latent Vashti in Margaret was roused, and she could hardly keep herself from expressing her feelings. The course of Margaret's day was this; a quiet hour or two before a late breakfast; an unpunctual meal, lazily eaten by weary and half-awake people, but yet at which, in all its dragged out length, she was expected to be present, because, directly afterwards, came a discussion of plans, at which, although they none of them concerned her, she was expected to give her sympathy, if she could not assist with her advice; an endless number of notes to write, which Edith invariably left to her, with many caressing compliments as to her eloquence du billet; a little play with Sholto as he returned from his morning's walk; besides the care of the children during the servants' dinner; a drive or callers; and some dinner or morning engagement for her aunt and cousins, which left Margaret free, it is true, but rather wearied with the inactivity of the day, coming upon depressed spirits and delicate health. She looked forward with longing, though unspoken interest to the homely object of Dixon's return from Milton; where, until now, the old servant had been busily engaged in winding up all the affairs of the Hale family. It had appeared a sudden famine to her heart, this entire cessation of any news respecting the people among whom she had lived so long. It was true, that Dixon, in her business-like letters, quoted, every now and then, an opinion of Mr. Thornton's as to what she had better do about the furniture, or how act in regard to the landlord of the Crampton Terrace house. But it was only here and there that the name came in, or any Milton name, indeed; and Margaret was sitting one evening, all alone in the Lennox's drawing-room, not reading Dixon's letters, which yet she held in her hand, but thinking over them, and recalling the days which had been, and picturing the busy life out of which her own had been taken and never missed; wondering if all went on in that whirl just as if she and her father had never been; questioning within herself, if no one in all the crowd missed her (not Higgins, she was not thinking of him), when, suddenly Mr. Bell was announced; and Margaret hurried the letters into her work-basket, and started up, blushing as if she had been doing some guilty thing. "Oh, Mr. Bell! I never thought of seeing you!" "But you give me a welcome, I hope, as well as that very pretty start of surprise." "Have you dined? How did you come? Let me order you some dinner." "If you're going to have any. Otherwise, you know, there is no one who cares less for eating than I do. But where are the others? Gone out to dinner? Left you alone?" "Oh yes! and it is such a rest. I was just thinking--But will you run the risk of dinner? I don't know if there is anything in the house." "Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club. Only they don't cook as well as they did, so I thought, if you were going to dine, I might try and make out my dinner. But never mind, never mind! There aren't ten cooks in England to be trusted at impromptu dinners. If their skill and their fires will stand it, their tempers won't. You shall make me some tea, Margaret. And now, what were you thinking of? you were going to tell me. Whose letters were those, god-daughter, that you hid away so speedily?" "Only Dixon's," replied Margaret, growing very red. "Whew! is that all? Who do you think came up in the train with me?" "I don't know," said Margaret, resolved against making a guess. "Your what d'ye call him? What's the right name for a cousin-in-law's brother?" "Mr. Henry Lennox?" asked Margaret. "Yes," replied Mr. Bell. "You knew him formerly, didn't you? What sort of a person is he, Margaret?" "I liked him long ago," said Margaret, glancing down for a moment. And then she looked straight up and went on in her natural manner. "You know we have been corresponding about Frederick since; but I have not seen him for nearly three years, and he may be changed. What did you think of him?" "I don't know. He was so busy trying to find out who I was, in the first instance, and what I was in the second, that he never let out what he was; unless indeed that veiled curiosity of his as to what manner of man he had to talk to was not a good piece, and a fair indication of his character. Do you call him good-looking, Margaret?" "No! certainly not. Do you?" "Not I. But I thought perhaps you might. Is he a great deal here?" "I fancy he is when he is in town. He has been on circuit now since I came. But--Mr. Bell--have you come from Oxford or from Milton?" "From Milton. Don't you see I'm smoke-dried?" "Certainly. But I thought that it might be the effect of the antiquities of Oxford." "Come now, be a sensible woman! In Oxford, I could have managed all the landlords in the place, and had my own way, with half the trouble your Milton landlord has given me, and defeated me after all. He won't take the house off our hands till next June twelve-month. Luckily, Mr. Thornton found a tenant for it. Why don't you ask after Mr. Thornton, Margaret? He has proved himself a very active friend of yours, I can tell you. Taken more than half the trouble off my hands." "And how is he? How is Mrs. Thornton?" asked Margaret hurriedly and below her breath, though she tried to speak out. "I suppose they're well. I've been staying at their house till I was driven out of it by the perpetual clack about that Thornton girl's marriage. It was too much for Thornton himself, though she was his sister. He used to go and sit in his own room perpetually. He's getting past the age for caring for such things, either as principal or accessory. I was surprised to find the old lady falling into the current, and carried away by her daughter's enthusiasm for orange-blossoms and lace. I thought Mrs. Thornton had been made of sterner stuff." "She would put on any assumption of feeling to veil her daughter's weakness," said Margaret in a low voice. "Perhaps so. You've studied her, have you? She doesn't seem over fond of you, Margaret." "I know it," said Margaret. "Oh, here is tea, at last!" exclaimed she, as if relieved. And with tea came Mr. Henry Lennox, who had walked up to Harley Street after a late dinner, and had evidently expected to find his brother and sister-in-law at home. Margaret suspected him of being as thankful as she was at the presence of a third party, on this their first meeting since the memorable day of his offer, and her refusal at Helstone. She could hardly tell what to say at first, and was thankful for all the tea-table occupations, which gave her an excuse for keeping silence, and him an opportunity for recovering himself. For, to tell the truth, he had rather forced himself up to Harley Street this evening, with a view of getting over an awkward meeting, awkward even in the presence of Captain Lennox and Edith, and doubly awkward now that he found her the only lady there, and the person to whom he must naturally and perforce address a great part of his conversation. She was the first to recover her self-possession. She began to talk on the subject which came uppermost in her mind, after the first flush of awkward shyness. "Mr. Lennox, I have been so much obliged to you for all you have done about Frederick." "I am only sorry it has been so unsuccessful," replied he, with a quick glance towards Mr. Bell, as if reconnoitring how much he might say before him. Margaret, as if she read his thought, addressed herself to Mr. Bell, both including him in the conversation, and implying that he was perfectly aware of the endeavours that had been made to clear Frederick. "That Horrocks--that very last witness of all, has proved as unavailing as all the others. Mr. Lennox has discovered that he sailed for Australia only last August; only two months before Frederick was in England, and gave us the names of----" "Frederick in England! you never told me that!" exclaimed Mr. Bell in surprise. "I thought you knew. I never doubted you had been told. Of course, it was a great secret, and perhaps I should not have named it now," said Margaret, a little dismayed. "I have never named it to either my brother or your cousin," said Mr. Lennox, with a little professional dryness of implied reproach. "Never mind, Margaret. I am not living in a talking, babbling world, nor yet among people who are trying to worm facts out of me; you needn't look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me. I shall never name his having been in England; I shall be out of temptation, for no one will ask me. Stay!" (interrupting himself rather abruptly). "Was it at your mother's funeral?" "He was with mamma when she died," said Margaret, softly. "To be sure! To be sure! Why, some one asked me if he had not been over then, and I denied it stoutly--not many weeks ago--who could it have been? Oh! I recollect!" But he did not say the name; and although Margaret would have given much to know if her suspicions were right, and it had been Mr. Thornton who had made the enquiry, she could not ask the question of Mr. Bell, much as she longed to do so. There was a pause for a moment or two. Then Mr. Lennox said, addressing himself to Margaret, "I suppose as Mr. Bell is now acquainted with all the circumstances attending your brother's unfortunate dilemma, I cannot do better than inform him exactly how the research into the evidence we once hoped to produce in his favour stands at present. So, if he will do me the honour to breakfast with me to-morrow, we will go over the names of these missing gentry." "I should like to hear all the particulars, if I may. Cannot you come here? I dare not ask you both to breakfast, though I am sure you would be welcome. But let me know all you can about Frederick, even though there may be no hope at present." "I have an engagement at half-past eleven. But I will certainly come if you wish it," replied Mr. Lennox with a little after-thought of extreme willingness, which made Margaret shrink into herself, and almost wish that she had not proposed her natural request. Mr. Bell got up and looked around him for his hat, which had been removed to make room for tea. "Well!" said he, "I don't know what Mr. Lennox is inclined to do, but I'm disposed to be moving off homewards. I've been a journey to-day, and journeys begin to tell upon my sixty and odd years." "I believe I shall stay and see my brother and sister," said Mr. Lennox, making no movement of departure. Margaret was seized with a shy awkward dread of being left alone with him. The scene on the little terrace in the Helstone garden was so present to her, that she could hardly help believing it was so with him. "Don't go yet, please Mr. Bell," said she, hastily. "I want you to see Edith; and I want Edith to know you. Please!" said she, laying a light but determined hand on his arm. He looked at her, and saw the confusion stirring in her countenance; he sate down again, as if her little touch had been possessed of resistless strength. "You see how she overpowers me, Mr. Lennox," said he. "And I hope you noticed the happy choice of her expressions; she wants me to 'see' this cousin Edith, who, I am told, is a great beauty; but she has the honesty to change her word when she comes to me--Mrs. Lennox is to 'know' me. I suppose I am not much to 'see,' eh, Margaret?" He joked, to give her time to recover from the slight flutter which he had detected in her manner on his proposal to leave; and she caught the tone, and threw the ball back. Mr. Lennox wondered how his brother, the Captain, could have reported her as having lost all her good looks. To be sure, in her quiet black dress, she was a contrast to Edith, dancing in her white crape mourning, and long floating golden hair, all softness and glitter. She dimpled and blushed most becomingly when introduced to Mr. Bell, conscious that she had her reputation as a beauty to keep up, and that it would not do to have a Mordecai refusing to worship and admire, even in the shape of an old Fellow of a College, which nobody had ever heard of. Mrs. Shaw and Captain Lennox, each in their separate way, gave Mr. Bell a kind and sincere welcome, winning him over to like them almost in spite of himself, especially when he saw how naturally Margaret took her place as sister and daughter of the house. "What a shame that we were not at home to receive you," said Edith. "You, too, Henry! though I don't know that we should have stayed at home for you. And for Mr. Bell! for Margaret's Mr. Bell----" "There is no knowing what sacrifices you would not have made," said her brother-in-law. "Even a dinner-party! and the delight of wearing this very becoming dress." Edith did not know whether to frown or to smile, but it did not suit Mr. Lennox to drive her to the first of these alternatives; so he went on. "Will you show your readiness to make sacrifices to-morrow morning, first by asking me to breakfast, to meet Mr. Bell, and secondly, by being so kind as to order it at half-past nine, instead of at ten o'clock? I have some letters and papers that I want to show to Miss Hale and Mr. Bell." "I hope Mr. Bell will make our house his own during his stay in London," said Captain Lennox. "I am only so sorry we cannot offer him a bedroom." "Thank you. I am much obliged to you. You would only think me a churl if you had, for I should decline it, I believe, in spite of all the temptations of such agreeable company," said Mr. Bell, bowing all round, and secretly congratulating himself on the neat turn he had given to his sentence, which, if put into plain language, would have been more to this effect: "I couldn't stand the restraints of such a proper-behaved and civil-spoken people as these are: it would be like meat without salt. I'm thankful they haven't a bed. And how well I rounded my sentence! I'm absolutely catching the trick of good manners." His self-satisfaction lasted him till he was fairly out in the streets, walking side by side with Henry Lennox. Here he suddenly remembered Margaret's little look of entreaty as she urged him to stay longer, and he also recollected a few hints given him long ago by an acquaintance of Mr. Lennox's, as to his admiration of Margaret. It gave a new direction to his thoughts. "You have known Miss Hale for a long time, I believe. How do you think her looking? She strikes me as pale and ill." "I thought her looking remarkably well. Perhaps not when I first came--now I think of. But certainly, when she grew animated, she looked as well as ever I saw her do." "She has had a great deal to go through," said Mr. Bell. "Yes! I have been sorry to hear of all she has had to bear; not merely the common and universal sorrow arising from death, but all the annoyance which her father's conduct must have caused her, and then----" "Her father's conduct!" said Mr. Bell, in an accent of surprise. "You must have heard some wrong statement. He behaved in the most conscientious manner. He showed more resolute strength than I should ever have given him credit for formerly." "Perhaps I have been wrongly informed. But I have been told, by his successor in the living--a clever sensible man, and a thoroughly active clergyman--that there was no call upon Mr. Hale to do what he did, relinquish the living, and throw himself and his family on the tender mercies of private teaching in a manufacturing town; the bishop had offered him another living, it is true, but if he had come to entertain certain doubts, he could have remained where he was, and so had no occasion to resign. But the truth is, these country clergymen live such isolated lives--isolated, I mean, from all intercourse with men of equal cultivation with themselves, by whose minds they might regulate their own, and discover when they were going either too fast or too slow--that they are very apt to disturb themselves with imaginary doubts as to the articles of faith, and throw up certain opportunities of doing good for very uncertain fancies of their own." "I differ from you. I do not think they are very apt to do as my poor friend Hale did." Mr. Bell was inwardly chafing. "Perhaps I used too general an expression in saying 'very apt.' But certainly, their lives are such as very often to produce either inordinate self-sufficiency, or a morbid state of conscience," replied Mr. Lennox with perfect coolness. "You don't meet with any self-sufficiency among the lawyers, for instance?" asked Mr. Bell. "And seldom, I imagine, any cases of morbid conscience." He was becoming more and more vexed, and forgetting his lately-caught trick of good manners. Mr. Lennox saw now that he had annoyed his companion; and as he had talked pretty much for the sake of saying something, and so passing the time away while their road lay together, he was very indifferent as to the exact side he took upon the question, and quietly came round by saying: "To be sure, there is something fine in a man of Mr. Hale's age leaving his home of twenty years, and giving up all settled habits, for an idea which was probably erroneous--but that does not matter--an untangible thought. One cannot help admiring him, with a mixture of pity in one's admiration, something like what one feels for Don Quixote. Such a gentleman as he was too! I shall never forget the refined and simple hospitality he showed to me that last day at Helstone." Only half-mollified, and yet anxious, in order to lull certain qualms of his own conscience, to believe that Mr. Hale's conduct had a tinge of Quixotism in it, Mr. Bell growled out--"Aye! And you don't know Milton. Such a change from Helstone! It is years since I have been at Helstone--but I'll answer for it, it is standing there yet--every stick and every stone as it has done for the last century, while Milton! I go there every four or five years--and I was born there--yet I do assure you, I often lose my way--aye, among the very piles of warehouses that are built upon my father's orchard. Do we part here? Well, good-night, sir; I suppose we shall meet in Harley Street to-morrow morning."

The quiet of the Harley Street house, during Edith's recovery from her confinement, gave Margaret the natural rest which she needed. It gave her time to comprehend the sudden changes of the last two months. In this luxurious house, the knowledge of trouble or care seemed scarcely to have penetrated: the wheels of the machinery of daily life were well oiled, and went along with delicious smoothness. Mrs. Shaw and Edith could hardly make enough of Margaret. Edith wanted to fill her room with soft comforts, and pretty knick-knacks. Mrs. Shaw and her maid began to restore her wardrobe to a state of elegant variety. Captain Lennox was easy, kind, and gentlemanly; sat with his wife an hour or two every day; played with his little boy for another hour, and lounged away the rest of his time at his club. Just as Margaret was recovering from her need for quiet, and before she had begun to feel her life dull, Edith came downstairs and resumed her usual part in the household. Margaret gladly took all duties off Edith's hands. She answered notes, reminded her of engagements, and tended her when no gaiety was in prospect, and Edith was consequently inclined to fancy herself ill. But the rest of the family were in the full swing of the London season, and Margaret, withdrawn from society while she was in mourning, was often left alone. Then her thoughts went back to Milton, with a strange sense of the contrast between the life there, and here. She was getting surfeited of the ease in which no effort was required. She was afraid of becoming sleepily deadened into forgetfulness of anything beyond this luxurious life. There might be workers in London, but she never saw them; the very servants lived in an underground world of their own, and only seemed to start into existence when their master or mistress needed them. There was a strange unsatisfied vacuum in Margaret's heart; and once, when she hinted this to Edith, the latter languidly stroked Margaret's cheek. 'Poor child!' said Edith. 'It is a little sad for you to be left, night after night, when all the world is so gay. But we shall be having our dinner-parties as soon as Henry comes back from circuit - and then there will be a little pleasant variety for you, poor darling!' Edith piqued herself on her dinner-parties; and Captain Lennox was always extremely kind and brotherly to Margaret. She was really very fond of him, except when he was anxiously attentive to Edith's dress and appearance, with a view to her beauty making a sufficient impression on the world. Then all the latent Vashti in Margaret was roused, and she could hardly keep herself from expressing her feelings. The course of Margaret's day was this; a quiet hour or two before a late breakfast, lazily eaten by weary and half-awake people; afterwards came a discussion of plans, none of which concerned her; an endless number of notes to write, which Edith invariably left to her; a little play with baby Sholto, besides the care of the children during the servants' dinner; a drive or callers; and some engagement for her aunt and cousins, which left Margaret free, it is true, but rather wearied with the inactivity of the day. She looked forward with longing to Dixon's return from Milton, where the old servant had been engaged in winding up all the Hale family's affairs. She was hungry for news of the people amongst whom she had lived so long. It was true that Dixon, in her business-letters, quoted every now and then an opinion of Mr. Thornton's as to what she had better do about the furniture. But it was only here and there that any Milton name came in. Margaret was sitting one evening, alone in the Lennoxes's drawing-room, thinking over Dixon's letters and wondering if all went on in that busy whirl just as if she and her father had never been, or if anyone missed her; when, suddenly, Mr. Bell was announced. Margaret hurried the letters into her work-basket, and started up, blushing guiltily. 'Mr. Bell! I never thought of seeing you! Have you dined? How did you come? Let me order you some dinner.' 'If you're going to have any. But where are the others? Gone out to dinner and left you alone?' 'Oh yes! and it is such a rest. But will you run the risk of dinner? I don't know if there is anything in the house.' 'Why, to tell you the truth, I dined at my club. Only they don't cook as well as they did. You shall make me some tea, Margaret. And now, whose letters were those, god-daughter, that you hid away so speedily?' 'Only Dixon's,' replied Margaret, growing very red. 'Whew! is that all? Who do you think came up in the train with me?' 'I don't know.' 'Your what d'ye call him? What's the right name for a cousin-in-law's brother?' 'Mr. Henry Lennox?' 'Yes. What sort of a person is he, Margaret?' 'I liked him long ago,' said Margaret, glancing down for a moment. Then she looked straight up and went on in her natural manner. 'You know we have been corresponding about Frederick; but I have not seen him for nearly three years, and he may be changed. What did you think of him?' 'I don't know. He was so busy trying to find out who I was that he never let out what he was; unless indeed that veiled curiosity of his is a fair indication of his character. Do you call him good looking, Margaret?' 'No! certainly not. Do you?' 'Not I. But I thought, perhaps, you might. Is he a great deal here?' 'I fancy he is when he is in town. He has been on circuit since I came. But, Mr. Bell, have you come from Oxford or from Milton?' 'From Milton. Don't you see I'm smoke-dried?' 'Certainly. But I thought that it might be the effect of the antiquities of Oxford.' 'Come now, be a sensible woman! In Oxford, I could have managed all the landlords in the place with half the trouble your Milton landlord has given me. He won't take the house off our hands till June next year. Luckily, Mr. Thornton found a tenant for it. Why don't you ask after Mr. Thornton, Margaret? He has proved himself a very active friend of yours, I can tell you.' 'And how is he? How is Mrs. Thornton?' asked Margaret. 'I suppose they're well. I've been staying at their house till I was driven out of it by the perpetual clack about that Thornton girl's marriage. It was too much for Thornton himself, though she was his sister. He's getting past the age for caring for such things. I was surprised to find the old lady carried away by her daughter's enthusiasm for orange-blossoms and lace. I thought Mrs. Thornton was made of sterner stuff.' 'She would put on any manner to veil her daughter's weakness,' said Margaret in a low voice. 'Perhaps so. You've studied her, have you? She doesn't seem over fond of you, Margaret.' 'I know it. Oh, here is tea at last!' exclaimed she, as if relieved. And with tea came Mr. Henry Lennox, who had walked up to Harley Street after his dinner, expecting to find his brother and sister-in-law at home. Margaret suspected him of being as thankful as she was at the presence of a third party, on this their first meeting since the memorable day of his offer. She hardly knew what to say at first, and was grateful for all the tea-table occupations which gave her an excuse for silence, and him an opportunity of recovering himself. For, to tell the truth, he had rather forced himself up to Harley Street this evening, with a view of getting over an awkward meeting - doubly awkward now that he found her the only lady there. She was the first to recover her self-possession, saying, 'Mr. Lennox, I have been so much obliged to you for all you have done about Frederick.' 'I am only sorry it has been so unsuccessful,' replied he, with a quick glance towards Mr. Bell, as if unsure how much he might say before him. But Margaret addressed Mr. Bell, to show that he was perfectly aware of the situation. 'That last witness of all, Horrocks, has proved as unavailing as all the others. He sailed for Australia only last August; only two months before Frederick was in England, and gave us the names of-' 'Frederick in England! you never told me that!' exclaimed Mr. Bell in surprise. 'I thought you knew. Of course, it was a great secret, and perhaps I should not have mentioned it now,' said Margaret, a little dismayed. 'Never mind, Margaret; you needn't look so frightened because you have let the cat out of the bag to a faithful old hermit like me. I shall never name his having been in England. Stay! Was it at your mother's funeral?' 'He was with mamma when she died,' said Margaret, softly. 'To be sure! Why, someone asked me if he had not been over then, and I denied it - not many weeks ago - who could it have been? Oh! I recollect!' But he did not say the name; and although Margaret would have given much to know if her suspicions were right, and it had been Mr. Thornton, she could not ask. Mr. Lennox said, 'I suppose I may inform Mr. Bell how the research into the evidence stands at present. So, if he will do me the honour to breakfast with me tomorrow, we will go over the names of these missing gentry.' 'I should like to hear all the particulars. Cannot you both come here?' asked Margaret. 'I have an engagement at half-past eleven. But I will certainly come if you wish it,' replied Mr. Lennox, with a willingness which made Margaret shrink. Mr. Bell got up and looked around for his hat. 'Well!' said he, 'I don't know what Mr. Lennox is inclined to do, but I'm moving off homewards.' 'I believe I shall stay and see my brother and sister,' said Mr. Lennox. Margaret was seized with a shy awkward dread of being left alone with him; and could not help thinking he must feel the same. 'Don't go yet, please, Mr. Bell,' said she, hastily. 'I want you to see Edith; and I want Edith to know you. Please!' She laid a light but determined hand on his arm. He saw the confusion in her countenance, and sat down again. 'You see how she overpowers me, Mr. Lennox,' said he. 'And I hope you noticed the happy choice of words; she wants me to "see" Edith, who, I am told, is a great beauty; but she has the honesty to change her word to "know" when she comes to me. I suppose I am not much to see, eh, Margaret?' He joked to give her time to recover from the slight flutter in her manner; and she caught the tone, and threw the ball back. Mr. Lennox wondered how his brother, the Captain, could have reported her as having lost all her good looks. To be sure, in her quiet black dress, she was a contrast to Edith, who came in all softness and glitter. Edith dimpled and blushed most becomingly when introduced to Mr. Bell, conscious that she had her reputation as a beauty to keep up. Mrs. Shaw and Captain Lennox gave Mr. Bell a kind and sincere welcome, making him like them almost in spite of himself, especially when he saw how naturally Margaret took her place as daughter of the house. 'What a shame that we were not at home to receive you,' said Edith. 'You, too, Henry! though I don't know that we should have waited at home for you.' 'Will you ask me to breakfast tomorrow to meet Mr. Bell, and be so kind as to order it at half-past nine? I have some papers that I want to show to Miss Hale and Mr. Bell.' 'I hope Mr. Bell will make our house his own during his stay in London,' said Captain Lennox. 'I am only sorry we cannot offer him a bedroom.' 'Thank you. I am much obliged.' Mr. Bell, bowing, was secretly thinking: 'I couldn't stand the restraints of such proper-behaved people as these. I'm thankful they haven't a bed!' Out in the streets, walking side by side with Henry Lennox, he suddenly remembered Margaret's little look of entreaty as she urged him to stay longer. It gave a new direction to his thoughts. 'You have known Miss Hale for a long time, I believe,' he said. 'How do you think she is looking? She strikes me as pale and ill.' 'I thought her looking remarkably well. Perhaps not when I first came in. But certainly, when she grew animated, she looked as well as ever I saw her do.' 'She has had a great deal to go through,' said Mr. Bell. 'Yes! I have been sorry to hear of all she has had to bear; not merely sorrow, but all the annoyance which her father's conduct must have caused her-' 'Her father's conduct!' said Mr. Bell, in surprise. 'You must have heard some wrong statement. He behaved in the most conscientious and resolute manner.' 'Perhaps I have been wrongly informed. But I have been told, by his successor - a sensible, active clergyman - that there was no need for Mr. Hale to relinquish the living; he could have remained where he was, and so had no occasion to resign. But the truth is, these country clergymen live such isolated lives - isolated, I mean, from men of cultivation - that they are very apt to disturb themselves with imaginary doubts.' 'I differ from you. I do not think they are very apt to do as my poor friend Hale did.' Mr. Bell was inwardly chafing. 'Yet certainly, their lives are such as very often to produce either inordinate self-sufficiency, or a morbid state of conscience,' replied Mr. Lennox with perfect coolness. 'You don't meet with any self-sufficiency among lawyers?' asked Mr. Bell. 'And seldom, I imagine, any cases of morbid conscience.' He was becoming more and more vexed. Mr. Lennox saw that he had annoyed his companion; and as he had talked pretty much for the sake of making conversation, he quietly came round by saying: 'To be sure, there is something fine in a man of Mr. Hale's age leaving his home for an idea which was probably erroneous. One cannot help admiring him, with a mixture of pity and admiration; something like what one feels for Don Quixote. Such a gentleman as he was too! I shall never forget the refined and simple hospitality he showed to me that last day at Helstone.' Only half mollified, Mr. Bell growled - 'Aye! And you don't know Milton. Such a change from Helstone! It is years since I have been at Helstone - but I'll answer for it, it is standing there yet, every stone as it has done for the last century, while Milton! I go there every four or five years, and yet I often lose my way. Do we part here? Well, good night, sir; we shall meet in Harley Street tomorrow morning.'

North and South

Chapter 44: EASE NOT PEACE

"Your beauty was the first that won the place And scal'd the walls of my undaunted heart, Which, captive now, pines in a caitive case, Unkindly met with rigour for desert:-- Yet not the less your servant shall abide, In spite of rude repulse or silent pride." WILLIAM FOWLER. The next morning, Margaret dragged herself up, thankful that the night was over,--unrefreshed, yet rested. All had gone well through the house; her mother had only wakened once. A little breeze was stirring in the hot air, and though there were no trees to show the playful tossing movement caused by the wind among the leaves, Margaret knew how, somewhere or another, by wayside, in copses, or in thick green woods, there was a pleasant, murmuring dancing sound,--a rushing and falling noise, the very thought of which was an echo of distinct gladness in her heart. She sat at her work in Mrs. Hale's room. As soon as that forenoon slumber was over, she would help her mother to dress; after dinner, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. She would banish all recollection of the Thornton family--no need to think of them till they absolutely stood before her in flesh and blood. But, of course, the effort not to think of them brought them only the more strongly before her; and from time to time, the hot flush came over her pale face sweeping it into colour, as a sunbeam from between watery clouds comes swiftly moving over the sea. Dixon opened the door very softly, and stole on tiptoe up to Margaret, sitting by the shaded window. "Mr. Thornton, Miss Margaret. He is in the drawing-room." Margaret dropped her sewing. "Did he ask for me? Isn't papa come in?" "He asked for you, miss; and master is out." "Very well, I will come," said Margaret, quietly. But she lingered strangely. Mr. Thornton stood by one of the windows, with his back to the door apparently absorbed in watching something in the street. But, in truth, he was afraid of himself. His heart beat thick at the thought of her coming. He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,--to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but never unheeded again. His heart throbbed loud and quick. Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received. She might droop, and flush, and flutter to his arms, as to her natural home and resting-place. One moment he glowed with impatience at the thought that she might do this,--the next he feared a passionate rejection, the idea of which withered up his future with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it. He was startled by the sense of the presence of some one else in the room. He turned round. She had come in so gently, that he had never heard her; the street noises had been more distinct to his inattentive ear than her slow movements, in her soft muslin gown. She stood by the table, not offering to sit down. Her eyelids were dropped half over her eyes; her teeth were shut, not compressed; her lips were just parted over them, allowing the white line to be seen between their curve. Her slow deep breathings dilated her chin and beautiful nostrils; it was the only motion visible on her countenance. The fine-grained skin, the oval cheek, the rich outline of her mouth, its corners deep set in dimples,--were all wan and pale to-day; the loss of their usual natural healthy colour being made more evident by the heavy shadow of the dark hair, brought down upon her temples, to hide all sign of the blow she had received. Her head, for all its drooping eyes, was thrown a little back, in the old proud attitude. Her long arms hung motionless by her sides. Altogether she looked like some prisoner, falsely accused of a crime that she loathed and despised, and from which she was too indignant to justify herself. Mr. Thornton made a hasty step or two forwards; recovered himself, and went with quiet firmness to the door (which she had left open), and shut it. Then he came back, and stood opposite to her for a moment, receiving the general impression of her beautiful presence, before he dared to disturb it, perhaps to repel it, by what he had to say. "Miss Hale, I was very ungrateful yesterday--" "You had nothing to be grateful for," said she raising her eyes, and looking full and straight at him. "You mean, I suppose, that you believe you ought to thank me for what I did." In spite of herself--in defiance of her anger--the thick blushes came all over her face, and burnt into her very eyes; which fell not nevertheless from their grave and steady look. "It was only a natural instinct; any woman would have done just the same. We all feel the sanctity of our sex as a high privilege when we see danger. I ought rather," said she, hastily, "to apologise to you, for having said thoughtless words which sent you down into the danger." "It was not your words; it was the truth they conveyed, pungently as it was expressed. But you shall not drive me off upon that, and so escape the expression of my deep gratitude, my--" he was on the verge now; he would not speak in the haste of his hot passion; he would weigh each word. He would; and his will was triumphant. He stopped in mid career. "I do not try to escape from anything," said she. "I simply say, that you owe me no gratitude; and I may add, that any expression of it will be painful to me, because I do not feel that I deserve it. Still, if it will relieve you from even a fancied obligation, speak on." "I do not want to be relieved from any obligation," said he, goaded by her calm manner. "Fancied, or not fancied--I question not myself to know which--I choose to believe that I owe my very life to you--ay--smile, and think it an exaggeration if you will. I believe it, because it adds a value to that life to think--oh, Miss Hale!" continued he, lowering his voice to such a tender intensity of passion that she shivered and trembled before him, "to think circumstances so wrought, that whenever I exult in existence henceforward, I may say to myself, 'All this gladness in life, all honest pride in doing my work in the world, all this keen sense of being, I owe to her!' And it doubles the gladness, it makes the pride glow, it sharpens the sense of existence till I hardly know if it is pain or pleasure to think that I owe it to one--nay, you must, you shall hear,"--said he, stepping forward with stern determination--"to one whom I love, as I do not believe man ever loved woman before." He held her hand tight in his. He panted as he listened for what should come. He threw the hand away with indignation, as he heard her icy tone; for icy it was, though the words came faltering out, as if she knew not where to find them. "Your way of speaking shocks me. It is blasphemous. I cannot help it, if that is my first feeling. It might not be so, I dare say, if I understood the kind of feeling you describe. I do not want to vex you; and besides, we must speak gently, for mamma is asleep; but your whole manner offends me--" "How!" exclaimed he. "Offends you! I am indeed most unfortunate." "Yes!" said she with recovered dignity. "I do feel offended; and, I think, justly. You seem to fancy that my conduct of yesterday"--again the deep carnation blush, but this time with eyes kindling with indignation rather than shame--"was a personal act between you and me; and that you may come and thank me for it, instead of perceiving, as a gentleman would--yes! a gentleman," she repeated, in allusion to their former conversation about that word, "that any woman, worthy of the name of woman, would come forward to shield, with her reverenced helplessness, a man in danger from the violence of numbers." "And the gentleman thus rescued is forbidden the relief of thanks!" he broke in contemptuously. "I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings." "And I yielded to the right; simply saying that you gave me pain by insisting upon it," she replied, proudly. "But you seem to have imagined, that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct, but"--and here the passionate tears (kept down for long--struggled with vehemently) came up into her eyes and choked her voice--"but that I was prompted by some particular feeling for you--you! Why, there was not a man--not a poor desperate man in all that crowd--for whom I had not more sympathy--for whom I should not have done what little I could more heartily." "You may speak on, Miss Hale. I am aware of these misplaced sympathies of yours. I now believe that it was only your innate sense of oppression--(yes; I, though a master, may be oppressed)--that made you act so nobly as you did. I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me." "I do not care to understand," she replied, taking hold of the table to steady herself; for she thought him cruel--as, indeed, he was--and she was weak with her indignation. "No, I see you do not. You are unfair and unjust." Margaret compressed her lips. She would not speak in answer to such accusations. But, for all that--for all his savage words, he could have thrown himself at her feet, and kissed the hem of her garment. She did not speak; she did not move. The tears of wounded pride fell hot and fast. He waited awhile, longing for her to say something, even a taunt, to which he might reply. But she was silent. He took up his hat. "One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part." "I am not afraid," she replied, lifting herself straight up. "No one yet has ever dared to be impertinent to me, and no one ever shall. But, Mr. Thornton, you have been very kind to my father," said she, changing her whole tone and bearing to a most womanly softness. "Don't let us go on making each other angry. Pray don't!" He took no notice of her words; he occupied himself in smoothing the nap of his hat with his coat-sleeve, for half a minute or so; and then, rejecting her offered hand, and making as if he did not see her grave look of regret, he turned abruptly away, and left the room. Margaret caught one glance at his face before he went. When he was gone she thought she had seen the gleam of washed tears in his eyes; and that turned her proud dislike into something different and kinder, if nearly as painful--self-reproach for having caused such mortification to any one. "But how could I help it?" asked she of herself. "I never liked him. I was civil; but I took no trouble to conceal my indifference. Indeed, I never thought about myself or him, so my manners must have shown the truth. All that yesterday, he might mistake. But that is his fault, not mine. I would do it again, if need were, though it does lead me into all this shame and trouble."

The next morning, Margaret dragged herself up, thankful that the night was over - unrefreshed, yet rested. A little breeze was stirring in the hot air, and she knew how, somewhere or other, in thick green woods, there would be a pleasant, murmuring, dancing sound; the thought was an echo of distant gladness in her heart. She sat at her work in Mrs. Hale's room. As soon as her mother's morning slumber was over, she would help her to dress; after dinner, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. She would banish all recollection of the Thornton family. But, of course, the effort not to think of them brought them only the more strongly before her; and from time to time, the hot flush came over her pale face, sweeping it into colour, like a sunbeam swiftly moving over the sea. Dixon opened the door softly. 'Mr. Thornton, Miss Margaret. He is in the drawing-room.' Margaret dropped her sewing. 'Did he ask for me? Isn't papa in?' 'He asked for you, miss; and master is out.' 'Very well, I will come,' said Margaret, quietly. But she lingered. Mr. Thornton stood by one of the windows, apparently absorbed in watching something in the street. In truth, he was afraid of himself. His heart beat thick at the thought of her coming. He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatient as he had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence seemed to thrill him through and through - to melt away all power of self-control, like wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her with his arms held out in mute entreaty. His heart throbbed loud and quick. Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received. She might flush, and flutter to his arms, as to her natural home. Or she might respond with a passionate rejection, the very idea of which withered up his future with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it. He was startled by the sense of a presence in the room. She had come in so gently that he had never heard her. She stood by the table. Her eyelids were dropped half over her eyes; her lips were just parted, allowing the white line of teeth to be seen between their curve. The fine-grained skin, the oval cheek, the rich outline of her mouth, its corners deep set in dimples - all were wan and pale today, under the heavy shadow of the dark hair, brought down to hide all sign of the blow she had received. Her head was thrown a little back, in the old proud attitude. Her long arms hung motionless. Altogether she looked like some prisoner, falsely accused of a crime that she despised. Mr. Thornton made a hasty step or two forwards; recovered himself, and went with quiet firmness to the door and shut it. Then he stood opposite to her for a moment, receiving the general impression of her beautiful presence, before he dared to disturb it, perhaps to repel it, by what he had to say. 'Miss Hale, I was very ungrateful yesterday-' 'You had nothing to be grateful for,' said she, raising her eyes, and looking full and straight at him. 'You mean, I suppose, that you believe you ought to thank me for what I did.' In spite of her anger, the blushes burnt her face; but her eyes kept their grave and steady look. 'It was only a natural instinct; any woman would have done the same. I ought rather to apologise to you, for having said thoughtless words which sent you down into the danger.' 'It was not your words; it was the truth they conveyed. But you shall not so escape the expression of my deep gratitude, my-' he was on the verge now; yet he would not speak in the haste of his hot passion; he would weigh each word. He stopped in mid career. 'I do not try to escape from anything,' said she. 'I simply say, that you owe me no gratitude; and I do not feel that I deserve it. Still, if it will relieve you from even a fancied obligation, speak on.' 'I do not want to be relieved from any obligation,' said he, goaded by her calm manner. 'I choose to believe that I owe my very life to you - aye, smile, and think it an exaggeration if you will. I believe it, because it adds a value to that life to think - oh, Miss Hale!' His voice held such a tender intensity of passion that she shivered. 'Henceforward, I may say to myself, "All this gladness in life, all honest pride in doing my work in the world, all this keen sense of being, I owe to her!" And it doubles the gladness, it makes the pride glow, it sharpens the sense of existence till I hardly know if it is pain or pleasure, to think that I owe it to one - nay, you must, you shall hear - to one whom I love, as I do not believe man ever loved woman before.' He held her hand tight in his, listening for what should come - and threw the hand away with indignation, as he heard her icy tone. For icy it was, though the words came faltering. 'Your way of speaking shocks me. It is blasphemous. I cannot help it, if that is my first feeling. It might not be so, I dare say, if I understood the kind of feeling you describe. I do not want to vex you; and we must speak gently, for mamma is asleep; but your whole manner offends me-' 'How!' exclaimed he. 'Offends you!' 'Yes!' said she, with recovered dignity. 'I do feel offended; and, I think, justly. You seem to fancy that my conduct of yesterday' - again the deep blush, but this time with eyes kindling with indignation rather than shame - 'was a personal act; and that you may come and thank me for it, instead of perceiving, as a gentleman would, that any woman worthy of the name of woman would come forward and use her helplessness to shield a man in danger from the violence of a mob.' 'And the gentleman is forbidden the relief of thanks!' he broke in contemptuously. 'I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings.' 'And I yielded to the right,' she replied, proudly. 'But you seem to have imagined, that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct, but' - and here the passionate tears came up at last into her eyes, and choked her voice - 'but that I was prompted by some particular feeling for you - for you! Why, there was not a poor desperate man in all that crowd for whom I had not more sympathy.' 'Miss Hale, I am aware of all these misplaced sympathies of yours. I now believe that it was only your innate sense of oppression (yes; I, though a master, may be oppressed) that made you act so nobly as you did. I know you despise me; but it is because you do not understand me.' 'I do not care to understand,' she replied, taking hold of the table to steady herself; for she thought him cruel, and she was weak with indignation. 'No, I see you do not. You are unfair and unjust.' Margaret compressed her lips. She would not speak in answer. But, for all his savage words, he could have thrown himself at her feet. She did not speak; she did not move. Her tears of wounded pride fell hot and fast. He waited awhile, longing for her to say something, even a taunt, to which he might reply. But she was silent. He took up his hat. 'One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. I cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.' 'I am not afraid,' she replied, lifting herself straight up. 'No one yet has ever dared to be impertinent to me, and no one ever shall. But, Mr. Thornton, you have been very kind to my father,' said she, changing her whole tone to a most womanly softness. 'Don't let us go on making each other angry. Pray don't!' He took no notice of her words: he occupied himself in smoothing his hat with his coat-sleeve; and then, rejecting her offered hand, and acting as if he did not see her grave look of regret, he turned abruptly away, and left the room. Margaret caught one glance at his face before he went. She thought she had seen the gleam of unshed tears in his eyes; and that turned her proud dislike into something different and kinder: self-reproach for having caused such pain. 'But how could I help it?' she asked herself. 'I never liked him. I was civil; but I did not conceal my indifference to him. About yesterday, he might mistake. But that is his fault, not mine. I would do it again, if need were, though it does lead me into all this shame and trouble.'

North and South

Chapter 24: MISTAKES CLEARED UP

"The meanest thing to which we bid adieu, Loses its meanness in the parting hour." ELLIOTT. Mrs. Shaw took as vehement a dislike as it was possible for one of her gentle nature to do, against Milton. It was noisy, and smoky, and the poor people whom she saw in the streets were dirty, and the rich ladies over-dressed, and not a man that she saw, high or low, had his clothes made to fit him. She was sure Margaret would never regain her lost strength while she stayed in Milton; and she herself was afraid of one of her old attacks of the nerves. Margaret must return with her, and that quickly. This, if not the exact force of her words, was at any rate the spirit of what she urged on Margaret, till the latter, weak, weary, and broken-spirited, yielded a reluctant promise that, as soon as Wednesday was over, she would prepare to accompany her aunt back to town, leaving Dixon in charge of all the arrangements for paying bills, disposing of furniture, and shutting up the house. Before that Wednesday--that mournful Wednesday, when Mr. Hale was to be interred, far away from either of the homes he had known in life, and far away from the wife who lay lonely among strangers (and this last was Margaret's great trouble, for she thought that if she had not given way to that overwhelming stupor during the first sad days, she could have arranged things otherwise)--before that Wednesday, Margaret received a letter from Mr. Bell. "MY DEAR MARGARET:--I did mean to have returned to Milton on Thursday, but unluckily it turns out to be one of the rare occasions when we, Plymouth Fellows, are called upon to perform any kind of duty, and I must not be absent from my post. Captain Lennox and Mr. Thornton are here. The former seems a smart, well-meaning man; and has proposed to go over to Milton, and assist you in any search for the will; of course there is none, or you would have found it by this time, if you followed my directions. Then the Captain declares he must take you and his mother-in-law home; and, in his wife's present state, I don't see how you can expect him to remain away longer than Friday. However, that Dixon of yours is trusty; and can hold her, or your own, till I come. I will put matters into the hands of my Milton attorney if there is no will; for I doubt this smart Captain is no great man of business. Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid. There will have to be a sale, so select what things you wish to be reserved. Or you can send a list afterwards. Now two things more, and I have done. You know, or if you don't, your poor father did, that you are to have my money and goods when I die. Not that I mean to die yet; but I name this just to explain what is coming. These Lennoxes seem very fond of you now; and perhaps may continue to be; perhaps not. So it is best to start with a formal agreement; namely, that you are to pay to them two hundred and fifty pounds a year, as long as you and they find it pleasant to live together. (This, of course, includes Dixon; mind you don't be cajoled into paying more for her.) Then you won't be thrown adrift, if some day the captain wishes to have his house to himself, but you can carry yourself and your two hundred and fifty pounds off somewhere else; if, indeed, I have not claimed you to come and keep house for me first. Then as to dress, and Dixon, and personal expenses, and confectionery (all young ladies eat confectionery till wisdom comes by age), I shall consult some lady of my acquaintance, and see how much you will have from your father before fixing this. Now, Margaret, have you flown out before you have read this far, and wondered what right the old man has to settle your affairs for you so cavalierly? I make no doubt you have. Yet the old man has a right. He has loved your father for five and thirty years; he stood beside him on his wedding-day; he closed his eyes in death. Moreover, he is your godfather; and as he cannot do you much good spiritually, having a hidden consciousness of your superiority in such things, he would fain do you the poor good of endowing you materially. And the old man has not a known relation on earth; 'who is there to mourn for Adam Bell?' and his whole heart is set and bent upon this one thing, and Margaret Hale is not the girl to say him nay. Write by return if only two lines, to tell me your answer. But _no thanks_." Margaret took up a pen and scrawled with trembling hand, "Margaret Hale is not the girl to say him nay." In her weak state she could not think of any other words, and yet, she was vexed to use these. But she was so much fatigued even by this slight exertion, that if she could have thought of another form of acceptance, she could not have sate up to write a syllable of it. She was obliged to lie down again and try not to think. "My dearest child! Has that letter vexed or troubled you?" "No!" said Margaret feebly. "I shall be better when to-morrow is over." "I feel sure, darling, you won't be better till I get you out of this horrid air. How you can have borne it these two years I can't imagine." "Where could I go to? I could not leave papa and mamma." "Well, don't distress yourself, my dear. I dare say it was all for the best, only I had no conception of how you were living. Our butler's wife lives in a better house than this." "It is sometimes very pretty--in summer; you can't judge by what it is now. I have been very happy here," and Margaret closed her eyes by way of stopping the conversation. The house teemed with comfort now, compared to what it had been. The evenings were chilly, and by Mrs. Shaw's directions fires were lighted in every bedroom. She petted Margaret in every possible way, and bought every delicacy, or soft luxury in which she herself would have burrowed and sought comfort. But Margaret was indifferent to all these things; or, if they forced themselves upon her attention, it was simply as causes for gratitude to her aunt, who was putting herself so much out of the way to think of her. She was restless, though so weak. All the day long, she kept herself from thinking of the ceremony which was going on at Oxford, by wandering from room to room, and languidly setting aside such articles as she wished to retain. Dixon followed her by Mrs. Shaw's desire, ostensibly to receive instructions, but with a private injunction to soothe her into repose as soon as might be. "These books, Dixon, I will keep. All the rest will you send to Mr. Bell? They are of a kind that he will value for themselves, as well as for papa's sake. This---- I should like you to take this to Mr. Thornton, after I am gone. Stay; I will write a note with it." And she sate down hastily, as if afraid of thinking, and wrote: "DEAR SIR,--The accompanying book I am sure will be valued by you for the sake of my father, to whom it belonged. "Yours sincerely, MARGARET HALE." She set out again upon her travels through the house, turning over articles, known to her from her childhood, with a sort of caressing reluctance to leave them--old-fashioned, worn and shabby, as they might be. But she hardly spoke again; and Dixon's report to Mrs. Shaw was, that "she doubted whether Miss Hale heard a word of what she said, though she talked the whole time, in order to divert her intention." The consequence of her being on her feet all day was excessive bodily weariness in the evening, and a better night's rest than she had had since she heard of Mr. Hale's death. At breakfast time the next day, she expressed her wish to go and bid one or two friends good-bye. Mrs. Shaw objected: "I am sure, my dear, you can have no friends here with whom you are sufficiently intimate to justify you in calling upon them so soon; before you have been at church." "But to-day is my only day; if Captain Lennox comes this after noon, and if we must--if I must really go to-morrow----" "Oh, yes, we shall go to-morrow. I am more and more convinced that this air is bad for you, and makes you look so pale and ill; besides, Edith expects us; and she may be waiting for me; and you cannot be left alone, my dear, at your age. No; if you must make these calls, I will go with you. Dixon can get us a coach, I suppose?" So Mrs. Shaw went to take care of Margaret and took her maid with her to take care of the shawls and air-cushions. Margaret's face was too sad to lighten up into a smile at all this preparation for paying two visits, that she had often made by herself at all hours of the day. She was half afraid of owning that one place to which she was going was Nicholas Higgins'; all she could do was to hope her aunt would be indisposed to get out of the coach and walk up the court, and at every breath of wind have her face slapped by wet clothes, hanging out to dry on ropes stretched from house to house. There was a little battle in Mrs. Shaw's mind between ease and a sense of matronly propriety; but the former gained the day; and with many an injunction to Margaret to be careful of herself, and not to catch any fever, such as was always lurking in such places, her aunt permitted her to go where she had often been before without taking any precaution or requiring any permission. Nicholas was out; only Mary and one or two of the Boucher children at home. Margaret was vexed with herself for not having timed her visit better. Mary had a very blunt intellect, although her feelings were warm and kind; and the instant she understood what Margaret's purpose was in coming to see them, she began to cry and sob with so little restraint that Margaret found it useless to say any of the thousand little things which had suggested themselves to her as she was coming along in the coach. She could only try to comfort her a little by suggesting the vague chance of their meeting again, at some possible time, in some possible place, and bid her tell her father how much she wished, if he could manage it, that he should come to see her when he had done his work in the evening. As she was leaving the place, she stopped and looked around; then hesitated a little before she said: "I should like to have some little thing to remind me of Bessy." Instantly Mary's generosity was keenly alive. What could they give? And on Margaret's singling out a little common drinking-cup, which she remembered as the one always standing by Bessy's side with a drink for her feverish lips, Mary said: "Oh, take summat better; that only cost fourpence!" "That will do, thank you," said Margaret; and she went quickly away, while the light caused by the pleasure of having something to give yet lingered on Mary's face. "Now to Mrs. Thornton's," thought she to herself. "It must be done." But she looked rather rigid and pale at the thoughts of it, and had hard work to find the exact words in which to explain to her aunt who Mrs. Thornton was, and why she should go to bid her farewell. They (for Mrs. Shaw alighted here) were shown into the drawing-room, in which a fire had only just been kindled. Mrs. Shaw huddled herself up in her shawl and shivered. "What an icy room!" she said. They had to wait for some time before Mrs. Thornton entered. There was some softening in her heart towards Margaret, now that she was going away out of her sight. She remembered her spirit, as shown at various times and places, even more than the patience with which she had endured long and wearing cares. Her countenance was blander than usual, as she greeted her; there was even a shade of tenderness in her manner, as she noticed the white, tear-swollen face, and the quiver in the voice which Margaret tried to make so steady. "Allow me to introduce my aunt, Mrs. Shaw. I am going away from Milton to-morrow; I do not know if you are aware of it, but I wanted to see you once again, Mrs. Thornton, to--to apologize for my manner the last time I saw you; and to say that I am sure you meant kindly--however much we may have misunderstood each other." Mrs. Shaw looked extremely perplexed by what Margaret had said. Thanks for kindness! and apologies for failure in good manners! But Mrs. Thornton replied: "Miss Hale, I am glad you do me justice. I did no more than I believed to be my duty in remonstrating with you as I did. I have always desired to act the part of a friend to you. I am glad you do me justice." "And," said Margaret, blushing excessively as she spoke, "will you do me justice, and believe that though I cannot--I do not choose--to give explanations of my conduct, I have not acted in the unbecoming way you apprehended?" Margaret's voice was so soft, and her eyes so pleading, that Mrs. Thornton was for once affected by the charm of manner to which she had hitherto proved herself invulnerable. "Yes, I do believe you. Let us say no more about it. Where are you going to reside, Miss Hale? I understood from Mr. Bell that you were going to leave Milton. You never liked Milton, you know," said Mrs. Thornton, with a sort of grim smile; "but for all that, you must not expect me to congratulate you on quitting it. Where shall you live?" "With my aunt," replied Margaret, turning towards Mrs. Shaw. "My niece will reside with me in Harley Street. She is almost like a daughter to me," said Mrs. Shaw, looking fondly at Margaret; "and I am glad to acknowledge my own obligation for any kindness that has been shown to her. If you and your husband ever come to the town, my son and daughter, Captain and Mrs. Lennox, will, I am sure, join with me in wishing to do anything in our power to show you attention." Mrs. Thornton thought in her own mind, that Margaret had not taken much care to enlighten her aunt as to the relationship between the Mr. and Mrs. Thornton, towards whom the fine-lady aunt was extending her soft patronage; so she answered shortly, "My husband is dead. Mr. Thornton is my son. I never go to London; so I am not likely to be able to avail myself of your polite offers." At this instant Mr. Thornton entered the room; he had only just returned from Oxford. His mourning suit spoke of the reason that had called him there. "John," said his mother, "this lady is Mrs. Shaw, Miss Hale's aunt. I am sorry to say, that Miss Hale's call is to wish us good-bye." "You are going then!" said he in a low voice. "Yes," said Margaret. "We leave to-morrow." "My son-in-law comes this evening to escort us," said Mrs. Shaw. Mr. Thornton turned away. He had not sat down, and now he seemed to be examining something on the table, almost as if he had discovered an unopened letter, which had made him forget the present company. He did not even seem to be aware when they got up to take leave. He started forwards, however, to hand Mrs. Shaw down to the carriage. As it drove up, he and Margaret stood close together on the door-step, and it was impossible but that the recollection of the day of the riot should force itself into both their minds. Into his it came associated with the speeches of the following day; her passionate declaration that there was not a man in all that violent and a desperate crowd, for whom she did not care as much as for him. And at the remembrance of her taunting words, his brow grew stern, though his heart beat thick with longing love. "No!" said he, "I put it to the touch once, and I lost it all. Let her go,--with her stony heart, and her beauty;--how set and terrible her look is now, for all her loveliness of feature! She is afraid I shall speak what will require some stern repression. Let her go. Beauty and heiress as she may be, she will find it hard to meet with a truer heart than mine. Let her go!" And there was no tone of regret, or emotion of any kind in the voice with which he said good-bye; and the offered hand was taken with a resolute calmness, and dropped as carelessly as if it had been a dead and withered flower. But none in his household saw Mr. Thornton again that day. He was busily engaged; or so he said. Margaret's strength was so utterly exhausted by these visits, that she had to submit to much watching and petting, and sighing "I-told-you-so's," from her aunt. Dixon said she was quite as bad as she had been on the first day she heard of her father's death; and she and Mrs. Shaw consulted as to the desirableness of delaying the morrow's journey. But when her aunt reluctantly proposed a few days' delay to Margaret, the latter writhed her body as if in acute suffering, and said: "Oh! let us go. I cannot be patient here. I shall not get well here. I want to forget." So the arrangements went on: and Captain Lennox came, and with him news of Edith and the little boy; and Margaret found that the indifferent, careless conversation of one who, however kind, was not too warm and anxious a sympathiser, did her good. She roused up; and by the time that she knew she might expect Higgins, she was able to leave the room quietly, and await in her own chamber the expected summons. "Eh!" said he, as she came in, "to think of th' oud gentleman dropping off as he did! Yo' might ha' knocked me down wi' a straw when they telled me. 'Mr. Hale?' said I; 'him as was th' parson?' 'Ay,' said they. 'Then,' said I, 'there's as good a man gone as ever lived on this earth, let who will be t'other!' And I came to see yo', and tell yo' how grieved I were, but them women in th' kitchen wouldn't tell yo' I were there. They said yo' were ill,--and butter me, but yo' dunnot look like the same wench. And yo're going to be a grand lady up i' Lunnon, aren't yo'?" "Not a grand lady," said Margaret, half smiling. "Well! Thornton said--says he, a day or two ago, 'Higgins, have yo' seen Miss Hale?' 'No,' says I; 'there's a pack o' women who won't let me at her. But I can bide my time, if she's ill. She and I knows each other pretty well; and hoo'l not go doubting that I'm main sorry for th' oud gentleman's death, just because I can't get at her and tell her so.' And says he, 'Yo'll not have much time for to try and see her, my fine chap. She's not for staying with us a day longer nor she can help. She's got grand relations, and they're carrying her off; and we shan't see her no more.' 'Measter,' said I, 'if I dunnot see her afore hoo goes, I'll strive to get up to Lunnon next Whitsuntide, that I will. I'll not be baulked of saying her good-bye by any relations whatsomdever. But bless yo', I knowed yo'd come. It were only for to humour the measter, I let on as if I thought yo'd mappen leave Milton without seeing me." "You're quite right," said Margaret. "You only do me justice. And you'll not forget me, I'm sure. If no one else in Milton remembers me, I'm certain you will; and papa too. You know how good and tender he was. Look, Higgins! here is his bible. I have kept it for you. I can ill spare it; but I know he would have liked you to have it. I'm sure you'll care for it, and study what is in it, for his sake." "Yo' may say that. If it were the deuce's own scribble, and yo' axed me to read in it for yo'r sake and the oud gentleman's, I'd do it. Whatten's this, wench! I'm not going for to take yo'r brass, so dunnot think it. We've been great friends, 'bout the sound o' money passing between us." "For the children--for Boucher's children," said Margaret, hurriedly. "They may need it. You've no right to refuse it for them. I would not give you one penny," she said, smiling; "don't think there's any of it for you." "Well, wench! I can nobbut say, Bless yo'! and bless yo'!--and amen."

The gentle Mrs. Shaw took a vehement dislike to Milton. It was noisy and smoky, and the poor people were dirty, and the rich ladies over-dressed, and not a man wore clothes made to fit him. She was sure Margaret would never regain her lost strength while she stayed in Milton; she must return with her. She urged this until Margaret, weak, weary, and broken-spirited, reluctantly promised that as soon as the funeral was over, she would accompany her aunt back to town, leaving Dixon in charge of shutting up the house. Before that mournful day, Margaret received a letter from Mr. Bell. 'My dear Margaret, 'I did mean to return to Milton on Thursday, but unluckily it turns out to be one of the rare occasions when we Plymouth Fellows are called upon to perform a duty, and I must not be absent from my post. Captain Lennox and Mr. Thornton are here. The former seems a smart, well-meaning man; and declares he must take you and his mother-in-law home. I will put matters into the hands of my Milton attorney if there is no will; for I doubt if this smart captain is any great man of business. Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid. There will have to be a sale, so select what things you wish reserved, or you can send a list afterwards. 'Two things more, and I have done. You are to have my money and goods when I die. Not that I mean to die yet; but I say this just to explain. These Lennoxes seem very fond of you now; but it is best to start with a formal agreement; namely, that you will pay them two hundred and fifty pounds a year, as long as you and they find it pleasant to live together. (This, of course, includes Dixon.) Then you won't be thrown adrift, if some day the captain wishes to have his house to himself, but you can carry yourself and your two hundred and fifty pounds off somewhere else; if, indeed, I have not claimed you to come and keep house for me first. As to dress, and Dixon, and so on, I shall consult some lady of my acquaintance, and see how much you will have from your father before fixing this. 'Now, Margaret, have you flown out yet, and wondered what right the old man has to settle your affairs for you? I make no doubt you have. Yet the old man has a right. He loved your father for five and thirty years; he stood beside him on his wedding-day; he closed his eyes in death. Moreover, he is your godfather; and has not a known relation on earth. His whole heart is set upon this one thing, and Margaret Hale is not the girl to say him nay. Write by return, if only two lines, to tell me your answer. But no thanks.' Margaret took up a pen and scrawled with trembling hand, 'Margaret Hale is not the girl to say him nay.' In her weak state she could not think of any other words. But she was so much fatigued even by this slight exertion that she was obliged to lie down again, and try not to think. 'My dearest child!' said her aunt. 'Has that letter vexed you?' 'No!' said Margaret feebly. 'I shall be better when tomorrow is over.' 'I feel sure, darling, you won't be better till I get you out of this horrid air. How you can have borne it two years I can't imagine.' 'I could not leave papa and mamma.' 'Well! don't distress yourself, my dear. I dare say it was all for the best, but our butler's wife lives in a better house than this.' 'It is sometimes very pretty - in summer. I have been very happy here.' Margaret closed her eyes to stop the conversation. The house teemed with comfort now. Fires were lighted in every bedroom. Mrs. Shaw bought every delicacy or soft luxury which might give Margaret comfort. But Margaret, though grateful, was indifferent to all these things. She was restless; all day, she kept herself from thinking of the funeral, which was going on at Oxford, by wandering from room to room, and setting aside anything she wished to keep. 'These books, Dixon, I will keep. Will you send the rest to Mr. Bell? They are ones that he will value for themselves, as well as for papa's sake. This - I should like you to take this to Mr. Thornton, after I am gone. Stay; I will write a note with it.' And she sat down hastily, and wrote: 'Dear Sir, The accompanying book I am sure will be valued by you for the sake of my father, to whom it belonged. 'Yours sincerely, 'Margaret Hale.' She set out again upon her travels through the house, turning over familiar articles with a sort of caressing reluctance to leave them - shabby though they might be. But in the evening she was excessively weary. At breakfast time the next day, she expressed her wish to bid one or two friends good-bye. 'Today is my only day; if Captain Lennox comes this afternoon, and if we must really go tomorrow-' 'Oh, yes; we shall go tomorrow. I am more and more convinced that this air is bad for you. If you must pay these calls, I will go with you. Dixon can get us a coach, I suppose?' So Mrs. Shaw and her maid went, with shawls and cushions. Margaret's face was too sad to lighten up into a smile at all this preparation for paying two visits that she had often made by herself at all hours of the day. She was half afraid of owning that one of her visits was to Nicholas Higgins's, and was glad that her aunt stayed in the coach. Nicholas was out; only Mary and one or two of the Boucher children were at home. Margaret was vexed with herself for not having timed her visit better. Mary had a very blunt intellect, although her feelings were warm and kind; and the instant she understood why Margaret was coming to see them, she began to sob with so little restraint that Margaret found it useless to say any of the thousand little things which she had intended to. She could only suggest vaguely that they might meet again, and bid her tell her father that she wished, if he could manage it, that he should come to see her that evening. As she was leaving the place, she stopped and said: 'I should like to have some little thing to remind me of Bessy.' Instantly Mary's generosity was keenly alive. What could they give? And on Margaret's singling out Bessy's little common drinking-cup, Mary said: 'Oh, take summut better; that only cost fourpence!' 'That will do, thank you,' said Margaret; and she went quickly away. 'Now to Mrs. Thornton's,' thought she. 'It must be done.' But she looked rather pale at the thought of it, and had hard work to explain to her aunt who Mrs. Thornton was, and why she should bid her farewell. Mrs. Shaw alighted here, and they were shown into Mrs. Thornton's drawing-room, in which a fire had only just been kindled. Mrs. Shaw huddled herself in her shawl, and shivered. They had to wait for some time before Mrs. Thornton entered. There was some softening in her heart towards Margaret, now that she was going away. She remembered her spirit, even more than the patience with which she had endured long and wearing cares. There was even a shade of tenderness in her manner, as she noticed the white, tear-swollen face, and the quiver in the voice which Margaret tried to make steady. 'Allow me to introduce my aunt, Mrs. Shaw. I am going away from Milton tomorrow; and I wanted to see you once again, Mrs. Thornton, to - to apologise for my manner the last time I saw you; and to say that I am sure you meant kindly - however much we may have misunderstood each other.' Mrs. Shaw looked extremely perplexed by this. But Mrs. Thornton replied: 'Miss Hale, I am glad you do me justice. I did what I believed to be my duty in remonstrating with you. I have always desired to act as a friend to you.' 'And,' said Margaret, blushing excessively, 'will you do me justice, and believe that though I cannot - I do not choose - to give explanations of my conduct, I have not acted in the unbecoming way you thought?' Margaret's voice was so soft, and her eyes so pleading, that Mrs. Thornton was for once affected by the charm to which she had hitherto proved invulnerable. 'Yes, I do believe you. Let us say no more about it. Where are you going to live, Miss Hale?' 'With my aunt,' replied Margaret, turning towards Mrs. Shaw. 'My niece will reside with me in Harley Street. She is almost like a daughter to me,' said Mrs. Shaw, looking fondly at Margaret. 'If you and your husband ever come to town, we will do anything in our power to show you attention.' Mrs. Thornton thought that Margaret had not taken much care to enlighten her aunt about the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Thornton. She said shortly, 'My husband is dead. Mr. Thornton is my son. I never go to London.' At this instant Mr. Thornton entered the room; he had only just returned from Oxford, and still wore his mourning suit. 'John,' said his mother, 'this lady is Mrs. Shaw, Miss Hale's aunt. I am sorry to say that Miss Hale's call is to wish us good-bye.' 'You are going then!' said he, in a low voice. 'Yes,' said Margaret. 'We leave tomorrow.' 'My son-in-law comes this evening to escort us,' said Mrs. Shaw. Mr. Thornton turned away, and seemed to be examining something on the table, which had made him forget the present company. He did not even seem to be aware when they got up to take leave. He started forwards, however, to hand Mrs. Shaw down to the carriage. As it drove up, he and Margaret stood close together on the doorstep, and the recollection of the day of the riot forced itself into both their minds. Into his, it came associated with his proposal the following day, and her passionate declaration that there was not a man in all that violent crowd for whom she did not care as much as for him. And at the memory, his brow grew stern, though his heart beat thick with longing love. 'No!' thought he. 'Let her go - with her stony heart, and her beauty - how set and terrible her look is now, for all her loveliness! Beauty and heiress as she may be, she will find it hard to meet with a truer heart than mine. Let her go!' And there was no tone of regret, or emotion of any kind in the voice with which he said good-bye; and her offered hand was taken with a resolute calmness, and dropped as carelessly as if it had been a withered flower. But none in his household saw Mr. Thornton again that day. He was busily engaged; or so he said. Margaret's strength was so utterly exhausted by these visits, that she had to submit to 'I-told-you-so's,' from her aunt. But when her aunt reluctantly proposed a few days' delay in their journey, Margaret said, agonised: 'Oh! let us go. I shall not get well here. I want to forget.' Captain Lennox came, and with him news of Edith and the little boy; and Margaret found that his careless conversation did her good. By the time that Higgins arrived at her house that evening, she was ready to greet him. 'Eh!' said he, 'to think of th' oud gentleman dropping off as he did! Yo' might ha' knocked me down wi' a straw when they telled me. He were as good a man as ever lived. And I came to tell yo' how grieved I were, but them women in th' kitchen wouldn't tell yo' I were there. They said yo' were ill. And yo're going to be a grand lady up i' Lunnon, aren't yo'?' 'Not a grand lady,' said Margaret, half smiling. 'Well! Thornton said, a day or two ago, "Higgins, have yo' seen Miss Hale?" "No," says I; "there's a pack o' women who won't let me at her. But she and I knows each other pretty well; and hoo'l not be doubting that I'm sorry for th' oud gentleman's death, just because I can't get at her and tell her so." And says he, "Yo'll not have much time for to try and see her. She's not staying with us a day longer nor she can help. She's got grand relations, and they're carrying her off; and we shan't see her no more." "Measter," said I, "if I dunnot see her afore hoo goes, I'll strive to get up to Lunnun next Whissuntide, that I will." But, bless yo', I knowed yo'd come.' 'You're quite right,' said Margaret. 'And you'll not forget me, I'm sure. If no one else in Milton remembers me, I'm certain you will; and papa too. Look, Higgins! here is his Bible. I know he would have liked you to have it. I'm sure you'll care for it, and study it, for his sake.' 'If it were the deuce's own scribble, and yo' axed me to read in it for your sake, and th' oud gentleman's, I'd do it. Whatten's this, wench? I'm not going to take your money, so dunnot think it.' 'For Boucher's children,' said Margaret, hurriedly. 'They may need it. I would not give you a penny,' she said, smiling; 'don't think there's any of it for you.' 'Well, wench! I can nobbut say, Bless yo'! and bless yo'! - and amen.'

North and South

Chapter 43: MARGARET'S FLITTIN'

"And down the sunny beach she paces slowly, With many doubtful pauses by the way; Grief hath an influence so hushed and holy." HOOD. "Is not Margaret the heiress?" whispered Edith to her husband, as they were in their room alone at night after the sad journey to Oxford. She had pulled his tall head down, and stood upon tiptoe, and implored him not to be shocked, before she ventured to ask this question. Captain Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he had forgotten; it could not be much that a Fellow of a small College had to leave; but he had never wanted her to pay for her board; and two hundred and fifty pounds a year was something ridiculous, considering that she did not take wine. Edith came down upon her feet a little bit sadder; with a romance blown to pieces. A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and made him a low curtsey: "I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had a lawyer's letter, and she is residuary legatee--the legacies being about two thousand pounds, and the remainder about forty thousand, at the present value of property in Milton." "Indeed! and how does she take her good fortune?" "Oh, it seems she knew she was to have it all along; only she had no idea it was so much. She looks very white and pale, and says she's afraid of it; but that's nonsense, you know, and will soon go off. I left mamma pouring congratulations down her throat, and stole away to tell you." It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that the most natural thing was to consider Mr. Lennox henceforward as Margaret's legal adviser. She was so entirely ignorant of all forms of business that in nearly everything she had to refer to him. He chose out her attorney; he came to her with papers to be signed. He was never so happy as when teaching her of what all these mysteries of the law were the signs and types. "Henry," said Edith, one day, archly; "do you know what I hope and expect all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?" "No, I don't," said he, reddening. "And I desire you not to tell me." "Oh, very well; then I need not tell Sholto not to ask Mr. Montagu so often to the house." "Just as you choose," said he with forced coolness. "What you are thinking of may or may not happen; but this time, before I commit myself, I will see my ground clear. Ask whom you choose. It may not be very civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it. She has been very farouche with me for a long time; and is only just beginning to thaw a little from her Zenobia ways. She has the making of a Cleopatra in her, if only she were a little more pagan." "For my part," said Edith, a little maliciously, "I am very glad she is a Christian. I know so very few!" There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn; although to the last she hoped that some fortunate occasion would call Frederick to Paris, whither she could easily have met with a convoy. Instead of Cadiz, she had to content herself with Cromer. To that place her aunt Shaw and the Lennoxes were bound. They had all along wished her to accompany them, and, consequently, with their characters, they made but lazy efforts to forward her own separate wish. Perhaps Cromer was, in one sense of the expression, the best for her. She needed bodily strengthening and bracing as well as rest. Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope, the trust she had had, that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the simple facts of the family circumstances which had preceded the unfortunate accident that led to Leonards' death. Whatever opinion--however changed it might be from what Mr. Thornton had once entertained, she had wished it to be based upon a true understanding of what she had done, and why she had done it. It would have been a pleasure to her: would have given her rest on a point on which she should now all her life be restless, unless she could resolve not to think upon it. It was now so long after the time of these occurrences, that there was no possible way of explaining them save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell's death. She might just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but, though reasoning herself into the belief that in this hers was no uncommon lot, her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time--years and years hence--before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted. She thought that she did not want to hear that all was explained to him, if only she could be sure that he would know. But this wish was vain, like so many others; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best of that. She used to sit long hours upon the beach, gazing intently on the waves as they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore,--or she looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and heard, without being conscious of hearing, the eternal psalm, which went up continually. She was soothed without knowing how or why. Listlessly she sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round her knees, while her aunt Shaw did small shoppings, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode far and wide on shore and inland. The nurses, sauntering on with their charges, would pass and repass her, and wonder in whispers what she could find to look at so long, day after day. And when the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith voted her moped, and hailed a proposal of her husband's with great satisfaction, that Mr. Henry Lennox should be asked to take Cromer for a week, on his return from Scotland in October. But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in their right places, as to origin and significance, both as regarded her past life and her future. Those hours by the seaside were not lost, as any one might have seen who had had the perception to read, or the care to understand, the look that Margaret's face was gradually acquiring. Mr. Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the change. "The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good, I should fancy," said he, when she first left the room after his arrival in their family circle. "She looks ten years younger than she did in Harley Street." "That's the bonnet I got her!" said Edith, triumphantly. "I knew it would suit her the moment I saw it." "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Lennox, in the half-contemptuous, half-indulgent tone he generally used to Edith. "But I believe I know the difference between the charms of a dress and the charms of a woman. No mere bonnet would have made Miss Hale's eyes so lustrous and yet so soft, or her lips so ripe and red--and her face altogether so full of peace and light.--She is like, and yet more,"--he dropped his voice,--"like the Margaret Hale of Helstone." From this time the clever and ambitious man bent all his powers to gaining Margaret. He loved her sweet beauty. He saw the latent sweep of her mind, which could easily (he thought) be led to embrace all the objects on which he had set his heart. He looked upon her fortune only as a part of the complete and superb character of herself and her position; yet he was fully aware of the rise which it would immediately enable him, the poor barrister, to take. Eventually he would earn such success, and such honours, as would enable him to pay her back, with interest, that first advance in wealth which he should owe to her. He had been to Milton on business connected with her property, on his return from Scotland; and with the quick eye of a skilled lawyer, ready ever to take in and weigh contingencies, he had seen that much additional value was yearly accruing to the lands and tenements which she owned in that prosperous and increasing town. He was glad to find that the present relationship between Margaret and himself, of client and legal adviser, was gradually superseding the recollection of that unlucky, mismanaged day at Helstone. He had thus unusual opportunities of intimate intercourse with her, besides those that arose from the connection between the families. Margaret was only too willing to listen as long as he talked of Milton, though he had seen none of the people whom she more especially knew. It had been the tone with her aunt and cousin to speak of Milton with dislike and contempt; just such feelings as Margaret was ashamed to remember she had expressed and felt on first going to live there. But Mr. Lennox almost exceeded Margaret in his appreciation of the character of Milton and its inhabitants. Their energy, their power, their indomitable courage in struggling and fighting; their lurid vividness of existence, captivated and arrested his attention. He was never tired of talking about them; and had never perceived how selfish and material were too many of the ends they proposed to themselves as the result of all their mighty, untiring endeavour, till Margaret, even in the midst of her gratification, had the candour to point this out, as the tainting sin in so much that was noble and to be admired. Still, when other subjects palled upon her, and she gave but short answers to many questions, Henry Lennox found out that an enquiry as to some Darkshire peculiarity of character called back the light into her eye, the glow into her cheek. When they returned to town, Margaret fulfilled one of her sea-side resolves, and took her life into her own hands. Before they went to Cromer, she had been as docile to her aunt's laws as if she were still the scared little stranger who cried herself to sleep that first night in the Harley Street nursery. But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem for woman, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working. Mrs. Shaw was as good-tempered as could be; and Edith had inherited this charming domestic quality; Margaret herself had probably the worst temper of the three, for her quick perceptions and over-lively imagination made her hasty, and her early isolation from sympathy had made her proud: but she had an indescribable childlike sweetness of heart, which made her manners, even in her rarely wilful moods, irresistible of old; and now, chastened even by what the world called her good fortune, she charmed her reluctant aunt into acquiescence with her will. So Margaret gained the acknowledgment of her right to follow her own ideas of duty. "Only don't be strong-minded," pleaded Edith. "Mamma wants you to have a footman of your own; and I'm sure you're very welcome, for they're great plagues. Only to please me, darling, don't go and have a strong mind; it's the only thing I ask. Footman or no footman, don't be strong-minded." "Don't be afraid, Edith. I'll faint on your hands at the servants' dinner-time, the very first opportunity; and then, what with Sholto playing with the fire, and the baby crying, you'll begin to wish for a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency." "And you'll not grow too good to joke and be merry?" "Not I. I shall be merrier than I have ever been, now I have got my own way." "And you'll not go a figure, but let me buy your dresses for you?" "Indeed I mean to buy them for myself. You shall come with me if you like; but no one can please me but myself." "Oh! I was afraid you'd dress in brown and dust-colour, not to show the dirt you'll pick up in all those places. I'm glad you're going to keep one or two vanities, just by way of specimens of the old Adam." "I am going to be just the same, Edith, if you and my aunt could but fancy so. Only as I have neither husband nor child to give me natural duties, I must make myself some, in addition to ordering my gowns." In the family conclave, which was made up of Edith, her mother, and her husband, it was decided that perhaps all these plans of hers would only secure her the more for Henry Lennox. They kept her out of the way of other friends who might have been eligible sons or brothers; and it was also agreed that she never seemed to take much pleasure in the society of any one but Henry, out of their own family. The other admirers, attracted by her appearance or the reputation of her fortune, were swept away, by her unconscious smiling disdain, into the paths frequented by other beauties less fastidious, or other heiresses with a larger amount of gold. Henry and she grew slowly into closer intimacy; but neither he nor she were people to brook the slightest notice of their proceedings.

'Is not Margaret the heiress?' whispered Edith to her husband, as they were in their room that night. Captain Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he had forgotten; and the Fellow of a small college could not have much to leave. Edith was a little sadder, with her romance blown to pieces. A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and made him a low curtsey: 'I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had a lawyer's letter, and she is legatee - the legacies being about two thousand pounds, and the remainder property in Milton worth about forty thousand.' 'Indeed! and how does she take her good fortune?' 'Oh, it seems she knew all along; only she had no idea it was so much. She looks very white and pale, and says she's afraid of it; but that's nonsense, you know. I left mamma pouring congratulations down her throat.' It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that Mr. Lennox would naturally be Margaret's legal adviser. She was so ignorant of all forms of business that in nearly everything she had to refer to him. He chose her attorney, and brought her papers to be signed. He was never so happy as when teaching her of these mysteries of the law. 'Henry,' said Edith one day, archly; 'do you know what I hope and expect all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?' 'No, I don't,' said he, reddening, but speaking coolly. 'What you are thinking of, may or may not happen; but this time, before I commit myself, I will see my ground clear. It may not be very civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it. She is only just beginning to thaw a little towards me. She has the making of a Cleopatra in her, if only she were more pagan.' There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn. Instead of Cadiz, she had to content herself with Cromer, where her aunt Shaw and the Lennoxes were bound. They wished her to accompany them, and made only lazy efforts to consider her own separate wish. Perhaps Cromer would be best: she needed bodily strengthening. Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the facts of the family circumstances which had preceded Leonards' unfortunate accident and death. Whatever opinion Mr. Thornton held of her, she had wished it to be based upon a true understanding of what she had done, and why she had done it. It would have given her rest on a point on which she should now all her life be restless. It was now so long since these occurrences, that there was no way of explaining them save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell's death. She must just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time, he might know the truth. But this wish was vain; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best of that. She used to sit long hours upon the beach at Cromer, gazing intently on the waves as they chafed against the pebbly shore - or she looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and was soothed without knowing how. She sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round her knees, while her aunt Shaw went shopping, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode far and wide. When the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith agreed with her husband that Mr. Henry Lennox should be asked to visit Cromer for a week in October. But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in their right places. Those hours by the seaside were not lost, as anyone might have seen who could read the look that her face was gradually acquiring. Mr. Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the change. 'The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good,' said he, on his arrival in their family circle, after Margaret had left the room. 'She looks ten years younger than she did in Harley Street.' 'That's the bonnet I got her!' said Edith triumphantly. 'I beg your pardon,' said Mr. Lennox, in the half-contemptuous, half-indulgent tone he generally used to Edith. 'No mere bonnet would have made Miss Hale's eyes so lustrous and yet so soft, or her face so full of peace and light. She is like the Margaret Hale of Helstone, and yet more.' From this time the clever and ambitious man bent all his powers to gaining Margaret. He loved her sweet beauty. He saw the latent sweep of her mind, which could easily (he thought) be led to embrace all the objects on which he had set his heart. He looked upon her fortune only as a part of her superb self: yet he was fully aware of the rise which it would enable him, the poor barrister, to take. Eventually he would earn such success as would let him pay her back with interest. He had been to Milton on business connected with her property, and had seen that much additional value was yearly accruing to the land and houses which she owned in that prosperous and growing town. He was glad to find that the present relationship between them, of client and legal adviser, was gradually superseding the recollection of that unlucky day at Helstone. It gave him many private opportunites to talk to her. Margaret was only too willing to listen as long as he talked of Milton, though he had seen none of the people whom she knew. Her aunt and cousin would speak of Milton with dislike and contempt; just such feelings as Margaret was ashamed to remember she had expressed on first going to live there. But Mr. Lennox almost exceeded Margaret in his appreciation of Milton and its inhabitants. Their energy, their power, their courage in struggling; their lurid vividness of existence, captivated him. He never perceived how selfish and material were too many of the purposes of their mighty endeavour, till Margaret had the candour to point this out, as the tainting sin in so much that was admirable. Still, when she gave short answers on other subjects, Henry Lennox found that some enquiry about Darkshire called back the light into her eye. When they returned to London Margaret fulfilled one of her sea-side resolves. Before they went to Cromer, she had been as docile to her aunt's laws as if she were still the scared little stranger who cried herself to sleep that first night in the Harley Street nursery. But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much to be obedient to authority, and how much to assert one's freedom. Mrs. Shaw and Edith were both good-tempered; Margaret herself had probably the worst temper of the three. Her quick perceptions and over-lively imagination made her hasty, and her early isolation from sympathy had made her proud. But she had a sweetness of heart which made her manner irresistible; and now, chastened by what the world called her good fortune, she charmed her reluctant aunt into allowing her the right to follow her own ideas of duty. 'Only don't be strong-minded,' pleaded Edith. 'Mamma wants you to have a footman of your own; and I'm sure you're very welcome, for they're great plagues. Only darling, don't have a strong mind; it's the only thing I ask. Footman or no footman, don't be strong-minded.' 'Don't be afraid, Edith. I'll faint on your hands at the first opportunity; and then, what with Sholto playing with the fire, and the baby crying, you'll begin to wish for a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency.' 'And you'll not grow too good to joke and be merry?' 'Not I. I shall be merrier than I have ever been, now I have got my own way.' 'And you'll let me buy your dresses for you?' 'I mean to buy them for myself, though you shall come with me if you like.' 'Oh! I was afraid you'd dress in brown and dust-colour, so as not to show the dirt you'll pick up in all those places. I'm glad you're going to keep one or two vanities.' 'I'm going to be just the same, Edith. Only as I have neither husband nor child to give me natural duties, I must make myself some, in addition to ordering my gowns.' In the family conclave, which was made up of Edith, her mother, and her husband, it was decided that perhaps all these plans of hers would only secure her the more for Henry Lennox. They kept her out of the way of other eligible men; and she never seemed to take much pleasure in the society of anyone but Henry, outside their own family. Admirers attracted by the reputation of her fortune were swept away, by her unconscious smiling disdain, into the paths of other beauties less fastidious. Henry and she grew slowly into closer intimacy; but neither he nor she would tolerate the slightest notice of their friendship.

North and South

Chapter 49: BREATHING TRANQUILLITY

"There are briars besetting every path, Which call for patient care; There is a cross in every lot, And an earnest need for prayer." ANON. Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly enough. But the length of a street--yes, the air of a Milton Street--cheered her young blood before she reached her first turning. Her step grew lighter, her lip redder. She began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned so exclusively inward. She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men with their hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing and loud-spoken girls clustered together, apparently excited to high spirits, and a boisterous independence of temper and behaviour. The more ill-looking of the men--the discreditable minority--hung about on the steps of the beer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty freely on every passer-by. Margaret disliked the prospect of the long walk through these streets, before she came to the fields which she had planned to reach. Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. It would not be so refreshing as a quiet country walk, but still it would perhaps be doing the kinder thing. Nicholas Higgins was sitting by the fire smoking, as she went in. Bessy was rocking herself on the other side. Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed his chair towards Margaret; he leant against the chimney-piece in a lounging attitude, while she asked Bessy how she was. "Hoo's rather down i' th' mouth in regard to spirits, but hoo's better in health. Hoo doesn't like this strike. Hoo's a deal too much set on piece and quietness at any price." "This is th' third strike I've seen," said she, sighing, as if that was answer and explanation enough. "Well, third time pays for all. See if we don't dang th' masters this time. See if they don't come and beg us to come back at our own price. That's all. We've missed it afore time, I grant yo'; but this time we'n laid our plans desperate deep." "Why do you strike?" asked Margaret. "Striking is leaving off work till you get your own rate of wages, is it not? You must not wonder at my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike." "I wish I were there," said Bessie, wearily. "But it's not for me to get sick and tired o' strikes. This is the last I'll see. Before it's ended I shall be in the Great City--the Holy Jerusalem." "Hoo's so full of th' life to come, hoo cannot think of th' present. Now I, yo see, am bound to do the best I can here. I think a bird i' th' hand is worth two i' th' bush. So them's the different views we take on th' strike question." "But," said Margaret, "if the people struck, as you call it, where I come from, as they are mostly all field labourers, the seed would not be sown, the hay got in, the corn reaped." "Well?" said he. He had resumed his pipe, and put his "well" in the form of an interrogation. "Why," she went on, "what would become of the farmers?" He puffed away. "I reckon, they'd have either to give up their farms, or to give fair rate of wage." "Suppose they could not, or would not do the last; they could not give up their farms all in a minute, however much they might wish to do so; but they would have no hay, nor corn to sell that year; and where would the money come from to pay the labourers' wages the next?" Still puffing away. At last he said: "I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they're a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too dazed wi' clemming to know when they're put upon. Now, it's not so here. We known when we're put upon; and we'en too much blood in us to stand it. We just take our hands fro' our looms, and say, 'Yo' may clem us, but yo'll not put upon us, my masters!' And be danged to 'em, they shan't this time!" "I wished I lived down South," said Bessy. "There's a deal to bear there," said Margaret. "There are sorrows to bear everywhere. There is very hard bodily labour to be gone through, with very little food to give strength." "But it's out of doors," said Bessy. "And away from the endless, endless noise, and sickening heat." "It's sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A young person can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, and bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on the same, or else go to the workhouse." "I thought yo were so taken wi' the ways of the South country." "So I am," said Margaret, smiling a little, as she found herself thus caught. "I only mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything in this world; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair you should know the bad down there." "And yo say they never strike down there?" asked Nicholas abruptly. "No!" said Margaret; "I think they have too much sense." "An' I think," replied he, dashing the ashes out of his pipe with so much vehemence that it broke, "it's not that they've too much sense, but that they've too little spirit." "Oh, father!" said Bessy, "what have ye gained by striking? Just think of that first strike when mother died--how we all had to clem--you the worst of all; and yet many a one went in every week at the same wage, till all were gone in that there was work for; and some went beggars all their lives at after." "Ay," said he. "That there strike was badly managed. Folk got into th' management of it, as were either fools or not true men. Yo'll see, it'll be different this time." "But all this time you've not told me what you're striking for," said Margaret, again. "Why, yo see, there's five or six masters who have set themselves again paying the wages they've been paying these two years past, and flourishing upon, and getting richer upon. And now they come to us, and say we're to take less. And we won't. We'll just clem them to death first; and see who'll work for 'em then. They'll have killed the goose that laid 'em the golden eggs, I reckon." "And so you plan dying, in order to be revenged upon them!" "No," said he, "I dunnot. I just look forward to the chance of dying at my post sooner than yield. That's what folk call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver-chap?" "But," said Margaret, "a soldier dies in the cause of the Nation--in the cause of others." He laughed grimly. "My lass," said he, "yo're but a young wench, but don't yo think I can keep three people--that's Bessy, and Mary, and me--on sixteen shillings a week? Dun yo think it's for mysel' I'm striking work at this time? It is just as much in the cause of others as yon soldier--only m'appen, the cause he dies for is just that of somebody he never clapt eyes on, nor heerd on all his born days, while I take up John Boucher's cause, as lives next door but one, wi' a sickly wife, and eight childer, none on 'em factory age; and I don't take up his cause only, though he's a poor good-for-nought, as can only manage two looms at a time, but I take up th' cause o' justice. Why are we to have less wage now, I ask, than two year ago?" "Don't ask me," said Margaret; "I am very ignorant. Ask some of your masters. Surely they will give you a reason for it. It is not merely an arbitrary decision of theirs, come to without reason." "Yo're just a foreigner, and nothing more," said he, contemptuously. "Much yo know about it. Ask th' masters! They'd tell us to mind our own business, and they'd mind theirs. Our business being, yo understand, to take the bated wage, and be thankful; and their business to bate us down to clemming point, to swell their profits. That's what it is." "But," said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she was irritating him, "the state of trade may be such as not to enable them to give you the same remuneration." "State o' trade! That's just a piece o' masters' humbug. It's rate o' wages I was talking of. Th' masters keep th' state o' trade in their own hands; and just walk it forward like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children with into being good. I'll tell you it's their part,--their cue, as some folks call it,--to beat us down, to swell their fortunes; and it's ours to stand up and fight hard,--not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us--for justice and fair play. We help to make their profits, and we ought to help spend 'em. It's not that we want their brass so much this time, as we've done many a time afore. We'n getten money laid by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say, 'hooray for the strike,' and let Thornton, and Slickson, and Hamper, and their set look to it!" "Thornton!" said Margaret. "Mr. Thornton of Marlborough Street?" "Aye! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill, as we call him." "He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not? What sort of a master is he?" "Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hind legs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton." "Nay," said Margaret, laughing, "I deny that. Mr. Thornton is plain enough, but he's not like a bulldog, with its short broad nose, and snarling upper lip." "No! not in look, I grant yo. But let John Thornton get hold on a notion, and he'll stick to it like a bulldog; yo might pull him away wi' a pitchfork ere he'd leave go. He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton. As for Slickson, I take it, some o' these days he'll wheedle his men back wi' fair promises; that they'll just get cheated out of as soon as they're in his power again. He'll work his fines well out on 'em, I'll warrant. He's as slippery as an eel, he is. He's like a cat,--as sleek, and cunning, and fierce. It'll never be an honest up and down fight wi' him, as it will be wi' Thornton. Thornton's as dour as a door-nail; an obstinate chap, every inch on him,--th' oud bulldog!" "Poor Bessy!" said Margaret, turning round to her. "You sigh over it all. You don't like struggling and fighting as your father does, do you?" "No!" said she, heavily. "I'm sick on it. I could have wished to have had other talk about me in my latter days, than just the clashing and clanging and clattering that has ever wearied a' my life long, about work and wages, and masters, and hands, and knobsticks. "Poor wench! latter days be farred! Thou'rt looking a sight better already for a little stir and change. Beside, I shall be a deal here to make it more lively for thee." "Tobacco-smoke chokes me!" said she, querulously. "Then I'll never smoke no more i' the house!" he replied, tenderly. "But why didst thou not tell me afore, thou foolish wench?" She did not speak for a while, and then so low that only Margaret heard her: "I reckon, he'll want a' the comfort he can get out o' either pipe or drink afore he's done." Her father went out of doors, evidently to finish his pipe. Bessy said passionately, "Now am not I a fool,--am I not, Miss?--there, I knew I ought for to keep father at home, and away fro' the folk that are always ready for to tempt a man, in time o' strike, to go drink,--and there my tongue must needs quarrel with this pipe o' his'n--and he'll go off, I know he will,--as often as he wants to smoke--and nobody knows where it'll end. I wish I'd letten myself be choked first." "But does your father drink?" said Margaret. "No--not to say drink," replied she, still in the same wild excited tone. "But what win ye have? There are days wi' you as wi' other folk, I suppose, when yo' get up and go through th' hours, just longing for a bit of a change--a bit of a fillip, as it were. I know I ha' gone and bought a four-pounder out o' another baker's shop to common on such days, just because I sickened at the thought of going on for ever wi' the same sight in my eyes, and the same sound in my ears, and the same taste i' my mouth, and the same thought (or no thought, for that matter) in my head, day after day, for ever. I've longed for to be a man to go spreeing, even if it were only a tramp to some new place in search o' work. And father--all men--have it stronger in 'em than me to get tired o' sameness and work for ever. And what is 'em to do? It's little blame to them if they do go into th' gin-shop for to make their blood flow quicker, and more lively, and see things they never see at no other time--pictures, and looking-glass, and such like. But father never was a drunkard, though maybe, he's got worse for drink, now and then. Only yo' see," and now her voice took a mournful, pleading tone, "at times o' strike there's much to knock a man down, for all they start so hopefully; and where's the comfort to come fro'? He'll get angry and mad--they all do--and then they get tired out wi' being angry and mad, and maybe ha' done things in their passion they'd be glad to forget. Bless yo'r sweet pitiful face! but yo' dunnot know what a strike is yet." "Come, Bessy," said Margaret, "I won't say you're exaggerating, because I don't know enough about it: but, perhaps, as you're not well, you're only looking on one side, and there is another and a brighter to be looked to." "It's all well enough for yo' to say so, who have lived in pleasant green places all your life long, and never known want or care, or wickedness either, for that matter." "Take care," said Margaret, her cheek flushing, and her eye lightening, "how you judge, Bessy. I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill--so ill, Bessy, that there's no outlet but death for her out of prison of her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has no notion of her real state, and to whom the knowledge must come gradually. The only person--the only one who could sympathise with me and help me--whose presence could comfort my mother more than any other earthly thing--is falsely accused--would run the risk of death if he came to see his dying mother. This I tell you--only you, Bessy. You must not mention it. No other person in Milton--hardly any other person in England knows. Have I not care? Do I not know anxiety, though I go about well-dressed, and have food enough? Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness of our souls." "I ask your pardon," replied Bessy, humbly. "Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I've believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; 'And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.' One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one: somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment; otherways it seems all sent for nothing." "Nay, Bessy--think!" said Margaret. "God does not willingly inflict. Don't dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible." "I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise--hear tell o' anything so far different fro' this dreary world, and this town above a' as in Revelations? Many's the time I've repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound. It's as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too. No, I cannot give up Revelations. It gives me more comfort than any other book i' the Bible." "Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters." "Ay," said she greedily, "come. Father will maybe hear yo.' He's deaved wi' my talking; he says it's all nought to do with the things o' to-day, and that's his business." "Where is your sister?" "Gone fustian cutting. I were loth to let her go; but somehow we must live; and th' Union can't afford us much." "Now I must go. You have done me good, Bessy." "I done you good!" "Yes, I came here very sad, and rather too apt to think my own cause for grief was the only one in the world. And now I hear how you have had to bear for years, and that makes me stronger." "Bless yo'! I thought a' the good-doing was on the side of gentlefolk. I shall get proud if I think I can do good to yo'." "You won't do it if you think about it. But you'll only puzzle yourself if you do, that's one comfort." "You're not like no one I ever seed. I dunno what to make of yo'." "Nor I of myself. Good-bye!" Bessy stilled her rocking to gaze after her. "I wonder if there are many folk like her down South. She's like a breath of country air, somehow. She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd a thought that face--as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of--could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sin. I think a deal on her, for sure. But father does the like, I see. And Mary even. It's not often hoo's stirred up to notice much."

Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly. But the length of a street cheered her young blood. Her step grew lighter; she began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned inward. She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men with their hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing girls clustered together, in high spirits, with a boisterous independence. Discreditable-looking men hung about on the steps of the beer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty freely on every passer-by. Margaret disliked the prospect of the long walk through these streets, before she came to the fields which she had planned to reach. Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. Nicholas Higgins was sitting at one side of the fire smoking, as she went in. Bessy was rocking herself on the other side. Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed his chair towards Margaret. He leant against the chimney piece, while she asked how Bessy was. 'Hoo's rather down i' th' mouth, but hoo's better in health. Hoo doesn't like this strike. Hoo's a deal too much set on peace and quietness at any price.' 'This is th' third strike I've seen,' said Bessy, sighing, as if that was explanation enough. 'Well, third time pays for all. See if we don't dang th' masters this time. See if they don't beg us to come back at our own price, that's all. This time we'n laid our plans desperate deep.' 'Why do you strike?' asked Margaret. 'Excuse my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike.' 'I wish I were there,' said Bessy, wearily. 'But this is the last strike I'll see. Before it's ended I shall be in the Great City - the Holy Jerusalem.' 'Hoo's so full of th' life to come, hoo cannot think of th' present. Now I am bound to do the best I can here. So them's the different views we take on th' strike question.' 'But,' said Margaret, 'if the people struck, where I come from, as they are mostly field labourers, the seed would not be sown, or the corn reaped. So what would become of the farmers?' He puffed at his pipe. 'They'd have either to give up their farms, or to give fair rate of wage.' 'Suppose they could not do the latter; they could not give up their farms all in a minute, but they would have no corn to sell that year; and where would the money come from to pay the labourers' wages the next?' Still puffing away, he said: 'I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they're a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; too much dazed wi' hunger to know when they're put upon. It's not so here. We know when we're put upon; and we won't stand it. Be danged to 'em, they shan't put upon us this time!' 'I wish I lived down South,' said Bessy. 'There are sorrows to bear everywhere,' said Margaret. 'There is very hard labour to be gone through there, with very little food to give strength.' 'But it's out of doors,' said Bessy. 'And away from the endless, endless noise, and heat.' 'It's sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A young person can stand it; but an old man gets bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on, or go to the workhouse.' 'I thought yo' were so taken wi' the ways of the South country.' 'So I am,' said Margaret, smiling. 'I only mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything in this world; and I thought it was only fair you should know the bad down there.' 'And yo' say they never strike down there?' asked Nicholas, abruptly. 'No!' said Margaret; 'I think they have too much sense.' 'An' I think,' replied he, dashing the ashes out of his pipe vehemently, 'that they've too little spirit.' 'O, father!' said Bessy, 'what have ye gained by striking? Think of that first strike when mother died - how we all had to clem and go hungry - you the worst of all; and yet many men went in every week at the same wage, and took all the jobs; and some went beggars after.' 'Ay,' said he. 'That there strike was badly managed. It'll be different this time.' 'But you've not told me what you're striking for,' said Margaret. 'Why, yo' see, there's five or six masters who have set themselves against paying the wages they've been paying these two years past. Now they say we're to take less. And we won't. We'll just clem them to death first; and see who'll work for 'em then. They'll have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, I reckon.' 'And so you plan dying, in order to be revenged upon them!' 'No,' said he, 'I dunnot. But I'd die at my post sooner than yield. That's what folk call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver?' 'But,' said Margaret, 'a soldier dies for his country - for others.' He laughed grimly. 'My lass,' said he, 'do yo' think I can keep three people - Bessy, and Mary, and me - on sixteen shilling a week? It's not for mysel' I'm striking. Yon soldier might die for somebody he never clapt eyes on, while I take up John Boucher's cause, as lives next door but one, wi' a sickly wife, and eight childer, even though he's a poor good-for-nought, as can only manage two looms at a time - but I take up th' cause o' justice. Why are we to have less wage now, I ask, than two year ago?' 'Don't ask me,' said Margaret. 'Ask some of your masters. Surely they will give you a reason.' 'Much yo' know about it,' said he, contemptuously. 'Ask th' masters! They'd tell us to mind our own business. Our business being, yo' understand, to take the smaller wage, and be thankful, and their business to starve us, and swell their profits. That's what it is.' 'But,' said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she was irritating him, 'the state of trade may be such that they cannot pay you the same wage.' 'State o' trade! That's just a piece o' masters' humbug. Th' masters keep th' state o' trade in their own hands; and use it like a bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children into being good. I tell yo' they want to beat us down; and we have to stand up and fight hard for justice - not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us. We've getten money laid by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say, "hooray for the strike," and let Thornton, Slickson, and Hamper, and the rest look to it!' 'Thornton!' said Margaret. 'Mr. Thornton of Marlborough Street?' 'Aye! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill.' 'What sort of a master is he?' 'Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hind legs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton.' 'Nay,' said Margaret, laughing, 'I deny that. Mr. Thornton is plain enough, but he's not like a bulldog.' 'No! not in looks, I grant yo'. But let John Thornton get hold on a notion, and he'll stick to it like a bulldog. He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton. As for Slickson, he'll wheedle his men back wi' fair promises, and cheat them as soon as they're in his power again. He's as slippery as an eel, he is. It'll never be an honest up and down fight wi' him, as it will be wi' Thornton. Thornton's as dour as a door-nail.' 'Poor Bessy!' said Margaret, turning to her. 'You sigh over it all. You don't like fighting, do you?' 'No!' said she, heavily. 'I'm sick on it. I've been wearied all my life wi' the clashing and clattering about work and wages.' 'Poor wench! Thou'rt looking a sight better already for a little stir and change. Besides, I shall be home to make it more lively for thee.' 'Tobacco-smoke chokes me!' said she, querulously. 'Then I'll never smoke i' th' house!' he replied tenderly. 'But why didst thou not tell me afore, thou foolish wench?' She answered so low that only Margaret heard her: 'He'll want a' the comfort he can get out o' either pipe or drink afore he's done.' Her father went outside to finish his pipe, and Bessy said passionately, 'Now am not I a fool? I knew I ought to keep father at home, and away fro' the folk that are always ready for to tempt a man, in time o' strike, to go drink - and now he'll go off, I know he will, whenever he wants to smoke - and nobody knows where it'll end.' 'But does your father drink?' asked Margaret. 'No - not to say drink,' replied she, still in the same wild tone. 'But there are days when yo're just longing for a bit of a change - a bit of a fillip, as it were. I've longed for to be a man, and to go spreeing. And men have the feeling stronger than me. And what is 'em to do? It's little blame if they do go into th' gin-shop to make their blood flow more lively. But father never was a drunkard, though maybe he's got worse for drink now and then. Only yo' see,' and now her voice took a mournful, pleading tone, 'at times o' strike there's much to knock a man down, for all they start so hopefully; and where's the comfort to come fro'? He'll get angry and mad - they all do - and maybe do things in their passion they'd be glad to forget. Bless your sweet pitiful face! but yo' dunnot know what a strike is yet.' 'Come, Bessy,' said Margaret, 'I won't say you're exaggerating, because I don't know enough about it: but, perhaps, as you're not well, you're only looking on the dark side.' 'It's well enough for yo' to say, who have lived in pleasant green places all your life, and never known want or wickedness.' 'Take care how you judge,' said Margaret, flushing. 'I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill that only death will free her from her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has no notion of her real state. The only person who could help me - who could comfort my mother more than any other - is falsely accused, and would risk death if he came to see her. You must not mention this, Bessy. No other person in Milton knows it. I know anxiety, though I go about well-dressed, and have food enough. Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness of our souls.' 'I ask your pardon,' replied Bessy humbly. 'Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I think I'm one of them as is prophesied to die in Revelations. Otherwise it seems all for nothing.' 'Nay, Bessy!' said Margaret. 'God does not willingly afflict. Don't dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible.' 'I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise as in Revelations? Many's the time I've repeated the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound. It's as good as an organ. It gives me more comfort than any other book i' the Bible.' 'Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters.' 'Ay,' said she, greedily, 'come. Father will maybe hear yo'.' 'Now I must go. You have done me good, Bessy.' 'I done you good!' 'Yes. I came here very sad, and thinking my own cause for grief was the only one in the world. And now I hear what you have had to bear for years, and that makes me stronger.' 'Bless yo'! I shall get proud if I think I can do yo' good. Yo're not like no one I ever seed. I dunno what to make of yo'.' 'Nor I of myself. Good-bye!' Bessy gazed after her. 'I wonder if there are many folk like her down South. She's like a breath of country air, somehow. Who'd ha' thought that bright face could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sin. I think of her a lot, for sure. But father does the same. And Mary even. It's not often hoo's stirred up to notice much.' .

North and South

Chapter 17: WHAT IS A STRIKE?

"So on those happy days of yore Oft as I dare to dwell once more, Still must I miss the friends so tried, Whom Death has severed from my side. But ever when true friendship binds, Spirit it is that spirit finds; In spirit then our bliss we found, In spirit yet to them I'm bound." UHLAND. Margaret was ready long before the appointed time, and had leisure enough to cry a little, quietly, when unobserved, and to smile brightly when any one looked at her. Her last alarm was lest they should be too late and miss the train; but no! they were all in time; and she breathed freely and happily at length, seated in the carriage opposite to Mr. Bell, and whirling away past the well-known stations; seeing the old south country-towns and hamlets sleeping in the warm light of the pure sun, which gave a yet ruddier colour to their tiled roofs, so different to the cold slates of the north. Broods of pigeons hovered around these peaked quaint gables, slowly settling here and there, and ruffling their soft, shiny feathers, as if exposing every fibre to the delicious warmth. There were few people about at the stations, it almost seemed as if they were too lazily content to wish to travel; none of the bustle and stir that Margaret had noticed in her two journeys on the London and North-Western line. Later on in the year, this line of railway should be stirring and alive with rich pleasure-seekers; but as to the constant going to and fro of busy tradespeople it would always be widely different from the northern lines. Here a spectator or two stood lounging at nearly every station, with his hands in his pockets, so absorbed in the simple act of watching, that it made the travellers wonder what he could find to do when the train whirled away, and only the blank of a railway, some sheds, and a distant field or two were left for him to gaze upon. The hot air danced over the golden stillness of the land, farm after farm was left behind, each reminding Margaret of German Idylls--of Herman and Dorothea--of Evangeline. From this waking dream she was roused. It was the place to leave the train and take the fly to Helstone. And now sharper feelings came shooting through her heart, whether pain or pleasure she could hardly tell. Every mile was redolent of associations, which she would not have missed for the world, but each of which made her cry upon "the days that are no more," with ineffable longing. The last time she had passed along this road was when she had left it with her father and mother--the day, the season, had been gloomy, and she herself hopeless, but they were there with her. Now she was alone, an orphan, and they, strangely, had gone away from her, and vanished from the face of the earth. It hurt her to see the Helstone road so flooded in the sunlight, and every turn and every familiar tree so precisely the same in its summer glory as it had been in former years. Nature felt no change and was ever young. Mr. Bell knew something of what would be passing through her mind, and wisely and kindly held his tongue. They drove up to the Lennard Arms; half farm-house, half-inn, standing a little apart from the road, as much as to say, that the host did not so depend on the custom of travellers, as to have to court it by any obtrusiveness; they, rather, must seek him out. The house fronted the village green; and right before it stood an immemorial lime-tree benched all round, in some hidden recesses of whose leafy wealth hung the grim escutcheon of the Lennards. The door of the inn stood wide open, but there was no hospitable hurry to receive the travellers. When the landlady did appear--and they might have abstracted many an article first--she gave them a kind welcome, almost as if they had been invited guests, and apologised for her coming having been so delayed, by saying, that it was hay-time, and the provisions for the men had to be sent a-field, and she had been too busy packing up the baskets to hear the noise of wheels over the road, which, since they left the highway, ran over soft short turf. "Why, bless me!" exclaimed she, as at the end of her apology a glint of sunshine showed her Margaret's face, hitherto unobserved in that shady parlour. "It's Miss Hale, Jenny," said she, running to the door, and calling to her daughter. "Come here, come directly, it's Miss Hale!" And then she went up to Margaret, and shook hands with motherly fondness. "And how are you all? How's the Vicar and Miss Dixon? The Vicar above all! God bless him! We've never ceased to be sorry that he left." Margaret tried to speak and tell her of her father's death; of her mother's it was evident that Mrs. Purkis was aware, from her omission of her name. But she choked in the effort, and could only touch her deep mourning, and say the one word, "Papa." "Surely, sir, it's never so!" said Mrs. Purkis, turning to Mr. Bell for confirmation of the sad suspicion that now entered her mind. "There was a gentleman here in the spring--might have been as long ago as last winter--who told us a deal of Mr. Hale and Miss Margaret; and he said Mrs. Hale was gone, poor lady. But never a word of the Vicar's being ailing!" "It is so, however," said Mr. Bell. "He died quite suddenly, when on a visit to me at Oxford. He was a good man, Mrs. Purkis, and there's many of us that might be thankful to have as calm an end as his. Come, Margaret, my dear! Her father was my oldest friend, and she's my god-daughter, so I thought we would just come down together and see the old place; and I know of old you can give us comfortable rooms and a capital dinner. You don't remember me I see, but my name is Bell, and once or twice when the parsonage has been full, I've slept here, and tasted your good ale." "To be sure; I ask your pardon; but you see I was taken up with Miss Hale. Let me show you to a room, Miss Margaret, where you can take off your bonnet, and wash your face. It's only this very morning I plunged some fresh-gathered roses head downward in the water-jug, for thought I, perhaps some one will be coming, and there's nothing so sweet as spring-water scented by a musk rose or two. To think of the Vicar being dead! Well, to be sure, we must all die; only that gentleman said, he was quite picking up after his trouble about Mrs. Hale's death." "Come down to me, Mrs. Purkis, after you have attended to Miss Hale. I want to have a consultation with you about dinner." The little casement window in Margaret's bed-chamber was almost filled up with rose and vine branches; but, pushing them aside, and stretching a little out, she could see the tops of the parsonage chimneys above the trees, and distinguish many a well-known line through the leaves. "Aye!" said Mrs. Purkis, smoothing down the bed, and despatching Jenny for an armful of lavender-scented towels, "times is changed, miss; our new Vicar has seven children, and is building a nursery ready for more, just where the arbour and tool-house used to be in old times. And he has had new grates put in, and a plate-glass window in the drawing-room. He and his wife are stirring people, and have done a deal of good; at least they say it's doing good; if it were not, I should call it turning things upside down for very little purpose. The new Vicar is a teetotaller, miss, and a magistrate, and his wife has a deal of receipts for economical cooking, and is for making bread without yeast; and they both talk so much, and both at a time, that they knock one down as it were, and it's not till they're gone, and one's a little at peace, that one can think that there were things one might have said on one's own side of the question. He'll be after the men's cans in the hay-field, and peeping in; and then there'll be an ado because it's not ginger-beer, but I can't help it. My mother and my grandmother before me sent good malt liquor to hay-makers, and took salts and senna when anything ailed them; and I must e'en go on in their ways, though Mrs. Hepworth does want to give me comfits instead of medicine, which, as she says, is a deal pleasanter, only I've no faith in it. But I must go, miss, though I'm wanting to hear many a thing; I'll come back to you before long." Mr. Bell had strawberries and cream, a loaf of brown bread, and a jug of milk (together with a Stilton cheese and a bottle of port for his own private refreshment), ready for Margaret on her coming down stairs; and after this rustic luncheon they set out for a walk, hardly knowing in what direction to turn, so many old familiar inducements were there in each. "Shall we go past the vicarage?" asked Mr. Bell. "No, not yet. We will go this way, and make a round so as to come back by it," said Margaret. Here and there old trees had been felled the autumn before; or a squatter's cottage roughly-built and decaying cottage had disappeared. Margaret missed them each and all, and grieved over them like old friends. They came past the spot where she and Mr. Lennox had sketched. The white, lightning-scarred trunk of the venerable beech, among whose roots they had sate down was there no more; the old man, the inhabitant of the ruinous cottage, was dead; the cottage had been pulled down, and a new one, tidy and respectable, had been built in its stead. There was a small garden on the place where the beech-tree had been. "I did not think I had been so old," said Margaret after a pause of silence; and she turned away sighing. "Yes!" said Mr. Bell. "It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young, afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive." "Let us go on to see little Susan," said Margaret, drawing her companion up a grassy road-way, leading under the shadow of a forest glade. "With all my heart, though I have not an idea who little Susan may be. But I have a kindness for all Susans, for simple Susan's sake." "My little Susan was disappointed when I left without wishing her good-bye; and it has been on my conscience ever since, that I gave her pain which a little more exertion on my part might have prevented. But it is a long way. Are you sure you will not be tired?" "Quite sure. That is, if you don't walk so fast. You see, here there are no views that can give one an excuse for stopping to take breath. You would think it romantic to be walking with a person 'fat and scant o' breath' if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Have compassion on my infirmities for his sake." "I will walk slower for your own sake. I like you twenty times better than Hamlet." "On the principle that a living ass is better than a dead lion?" "Perhaps so. I don't analyse my feelings." "I am content to take your liking me, without examining too curiously into the materials it is made of. Only we need not walk at a snail's pace." "Very well. Walk at your own pace, and I will follow. Or stop still and meditate, like the Hamlet you compare yourself to, if I go too fast." "Thank you. But as my mother has not murdered my father, and afterwards married my uncle, I shouldn't know what to think about, unless it were balancing the chances of our having a well-cooked dinner or not. What do you think?" "I am in good hopes. She used to be considered a famous cook as far as Helstone opinion went." "But have you considered the distraction of mind produced by all this haymaking?" Margaret felt all Mr. Bell's kindness in trying to make cheerful talk about nothing, to endeavour to prevent her from thinking too curiously about the past. But she would rather have gone over these dear-loved walks in silence, if indeed she were not ungrateful enough to wish that she might have been alone. They reached the cottage where Susan's widowed mother lived. Susan was not there. She was gone to the parochial school. Margaret was disappointed, and the poor woman saw it, and began to make a kind of apology. "Oh! it is quite right," said Margaret. "I am very glad to hear it. I might have thought of it. Only she used to stop at home with you." "Yes, she did; and I miss her sadly. I used to teach her what little I knew at nights. It were not much to be sure. But she were getting such a handy girl, that I miss her sore. But she's a deal above me in learning now." And the mother sighed. "I'm all wrong," growled Mr. Bell. "Don't mind what I say. I'm a hundred years behind the world. But I should say, that the child was getting a better and simpler, and more natural education stopping at home, and helping her mother, and learning to read a chapter in the New Testament every night by her side, than from all the schooling under the sun." Margaret did not want to encourage him to go on by replying to him, and so prolonging the discussion before the mother. So she turned to her and asked, "How is old Betty Barnes?" "I don't know," said the woman rather shortly. "We'se not friends." "Why not?" asked Margaret, who had formerly been the peace-maker of the village. "She stole my cat." "Did she know it was yours?" "I don't know. I reckon not." "Well! could not you get it back again when you told her it was yours?" "No! for she'd burnt it." "Burnt it!" exclaimed both Margaret and Mr. Bell. "Roasted it!" explained the woman. It was no explanation. By dint of questioning, Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gipsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, on promise of having them faithfully returned on the Saturday night before Goodman Barnes should have missed them, became alarmed by their non-appearance, and her consequent dread of her husband's anger, and as, according to one of the savage country superstitions, the cries of a cat, in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive; compelled (as it were) the powers of darkness to fulfil the wishes of the executioner, resort had been had to the charm. The poor woman evidently believed in its efficacy; her only feeling was indignation that her cat had been chosen out from all others for a sacrifice. Margaret listened in horror; and endeavoured in vain to enlighten the woman's mind; but she was obliged to give it up in despair. Step by step she got the woman to admit certain facts, of which the logical connexion and sequence was perfectly clear to Margaret; but at the end, the bewildered woman simply repeated her first assertion, namely, that "it were very cruel for sure, and she should not like to do it; but that there was nothing like it for giving a person what they wished for; she had heard it all her life; but it were very cruel for all that." Margaret gave it up in despair, and walked away sick at heart. "You are a good girl not to triumph over me," said Mr. Bell. "How? What do you mean?" "I own I am wrong about schooling. Anything rather than have that child brought up in such practical paganism." "Oh! I remember. Poor little Susan! I must go and see her; would you mind calling at the school?" "Not a bit. I am curious to see something of the teaching she is to receive." They did not speak much more, but thridded their way through many a bosky dell, whose soft green influence could not charm away the shock and the pain in Margaret's heart, caused by the recital of such cruelty; a recital too, the manner of which betrayed such utter want of imagination, and therefore of any sympathy with the suffering animal. The buzz of voices, like the murmur of a hive of busy human bees, made itself heard as soon as they emerged from the forest on the more open village-green on which the school was situated. The door was wide open, and they entered. A brisk lady in black, here, there, and everywhere, perceived them, and bade them welcome with somewhat of the hostess-air which, Margaret remembered, her mother was wont to assume, only in a more soft and languid manner, when any rare visitors strayed in to inspect the school. She knew at once it was the present Vicar's wife, her mother's successor; and she would have drawn back from the interview had it been possible; but in an instant she had conquered this feeling, and modestly advanced, meeting many a bright glance of recognition, and hearing many a half-suppressed murmur of "It's Miss Hale." The Vicar's lady heard the name, and her manner at once became more kindly. Margaret wished she could have helped feeling that it also became more patronizing. The lady held out a hand to Mr. Bell, with,-- "Your father, I presume, Miss Hale. I see it by the likeness. I am sure I am very glad to see you, sir, and so will the Vicar be." Margaret explained that it was not her father, and stammered out the fact of his death; wondering all the time how Mr. Hale could have borne coming to revisit Helstone, if it had been as the Vicar's lady supposed. She did not hear what Mrs. Hepworth was saying, and left it to Mr. Bell to reply, looking round, meanwhile, for her old acquaintances. "Ah! I see you would like to take a class, Miss Hale. I know it by myself. First class stand up for a parsing lesson with Miss Hale." Poor Margaret, whose visit was sentimental, not in any degree inspective, felt herself taken in; but as in some way bringing her in contact with little eager faces, once well-known, and who had received the solemn rite of baptism from her father, she sate down, half losing herself in tracing out the changing features of the girls, and holding Susan's hand for a minute or two, unobserved by all, while the first class sought for their books, and the Vicar's lady went as near as a lady could towards holding Mr. Bell by the button, while she explained the Phonetic system to him, and gave him a conversation she had had with the Inspector about it. Margaret bent over her book, and seeing nothing but that--hearing the buzz of children's voices, old times rose up, and she thought of them, and her eyes filled with tears, till all at once there was a pause--one of the girls was stumbling over the apparently simple word "a," uncertain what to call it. "A, an indefinite article," said Margaret, mildly. "I beg your pardon," said the Vicar's wife, all eyes and ears; "but we are taught by Mr. Milsome to call 'a' an--who can remember?" "An adjective absolute," said half-a-dozen voices at once. And Margaret sate abashed. The children knew more than she did. Mr. Bell turned away, and smiled. Margaret spoke no more during the lesson. But after it was over, she went quietly round to one or two old favourites, and talked to them a little. They were growing out of children into great girls; passing out of their recollection in their rapid development, as she, by her three year's absence, was vanishing from theirs. Still she was glad to have seen them all again, though a tinge of sadness mixed itself with her pleasure. When school was over for the day, it was yet early in the summer afternoon; and Mrs. Hepworth proposed to Margaret that she and Mr. Bell should accompany her to the parsonage, and see--the word "improvements" had half slipped out of her mouth, but she substituted the more cautious term "alterations" which the present Vicar was making. 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 been to enjoin me to keep his visit a secret from all. You see, papa never told, even you. No! I could bear the shame--I thought I could at least. I did bear it. Mr. Thornton has never respected me since." "He respects you, I am sure," said Mr. Bell. "To be sure it accounts a little for----. But he always speaks of you with regard and esteem, though now I understand certain reservations in his manner." Margaret did not speak; did not attend to what Mr. Bell had to say; lost all sense of it. By-and-by she said: "Will you tell me what you refer to about 'reservations' in his manner of speaking to me?" "Oh! simply he has annoyed me by not joining in my praises of you. Like an old fool, I thought that every one would have the same opinion as I had; and he evidently could not agree with me. I was puzzled at the time. But he must be perplexed, if the affair has never been in the least explained. There was first your walking out with a young man in the dark----" "But it was my brother!" said Margaret, surprised. "True. But how was he to know that?" "I don't know. I never thought anything of that kind," said Margaret, reddening, and looking hurt and offended. "And perhaps he never would, but for the lie,--which, under the circumstances, I maintain, was necessary." "It was not. I know it now. I bitterly repent it." There was a long pause of silence. Margaret was the first to speak. "I am not likely ever to see Mr. Thornton again,"--and there she stopped. "There are many things more unlikely, I should say," replied Mr. Bell. "But I believe I never shall. Still, somehow one does not like to have sunk so low in--in a friend's opinion as I have done in his." Her eyes were full of tears, but her voice was steady, and Mr. Bell was not looking at her. "And now that Frederick has given up all hope, and almost all wish of ever clearing himself, and returning to England, it would be only doing myself justice to have all this explained. If you please, and if you can, if there is a good opportunity, (don't force an explanation upon him, pray,) but if you can, will you tell him the whole circumstances, and tell him also that I gave you leave to do so, because I felt that for poor papa's sake I should not like to lose his respect, though we may never be likely to meet again?" "Certainly. I think he ought to know. I do not like you to rest even under a shadow of an impropriety; he would not know what to think of seeing you alone with a young man." "As for that," said Margaret, rather haughtily, "I hold it is 'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' Yet still I should choose to have it explained, if any natural opportunity for easy explanation occurs. But it is not to clear myself of any suspicion of improper conduct that I wish to have him told--if I thought that he had suspected me, I should not care for his good opinion--no! it is that he may learn how I was tempted, and how I fell into the snare; why I told that falsehood, in short." "Which I don't blame you for. It is no partiality of mine, I assure you." "What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong. But we will not talk of that any more, if you please. It is done--my sin is sinned. I have now to put it behind me, and be truthful for evermore, if I can." "Very well. If you like to be uncomfortable and morbid, be so. I always keep my conscience as tight shut up as a jack-in-a-box, for when it jumps into existence it surprises me by its size. So I coax it down again, as the fisherman coaxed the genii. 'Wonderful,' says I, 'to think that you have been concealed so long, and in so small a compass, that I really did not know of your existence. Pray, sir, instead of growing larger and larger every instant, and bewildering me with your misty outlines, would you once more compress yourself into your former dimensions?' And when I've got him down, don't I clap the seal on the vase, and take good care how I open it again, and how I go against Solomon, wisest of men, who confined him there." But it was no smiling matter to Margaret. She hardly attended to what Mr. Bell was saying. Her thoughts ran upon the idea, before entertained, but which now had assumed the strength of a conviction, that Mr. Thornton no longer held his former good opinion of her--that he was disappointed in her. She did not feel as if any explanation could ever reinstate her--not in his love, for that and any return on her part she had resolved never to dwell upon, and she kept rigidly to her resolution--but in the respect and high regard which she had hoped would have ever made him willing, in the spirit of Gerald Griffin's beautiful lines, "To turn and look back when thou hearest The sound of my name." She kept choking and swallowing all the time that she thought about it. She tried to comfort herself with the idea, that what he imagined her to be, did not alter the fact of what she was. But it was a truism, a phantom, and broke down under the weight of her regret. She had twenty questions on the tip of her tongue to ask Mr. Bell, but not one of them did she utter. Mr. Bell thought that she was tired, and sent her early to her room, where she sate long hours by the open window, gazing out on the purple dome above, where the stars arose, and twinkled and disappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed. All night long too, there burnt a little light on earth; a candle in her old bedroom, which was the nursery with the present inhabitants of the parsonage, until the new one was built. A sense of change, of individual nothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, overpowered Margaret. Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it. "I begin to understand now what heaven must be--and, oh! the grandeur and repose of the words--'The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' Everlasting! 'From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.' That beautiful sky above me looks as though it could not change, and yet it will. I am so tired--so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually. I am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil. I seek heavenly steadfastness in earthly monotony. If I were a Roman Catholic and could deaden my heart, stun it with some great blow, I might become a nun. But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, for love for my species could never fill my heart to the utter exclusion of love for individuals. Perhaps it ought to be so, perhaps not; I cannot decide to-night." Wearily she went to bed, wearily she arose in four or five hours' time. But with the morning came hope, and a brighter view of things. "After all it is right," said she, hearing the voices of children at play while she was dressing. "If the world stood still, it would retrograde and become corrupt, if that is not Irish. Looking out of myself and my own painful sense of change, the progress of all around me is right and necessary. I must not think so much of how circumstances affect me myself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, or a hopeful trustful heart." And with a smile ready in her eyes to quiver down to her lips, she went into the parlour and greeted Mr. Bell. "Ah, Missy! you were up late last night, and so you're late this morning. Now I've got a little piece of news for you. What do you think of an invitation to dinner? a morning call, literally in the dewy morning. Why, I've had the Vicar here already, on his way to the school. How much the desire of giving our hostess a teetotal lecture for the benefit of the hay-makers, had to do with his earliness, I don't know; but here he was, when I came down just before nine; and we are asked to dine there to-day." "But Edith expects me back--I cannot go," said Margaret, thankful to have so good an excuse. "Yes! I know; so I told him. I thought you would not want to go. Still it is open, if you would like it." "Oh, no!" said Margaret. "Let us keep to our plan. Let us start at twelve. It is very good and kind of them; but indeed I could not go." "Very well. Don't fidget yourself, and I'll arrange it all." Before they left, Margaret stole round to the back of the Vicarage garden, and gathered a little straggling piece of honeysuckle. She would not take a flower the day before, for fear of being observed, and her motives and feelings commented upon. But as she returned across the common, the place was reinvested with the old enchanting atmosphere. The common sounds of life were more musical there than anywhere else in the whole world, the light more golden, the life more tranquil and full of dreamy delight. As Margaret remembered her feelings yesterday, she said to herself: "And I too change perpetually--now this, now that--now disappointment and peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and now suddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I had imagined it. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love any place like you." A few days afterwards, she had found her level, and decided that she was very glad to have been there, and that she had seen it again, and that to her it would always be the prettiest spot in the world, but that it was so full of associations with former days, and especially with her father and mother, that if it were all to come over again, she should shrink back from such another visit as that which she had paid with Mr. Bell.

Margaret was ready long before the appointed hour. She was alarmed lest they should miss the train; but no! they were in time. She breathed freely and happily at last, seated in the carriage opposite Mr. Bell, and whirling away past old country-towns and hamlets sleeping in the warm sunlight, which gave a ruddy colour to their tiled roofs, so different to the cold slates of the north. Broods of pigeons hovered around these peaked quaint gables, ruffling their soft feathers. There were few people about at the stations; none of the bustle and stir of the London and North-Western line. A spectator or two stood lounging at nearly every station, watching the passing trains. The hot air danced over the golden stillness of the land, and farm after farm was left behind, until they stepped down from the train and took the fly to Helstone. Whether she felt pain or pleasure, Margaret could hardly tell. Every mile was full of associations which she would not have missed for the world, but which made her long for 'the days that are no more.' The last time she had passed along this road was when she left with her father and mother. Now she was alone, an orphan, and they had vanished from the face of the earth. It hurt her to see the Helstone road so flooded in sunlight, and every familiar tree so precisely the same in its summer glory as it had been in former years. Nature felt no change, and was ever young. Mr. Bell knew something of what would be passing through her mind, and wisely and kindly held his tongue. They drove up to the Lennard Arms; half farm-house, half-inn, by the village green. Before it stood an ancient lime-tree benched all round. The door of the inn stood wide open, but there was no hospitable hurry to receive the travellers. When the landlady did appear she gave them a kind welcome, and apologised for having been delayed; it was hay-time, and she had been busy packing up baskets of provisions to be sent out to the men in the field. 'Why, bless me!' exclaimed she. 'It's Miss Hale!' And she shook Margaret's hands with motherly fondness. 'And how are you all? How's the Vicar? God bless him! We've never ceased to be sorry that he left.' Margaret choked in the effort to speak. She could only touch her deep mourning, and say, 'Papa.' 'Surely, sir, it's never so!' said Mrs. Purkis, turning to Mr. Bell. 'There was a gentleman here in the spring - or maybe last winter - who told us a deal of Mr. Hale and Miss Margaret; and he said Mrs. Hale was gone, poor lady. But never a word of the Vicar's ailing!' 'He died quite suddenly,' said Mr. Bell. 'He was a good man, Mrs. Purkis, and there's many of us that might be thankful to have as calm an end as his. Come, Margaret, my dear! She's my god-daughter, so I thought we would just come down together and see the old place; and I know you can give us comfortable rooms and a capital dinner. You don't remember me, but my name is Bell, and I've stayed here before.' 'To be sure; I ask your pardon; but I was taken up with Miss Hale. Let me show you to a room, Miss Margaret, where you can wash your face. It's only this very morning I plunged some fresh-gathered roses head downward in the water-jug, for, thought I, perhaps some one will be coming, and there's nothing so sweet as spring-water scented by a musk rose or two.' The little casement window in Margaret's bed-chamber was almost filled up with rose and vine branches; but pushing them aside, and stretching out, she could see the tops of the parsonage chimneys above the trees. 'Aye!' said Mrs. Purkis, smoothing down the bed, 'times is changed, miss; our new Vicar Mr. Hepworth has seven children, and is building a nursery ready for more, where the arbour used to be. And he has had new grates put in, and a plate-glass window in the drawing-room. He and his wife have done a deal of good, they say; though I should call it turning things upside down for very little purpose. The new Vicar is a teetotaller, miss, and a magistrate, and his wife has a deal of receipts for economical cooking; and they both talk so much, and both at a time, that they knock one down as it were. He'll be after the men's cans in the hay-field, and there'll be an ado because it's not ginger beer. But I must go, miss; I'll come back to you before long.' Mr. Bell had strawberries and cream, a loaf of brown bread, and a jug of milk (together with a Stilton cheese and a bottle of port for his own refreshment,) ready for Margaret on her coming downstairs; and after this rustic luncheon they set out to walk. 'Shall we go to the vicarage?' asked Mr. Bell. 'No, not yet. We will go this way, and come back by it.' Here and there old trees had been felled; or a decaying cottage had disappeared. Margaret grieved over them like old friends. They came past the spot where she and Mr. Lennox had sketched. The white, lightning-scarred trunk of the venerable beech where they had sat down was there no more; the old man who lived in the ruinous cottage was dead; the cottage had been pulled down, and a new one built. There was a small garden where the beech-tree had been. 'I did not think I was so old,' said Margaret after a pause. 'Yes!' said Mr. Bell. 'I take changes as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, but to you it is new and oppressive.' 'Let us go and see little Susan,' said Margaret, leading him up a grassy track into a forest glade. 'With all my heart, though I have no idea who little Susan may be.' 'My little Susan was disappointed when I left without wishing her goodbye; and it has been on my conscience ever since. But it is a long way. Are you sure you will not be tired?' 'Quite sure. That is, if you don't walk so fast. You would think it romantic to be walking with a person "fat and scant o' breath" if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.' 'I like you twenty times better than Hamlet. Walk at your own pace, and I will follow. Stop and meditate, like Hamlet, if I go too fast.' 'Thank you. But as my mother has not murdered my father, and afterwards married my uncle, I shouldn't know what to think about, unless it were the chances of our having a well-cooked dinner. What do you think?' 'I am in good hopes. Mrs. Purkis used to be considered a famous cook.' 'But have you considered the distraction of all this haymaking?' Margaret felt Mr. Bell's kindness in trying to make cheerful talk about nothing, to prevent her from thinking too much about the past. But she would rather have walked in silence. They reached the cottage where Susan's widowed mother lived. Susan was not there; she was at school. 'Oh!' said Margaret. 'I am very glad to hear it. Only she used to stop at home with you.' 'Yes, she did; and I miss her sadly. I used to teach her what little I knew at nights. But she's a deal above me in learning now.' And the mother sighed. 'I'm a hundred years behind the world.' growled Mr. Bell. 'But I should say, that the child was getting a better and more natural education stopping at home, and helping her mother, and reading the New Testament every night by her side, than from all the schooling under the sun.' Margaret did not want to encourage him to go on, so she turned to the mother and asked, 'How is old Betty Barnes?' 'I don't know,' said the woman rather shortly. 'We'se not friends. She stole my cat.' 'Did she know it was yours?' 'I don't know. I reckon not.' 'Well! could not you get it back again when you told her it was yours?' 'No! for she'd burnt it.' 'Burnt it!' exclaimed both Margaret and Mr. Bell. 'Roasted it!' said the woman. Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gypsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, with which the gypsy had then disappeared, had followed one of the savage country superstitions: the cries of a cat, in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive, would compel the powers of darkness to fulfil the executioner's wishes. Susan's mother evidently believed in it; she was only indignant because her cat had been the one chosen for a sacrifice. Margaret listened in horror; and tried to use logical argument to enlighten her; but she was obliged to give up in despair. The bewildered woman simply repeated that 'it were very cruel for sure, but there were nothing like it for giving a person what they wished for; she had heard it all her life.' Margaret walked away sick at heart. 'You are a good girl not to triumph over me,' said Mr. Bell. 'What do you mean?' 'I am wrong about schooling. Anything rather than have that child brought up in such practical paganism.' 'Oh! Poor little Susan! I must go and see her; would you mind calling at the school?' 'Not a bit.' They did not speak much more, but threaded their way through many a green dell, whose soft influence could not charm away the shock in Margaret's heart. The buzz of voices, like the murmur of a hive of busy human bees, made itself heard as soon as they emerged on the open village-green where the school was situated. The door was wide open; when they entered, a brisk lady in black bade them welcome. Margaret knew at once it was the present Vicar's wife, and she would have drawn back if possible; but she conquered this feeling, and modestly advanced, meeting many a bright glance of recognition, and hearing many a murmur of 'It's Miss Hale.' The Vicar's lady heard the name, and her manner became more kindly, but also more patronising. She held out a hand to Mr. Bell. 'Your father, I presume, Miss Hale. I see it by the likeness.' Margaret stammered out the fact of her father's death. She did not hear what Mrs. Hepworth was saying, and left it to Mr. Bell to reply, looking round, meanwhile, for her old acquaintances. 'Ah! I see you would like to take a class, Miss Hale. First class stand up for a parsing lesson with Miss Hale.' Poor Margaret felt herself taken in; but it was a way of studying the little eager faces, once well-known, of those who had received baptism from her father. She sat down, holding Susan's hand for a minute or two unobserved, while the first class sought for their books, and the Vicar's lady went as near as a lady could towards holding Mr. Bell by the button, while she explained the Phonetic system to him. Margaret bent over her book, and at the buzz of children's voices, old times rose up, and her eyes filled with tears. One of the girls was stumbling over the apparently simple word 'a,' uncertain what to call it. 'A, an indefinite article,' said Margaret, mildly. 'I beg your pardon,' said the Vicar's wife, all eyes and ears; 'but we are taught by Mr. Milsome to call "a" an - who can remember?' 'An adjective absolute,' said half-a-dozen voices at once. And Margaret sat abashed. The children knew more than she did. She spoke no more during the lesson. But after it was over, she went quietly round to one or two old favourites, and talked to them a little. They were growing into great girls; passing out of her memory in their rapid development, as she was vanishing from theirs. Still she was glad to have seen them all again. When school was over for the day, Mrs. Hepworth proposed to Margaret that she and Mr. Bell should accompany her to the parsonage, and see the - the word 'improvements' had half slipped out of her mouth before she substituted 'alterations.' Margaret did not care a straw about these, 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 had anticipated. It was not like the same place. The garden, once so daintily trim, was strewed with children's things. 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.' 'You have many children, I presume?' 'Seven. Look! we are putting in a new window in Mr. Hepworth's study. 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.' Every room was changed, besides the study, where the new window gave a view of the road, and had many advantages, as Mrs. Hepworth pointed out. From it, her husband's flock might be seen straggling to the tempting beer-house; for the active Vicar kept his eye on the road, even while writing his sermons, and was ready to hurry out after his parishioners, who needed quick legs if they were to 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 making fun of her in the admiration he expressed for everything that 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 back to their inn. 'Don't scold, Margaret. If she had not shown such exultation in all their improvements, I could have behaved well.' They were both tired. Margaret was unwilling to go out as she had proposed to do, and have another ramble among the woods and fields. Somehow, this visit to Helstone had not been what she had expected. Households were changed: places were changed - a tree gone here, a road trimmed there, and the green straggling pathway by its side enclosed and cultivated. A great improvement it was called; but Margaret sighed over the grassy wayside of former days. She sat by the window, sadly gazing out upon the gathering shades of night. Mr. Bell slept soundly, after his unusual exercise through the day. He was roused by the entrance of the tea-tray, brought in by a country-girl. 'Hallo! Who's there! Margaret? Oh, now I remember. I could not imagine what woman was sitting there in such a doleful attitude. What were you looking at?' asked Mr. Bell, coming to the window. 'Nothing,' said she, rising quickly, and speaking as cheerfully as she could. 'Nothing indeed! A bleak background of trees, and a great waft of damp air. Shut the window, and come for tea.' Margaret was silent for some time. She did not attend particularly to what Mr. Bell said, until she began - 'Mr. Bell, you remember what we were saying about Frederick last night?' 'Yes, to be sure.' 'And do you remember that Mr. Lennox said Frederick had been in England about the time of dear mamma's death?' asked Margaret, her voice lower than usual. 'I recollect. I hadn't known.' 'I always thought that papa had told you.' 'No! 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. 'That was bad, I admit; though I have told a pretty round number in my life, not all in downright words, as I suppose you did, but in actions, or by leading people to believe a falsehood. A great number of folk who think themselves very good, have connections 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, I dare say you have been sorry, and won't do it again, and I want you to be cheerful, and not 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. If you knew the truth, perhaps you could put me to rights - though that is not quite it,' said she, in despair at not being able to express herself exactly. 'Tell me all about it, child.' 'It's a long story; but when Fred came, mamma was very ill, and I was afraid that I might have drawn him into danger; and we had an alarm just after her death, for Dixon met someone in Milton - a man called Leonards, who had known Fred, and seemed tempted by the reward offered for his capture. So I thought I had better hurry off Fred to London, to consult Mr. Lennox about his chances if he stood trial. He and I went to the railway station; it was dusk, but still light enough to see, and we were too early, and went out to walk in a field close by. I was in a panic about this Leonards. When we were in the field, at sunset, someone came by on horseback in the road alongside, and I saw him look at me, but I did not know who it was at first, the sun was so in my eyes, but then I saw it was Mr. Thornton, and we bowed-' 'And he saw Frederick, of course,' said Mr. Bell, helping her on. '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 edge of the platform; only about three feet; but oh! Mr. Bell, somehow that fall killed him!' 'How awkward. It was this Leonards, I suppose. And how did Fred get away?' 'Oh! he went off immediately after the fall, which we never thought could have done the poor fellow any harm.' '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 the companion of the young man, whose push or blow had caused Leonards' death; that was false, you know, but we had not heard that Fred had sailed - he might still be in London and liable to be arrested and shot. All this flashed through my mind, and I said it was not me. That I knew nothing about it. I thought only of saving Frederick.' 'I say it was right. 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.' 'Well! he would know nothing of this drunken fellow's death. I suppose the inquiry never came to anything.' 'No! the proceedings for 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 recollection. 'Did you ever explain to him?' 'No! How could I? He knew nothing of Frederick. To regain his good opinion, was I to tell him our family secrets? Fred's last words had been to enjoin me to keep his visit a secret from all. You see, papa never told even you. No! I could bear the shame - I thought I could at least. I did bear it. Mr. Thornton has never respected me since.' 'He respects you, I am sure,' said Mr. Bell. 'To be sure, it accounts a little for- But he always speaks of you with regard and esteem, though now I understand certain reservations in his manner.' Margaret did not speak. By-and-by she said: 'Will you tell me what you mean by "reservations" ?' 'Oh! simply he has annoyed me by not joining in my praises of you. Like an old fool, I thought that everyone would agree with me, and he evidently could not agree. I was puzzled at the time. But he must be perplexed, if the affair has never been in the least explained. First, your walking out with a young man in the dark-' 'But it was my brother!' said Margaret. 'True. But how was he to know that?' 'I don't know. I never thought of anything of that kind,' said Margaret, reddening. 'And perhaps he never would, but for the lie - which I think was necessary.' 'It was not. I bitterly repent it.' There was a long pause. Margaret was the first to speak. 'I am not likely ever to see Mr. Thornton again.' 'There are many things more unlikely, I should say,' replied Mr. Bell. 'But I believe I never shall. Still, somehow one does not like to have sunk so low in - in a friend's opinion as I have done in his.' Her eyes were full of tears, but her voice was steady. 'And now that Frederick has given up all hope, and cannot return to England, it would be only doing myself justice to have all this explained. Please, if you can, if there is a good opportunity, will you tell him the whole circumstances, and tell him also that I gave you leave to do so, because I felt that for papa's sake I should not like to lose his respect, though we may never be likely to meet again?' 'Certainly. I think he ought to know. I do not like you to rest even under the shadow of an impropriety; he would not know what to think of seeing you alone with a young man.' 'As for that,' said Margaret, rather haughtily, 'It is not to clear myself of any suspicion of improper conduct that I wish to have him told - if I thought that he had suspected me, I should not care for his good opinion. It is so that he may learn how I was tempted, and why I told that falsehood.' 'Which I don't blame you for.' 'We will not talk of that any more, if you please. It is done - my sin is sinned. I have now to put it behind me, and be truthful for evermore, if I can.' 'Very well. If you like to be uncomfortable and morbid, be so. I always keep my conscience as tight shut up as a jack-in-a-box, for when it jumps into existence it surprises me by its size. So I coax it down again. "Wonderful," say I, "to think that you have been concealed so long. Pray, sir, instead of growing larger every instant, would you once more compress yourself into your former dimensions?" And when I've got him down, don't I clap the seal on him!' But it was no smiling matter to Margaret. Her thoughts ran upon her conviction that Mr. Thornton was disappointed in her. She did not feel as if any explanation could ever reinstate her - not in his love, for she had resolved never to dwell upon that, and she kept rigidly to her resolution - but in his respect and high regard. She kept choking and swallowing all the time that she thought about it. She tried to comfort herself with the idea that what he imagined her to be, did not alter the fact of what she was. But it was a truism, and broke down under the weight of her regret. Mr. Bell thought that she was tired, and sent her early to her room. Before she went to bed, she sat long by the open window, gazing out at the stars that arose, twinkled and disappeared behind the great shadows of the trees. She could see a candle burning in her old bedroom, which was now the nursery. A sense of change, of individual nothingness, over-powered her. Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability had given her greater pain than if all had been changed entirely. 'I begin to understand now what heaven must be - and, oh! the grandeur and repose of the words - "The same yesterday, today, and for ever." "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." I am so tired - so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually. If I were a Roman Catholic and could deaden my heart, I might become a nun. But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, so much as individuals. Perhaps it ought to be so, perhaps not. I cannot decide tonight.' Wearily she went to bed, wearily she arose in four or five hours' time. But with the morning came hope, and a brighter view of things. 'After all it is right,' said she, hearing the voices of children at play while she was dressing. 'If the world stood still, it would become corrupt. The progress all around me is right and necessary. I must not think so much of how circumstances affect me myself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, or a hopeful trustful heart.' And with a smile ready, she went into the parlour and greeted Mr. Bell. 'Ah, Missy! I've got a little piece of news for you. What do you think of an invitation to dinner? I've had the Vicar here already, in the dewy morning, on his way to the school, and we are asked to dine there today.' 'But Edith expects me back - I cannot go,' said Margaret, thankful to have so good an excuse. 'Yes! I know; so I told him. Still it is open, if you would like it.' 'Oh, no!' said Margaret. 'Let us keep to our plan. It is very good and kind of them; but indeed I could not go.' But before they left, she stole round to the back of the Vicarage garden, and gathered a little straggling piece of honeysuckle. As she returned across the common, the place was reinvested with the old enchanting atmosphere. The sounds of life were more musical than anywhere else in the whole world, the light more golden, the life more tranquil and full of dreamy delight. Margaret said to herself: 'And I too change perpetually - now disappointed and peevish, and now suddenly discovering the real beauty of the place. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love any place like you.' A few days afterwards, she had found her level, and decided that she was very glad to have seen it again, and that to her it would always be the prettiest spot in the world; but so full of associations that she would shrink back from such another visit as that which she had paid with Mr. Bell.

North and South

Chapter 46: ONCE AND NOW

"Cast me upon some naked shore, Where I may tracke Only the print of some sad wracke, If thou be there though the seas roare, I shall no gentler calm implore." HABINGTON. He was gone. The house was shut up for the evening. No more deep blue skies or crimson and amber tints. Margaret went up to dress for the early tea, finding Dixon in a pretty temper from the interruption which a visitor had naturally occasioned on a busy day. She showed it by brushing away viciously at Margaret's hair, under pretence of being in a great hurry to go to Mrs. Hale. Yet, after all, Margaret had to wait a long time in the drawing-room before her mother came down. She sat by herself at the fire, with unlighted candles on the table behind her, thinking over the day, the happy walk, happy sketching, cheerful pleasant dinner, and the uncomfortable, miserable walk in the garden. How different men were to women! Here was she disturbed and unhappy, because her instinct had made anything but a refusal impossible; while he, not many minutes after he had met with a rejection of what ought to have been the deepest, holiest proposal of his life, could speak as if briefs, success, and all its superficial consequences of a good house, clever and agreeable society, were the sole avowed objects of his desires. Oh dear! how she could have loved him if he had but been different, with a difference which she felt, on reflection, to be one that went low--deep down. Then she took it into her head that, after all, his lightness might be but assumed, to cover a bitterness of disappointment which would have been stamped on her own heart if she had loved and been rejected. Her mother came into the room before this whirl of thoughts was adjusted into anything like order. Margaret had to shake off the recollections of what had been done and said through the day, and turn a sympathising listener to the account of how Dixon had complained that the ironing-blanket had been burnt again; and how Susan Lightfoot had been seen with artificial flowers in her bonnet, thereby giving evidence of a vain and giddy character. Mr. Hale sipped his tea in abstracted silence; Margaret had the responses all to herself. She wondered how her father and mother could be so forgetful, so regardless of their companion through the day, as never to mention his name. She forgot that he had not made them an offer. After tea Mr. Hale got up, and stood with his elbow on the chimney-piece, leaning his head on his hand, musing over something, and from time to time sighing deeply. Mrs. Hale went out to consult with Dixon about some winter clothing for the poor. Margaret was preparing her mother's worsted work, and rather shrinking from the thought of the long evening, and wishing bed-time were come that she might go over the events of the day again. "Margaret!" said Mr. Hale, at last, in a sort of sudden desperate way, that made her start. "Is that tapestry thing of immediate consequence? I mean, can you leave it and come into my study? I want to speak to you about something very serious to us all." "Very serious to us all." Mr. Lennox had never had the opportunity of having any private conversation with her father after her refusal, or else that would indeed be a very serious affair. In the first place, Margaret felt guilty and ashamed of having grown so much into a woman as to be thought of in marriage; and secondly, she did not know if her father might not be displeased that she had taken upon herself to decline Mr. Lennox's proposal. But she soon felt it was not about anything, which having only lately and suddenly occurred, could have given rise to any complicated thoughts, that her father wished to speak to her. He made her take a chair by him; he stirred the fire, snuffed the candles, and sighed once or twice before he could make up his mind to say--and it came out with a jerk after all--"Margaret! I am going to leave Helstone." "Leave Helstone, papa! But why?" Mr. Hale did not answer for a minute or two. He played with some papers on the table in a nervous and confused manner, opening his lips to speak several times, but closing them again without having the courage to utter a word. Margaret could not bear the sight of the suspense, which was even more distressing to her father than to herself. "But why, dear papa? Do tell me!" He looked up at her suddenly, and then said with a slow and enforced calmness, "Because I must no longer be a minister in the Church of England." Margaret had imagined nothing less than that some of the preferments which her mother had so much desired had befallen her father at last--something that would force him to leave beautiful, beloved Helstone, and perhaps compel him to go and live in some of the stately and silent Closes which Margaret had seen from time to time in Cathedral towns. They were grand and imposing places, but if, to go there, it was necessary to leave Helstone as a home for ever, that would have been a sad, long, lingering pain. But nothing to the shock she received from Mr. Hale's last speech. What could he mean? It was all the worse for being so mysterious. The aspect of piteous distress on his face, almost imploring a merciful and kind judgment from his child, gave her a sudden sickening. Could he have become implicated in anything Frederick had done? Frederick was an outlaw. Had her father, out of a natural love for his son, connived at any-- "Oh! what is it? do speak, papa! tell me all! Why can you no longer be a clergyman? Surely, if the bishop were told all we know about Frederick, and the hard unjust--" "It is nothing about Frederick; the bishop would have nothing to do with that. It is all myself. Margaret, I will tell you about it. I will answer any questions this once, but after to-night let us never speak of it again. I can meet the consequences of my painful, miserable doubts; but it is an effort beyond me to speak of what has caused me so much suffering." "Doubts, papa! Doubts as to religion?" asked Margaret, more shocked than ever. "No! not doubts as to religion; not the slightest injury to that." He paused. Margaret sighed, as if standing on the verge of some new horror. He began again, speaking rapidly, as if to get over a set task: "You could not understand it all, if I told you--my anxiety, for years past, to know whether I had any right to hold my living--my efforts to quench my smouldering doubts by the authority of the Church. Oh! Margaret, how I love the holy Church from which I am to be shut out!" He could not go on for a moment or two. Margaret could not tell what to say; it seemed to her as terribly mysterious as if her father were about to turn Mahometan. "I have been reading to-day of the two thousand who were ejected from their churches,"--continued Mr. Hale, smiling faintly,--"trying to steal some of their bravery; but it is of no use--no use--I cannot help feeling it acutely." "But, papa, have you well considered? Oh! it seems so terrible, so shocking," said Margaret, suddenly bursting into tears. The one staid foundation of her home, of her idea of her beloved father, seemed reeling and rocking. What could she say? What was to be done? The sight of her distress made Mr. Hale nerve himself, in order to try and comfort her. He swallowed down the dry choking sobs which had been heaving up from his heart hitherto, and going to his bookcase he took down a volume, which he had often been reading lately, and from which he thought he had derived strength to enter upon the course in which he was now embarked. "Listen, dear Margaret," said he, putting one arm round her waist. She took his hand in hers and grasped it tight, but she could not lift up her head; nor indeed could she attend to what he read, so great was her internal agitation. "This is the soliloquy of one who was once a clergyman in a country parish, like me; it was written by Mr. Oldfield, minister of Carsington, in Derbyshire, a hundred and sixty years ago, or more. His trials are over. He fought the good fight." These last two sentences he spoke low, as if to himself. Then he read aloud,-- "When thou canst no longer continue in thy work without dishonour to God, discredit to religion, foregoing thy integrity, wounding conscience, spoiling thy peace, and hazarding the loss of thy salvation; in a word, when the conditions upon which thou must continue (if thou wilt continue) in thy employments are sinful, and unwarranted by the word of God, thou mayest, yea, thou must believe that God will turn thy very silence, suspension, deprivation, and laying aside, to His glory, and the advancement of the Gospel's interest. When God will not use thee in one kind, yet He will in another. A soul that desires to serve and honour Him shall never want opportunity to do it; nor must thou so limit the Holy One of Israel, as to think He hath but one way in which He can glorify Himself by thee. He can do it by thy silence as well as by thy preaching; the laying aside as well as thy continuance in thy work. It is not pretence of doing God the greatest service, or performing the weightiest duty, that will excuse the least sin, though that sin capacitated or gave us the opportunity for doing that duty. Thou wilt have little thanks, O my soul! if, when thou art charged with corrupting God's worship, falsifying thy vows, thou pretendest a necessity for it in order to a continuance in the ministry." As he read this, and glanced at much more which he did not read, he gained resolution for himself, and felt as if he too could be brave and firm in doing what he believed to be right; but as he ceased he heard Margaret's low convulsive sob; and his courage sank down under the keen sense of suffering. "Margaret, dear!" said he, drawing her closer, "think of the early martyrs; think of the thousands who have suffered." "But, father," said she, suddenly lifting up her flushed, tear-wet face, "the early martyrs suffered for the truth, while you--oh! dear, dear papa!" "I suffer for conscience' sake, my child," said he, with a dignity that was only tremulous from the acute sensitiveness of his character; "I must do what my conscience bids. I have borne long with self-reproach that would have roused any mind less torpid and cowardly than mine." He shook his head as he went on. "Your poor mother's fond wish, gratified at last in the mocking way in which over-fond wishes are too often fulfilled--Sodom apples as they are--has brought on this crisis, for which I ought to be, and I hope I am thankful. It is not a month since the bishop offered me another living; if I had accepted it, I should have had to make a fresh declaration of conformity to the Liturgy at my institution. Margaret, I tried to do it; I tried to content myself with simply refusing the additional preferment, and stopping quietly here,--strangling my conscience now, as I had strained it before. God forgive me!" He rose and walked up and down the room, speaking low words of self-reproach and humiliation, of which Margaret was thankful to hear but few. At last he said, "Margaret, I return to the old sad burden: we must leave Helstone." "Yes! I see. But when?" "I have written to the bishop--I dare say I have told you so, but I forget things just now," said Mr. Hale, collapsing into his depressed manner as soon as he came to talk of hard matter-of-fact details, "informing him of my intention to resign this vicarage. He has been most kind; he has used arguments and expostulations, all in vain--in vain. They are but what I have tried upon myself, without avail. I shall have to take my deed of resignation, and wait upon the bishop myself, to bid him farewell. That will be a trial. But worse, far worse, will be the parting from my dear people. There is a curate appointed to read prayers--a Mr. Brown. He will come to stay with us to-morrow. Next Sunday I preach my farewell sermon." Was it to be so sudden then? thought Margaret; and yet perhaps it was as well. Lingering would only add stings to the pain; it was better to be stunned into numbness by hearing of all these arrangements, which seemed to be nearly completed before she had been told. "What does mamma say?" asked she, with a deep sigh. To her surprise, her father began to walk about again before he answered. At length he stopped and replied: "Margaret, I am a poor coward after all. I cannot bear to give pain. I know so well your mother's married life has not been all she hoped--all she had a right to expect--and this will be such a blow to her, that I have never had the heart, the power to tell her. She must be told though, now," said he, looking wistfully at his daughter. Margaret was almost overpowered with the idea that her mother knew nothing of it all, and yet the affair was so far advanced! "Yes, indeed she must," said Margaret. "Perhaps, after all, she may not--Oh yes! she will, she must be shocked"--as the force of the blow returned upon herself in trying to realise how another would take it. "Where are we to go to?" said she at last, struck with a fresh wonder as to their future plans, if plans indeed her father had. "To Milton-Northern," he answered, with a dull indifference, for he had perceived that, although his daughter's love had made her cling to him, and for a moment strive to soothe him with her love, yet the keenness of the pain was as fresh as ever in her mind. "Milton-Northern! The manufacturing town in Darkshire?" "Yes," said he, in the same despondent, indifferent way. "Why there, papa?" asked she. "Because there I can earn bread for my family. Because I know no one there, and no one knows Helstone, or can ever talk to me about it." "Bread for your family! I thought you and mamma had"--and then she stopped, checking her natural interest regarding their future life, as she saw the gathering gloom on her father's brow. But he, with his quick intuitive sympathy, read in her face, as in a mirror, the reflections of his own moody depression, and turned it off with an effort. "You shall be told all, Margaret. Only help me to tell your mother. I think I could do anything but that: the idea of her distress turns me sick with dread. If I tell you all, perhaps you could break it to her to-morrow. I am going out for the day, to bid farmer Dobson and the poor people on Bracy Common good-bye. Would you dislike breaking it to her very much, Margaret?" Margaret did dislike it, did shrink from it more than from anything she had ever had to do in her life before. She could not speak, all at once. Her father said, "You dislike it very much don't you, Margaret?" Then she conquered herself, and said, with a bright strong look on her face: "It is a painful thing, but it must be done, and I will do it as well as ever I can. You must have many painful things to do." Mr. Hale shook his head despondingly: he pressed her hand in token of gratitude. Margaret was nearly upset again into a burst of crying. To turn her thoughts, she said: "Now tell me, papa, what our plans are. You and mamma have some money, independent of the income from the living, have you not? Aunt Shaw has, I know." "Yes. I suppose we have about a hundred and twenty pounds a year of our own. Seventy of that has always gone to Frederick, since he has been abroad. I don't know if he wants it all," he continued in a hesitating manner. "He must have some pay for serving with the Spanish army." "Frederick must not suffer," said Margaret, decidedly; "in a foreign country; so unjustly treated by his own. A hundred is left. Could not you, and I, and mamma live on a hundred a year in some very cheap--very quiet part of England? Oh! I think we could." "No!" said Mr. Hale. "That would not answer. I must do something! I must make myself busy, to keep off morbid thoughts. Besides, in a country parish I should be so painfully reminded of Helstone, and my duties here. I could not bear it, Margaret. And a hundred a year would go a very little way, after the necessary wants of housekeeping are met, towards providing your mother with all the comforts she has been accustomed to, and ought to have. No: we must go to Milton. That is settled. I can always decide better by myself, and not influenced by those whom I love," said he, as a half apology for having arranged so much before he had told any one of his family of his intentions. "I cannot stand objections. They make me so undecided." Margaret resolved to keep silence. After all, what did it signify where they went, compared to the one terrible change? Mr. Hale continued: "A few months ago, when my misery of doubt became more than I could bear without speaking, I wrote to Mr. Bell--you remember Mr. Bell, Margaret?" "No; I never saw him, I think. But I know who he is. Frederick's godfather--your old tutor at Oxford, don't you mean?" "Yes. He is a Fellow of Plymouth College there. He is a native of Milton-Northern, I believe. At any rate he has property there, which has very much increased in value since Milton has become such a large manufacturing town. Well; I had reason to suspect--to imagine--I had better say nothing about it, however. But I felt sure of sympathy from Mr. Bell. I don't know that he gave me much strength. He has lived an easy life in his college all his days. But he has been as kind as can be. And it is owing to him we are going to Milton." "How?" said Margaret. "Why he has tenants, and houses, and mills there; so, though he dislikes the place--too bustling for one of his habits--he is obliged to keep up some sort of connection; and he tells me that he hears there is a good opening for a private tutor there." "A private tutor!" said Margaret, looking scornful: "What in the world do manufacturers want with the classics, or literature, or the accomplishments of a gentleman?" "Oh," said her father, "some of them really seem to be fine fellows, conscious of their own deficiencies, which is more than many a man at Oxford is. Some want resolutely to learn, though they have come to man's estate. Some want their children to be better instructed than they themselves have been. At any rate, there is an opening, as I have said, for a private tutor. Mr. Bell has recommended me to a Mr. Thornton, a tenant of his, and a very intelligent man, as far as I can judge from his letters. And in Milton, Margaret, I shall find a busy life, if not a happy one, and people and scenes so different that I shall never be reminded of Helstone." There was the secret motive, as Margaret knew from her own feelings. It would be different. Discordant as it was--with almost a detestation for all she had ever heard of the North of England, the manufacturers, the people, the wild and bleak country--there was this one recommendation--it would be different to Helstone, and could never remind them of that beloved place. "When do we go?" asked Margaret, after a short silence. "I do not know exactly. I wanted to talk it over with you. You see, your mother knows nothing about it yet: but I think, in a fortnight;--after my deed of resignation is sent in, I shall have no right to remain." Margaret was almost stunned. "In a fortnight!" "No--no, not exactly to a day. Nothing is fixed," said her father, with anxious hesitation, as he noticed the filmy sorrow that came over her eyes, and the sudden change in her complexion. But she recovered herself immediately. "Yes, papa, it had better be fixed soon and decidedly, as you say. Only mamma to know nothing about it! It is that that is the great perplexity." "Poor Maria!" replied Mr. Hale tenderly. "Poor, poor Maria! Oh, if I were not married--if I were but myself in the world, how easy it would be! As it is--Margaret, I dare not tell her!" "No," said Margaret, sadly, "I will do it. Give me till to-morrow evening to choose my time. Oh, papa," cried she with sudden passionate entreaty, "say--tell me it is a nightmare--a horrid dream--not the real waking truth! You cannot mean that you are really going to leave the Church--to give up Helstone--to be for ever separate from me, from mamma--led away by some delusion--some temptation! You do not really mean it!" Mr. Hale sat in rigid stillness while she spoke. Then he looked her in the face, and said in a slow, hoarse, measured way--"I do mean it, Margaret. You must not deceive yourself in doubting the reality of my words--my fixed intention and resolve." He looked at her in the same steady, stony manner, for some moments after he had done speaking. She, too, gazed back with pleading eyes before she would believe it was irrevocable. Then she arose and went, without another word or look, towards the door. As her fingers were on the handle he called her back. He was standing by the fireplace, shrunk and stooping; but as she came near he drew himself up to his full height, and, placing his hands on her head, he said, solemnly: "The blessing of God be upon thee, my child!" "And may He restore you to His Church," responded she, out of the fulness of her heart. The next moment she feared lest this answer to his blessing might be irreverent, wrong--might hurt him as coming from his daughter, and she threw her arms round his neck. He held her to him for a minute or two. She heard him murmur to himself, "The martyrs and confessors had even more pain to bear--I will not shrink." They were startled by hearing Mrs. Hale inquiring for her daughter. They started asunder in the full consciousness of all that was before them. Mr. Hale hurriedly said "Go, Margaret, go. I shall be out all to-morrow. Before night you will have told your mother." "Yes," she replied, and she returned to the drawing-room in a stunned and dizzy state.

He was gone. Margaret went to dress for tea. As she waited in the drawing-room for her mother to come down, she sat thinking over the day, the happy walk, the happy sketching, the cheerful pleasant dinner, and the uncomfortable, miserable walk in the garden. How different men were to women! Here was she disturbed and unhappy, because her instinct had made her refuse him; while he, not many minutes after a rejection of what ought to have been the holiest proposal of his life, could speak as if law briefs, success, and agreeable society were the sole objects of his desires. Oh dear! how she could have loved him if he had only been different. Then she thought that, after all, his lightness might have been assumed to cover the bitter disappointment which would have been stamped on her own heart if she had loved and been rejected. Her mother came in before this whirl of thoughts was adjusted into anything like order. Margaret had to shake off her recollections, and listen sympathetically to the account of Dixon's complaints about the ironing, and how Susan Lightfoot had been seen with artificial flowers in her bonnet. Mr. Hale sipped his tea in abstracted silence; Margaret had the responses all to herself. She wondered how her father and mother could be so regardless of Mr. Lennox's visit as never to mention his name. She forgot that he had not made them an offer. After tea Mr. Hale got up and stood by the chimney-piece, leaning his head on his hand, and from time to time sighing deeply. Mrs. Hale went out to consult with Dixon. Margaret was preparing her mother's wool-work, and rather shrinking from the thought of the long evening, and wishing bedtime were come. 'Margaret!' said Mr. Hale in a sudden desperate way, that made her start. 'Is that tapestry thing of immediate consequence? Can you leave it and come into my study? I want to speak to you about something very serious.' Margaret immediately thought of Mr. Lennox, and felt guilty and ashamed of having grown so much into a woman as to be thought of in marriage. But she soon felt it was not about the day's events that her father wished to speak to her. He made her take a chair; he stirred the fire, snuffed the candles, and sighed once or twice before saying, with a jerk- 'Margaret! I am going to leave Helstone.' 'Leave Helstone, papa! But why?' Mr. Hale did not answer for a minute or two. Nervous and confused, he opened his lips to speak several times, but closed them again without having the courage to utter a word. Margaret could not bear the suspense. 'But why, dear papa? Do tell me!' He looked up at her suddenly, and then said with enforced calmness: 'Because I must no longer be a minister in the Church of England.' Margaret had imagined that the preferment which her mother so much desired had befallen her father at last - and would force him to leave beloved Helstone, to perhaps go and live in a stately Cathedral Close. That would have been a lingering pain; but nothing to the shock she received from Mr. Hale's last speech. What could he mean? The distress on his face gave her a sudden sickening. Could he have become implicated in anything Frederick had done? Frederick was an outlaw. Had her father, out of love for his son, connived at any- 'Oh! what is it? do speak, papa! Why can you no longer be a clergyman? Surely, if the bishop were told all we know about Frederick-' 'It is nothing about Frederick. It is all myself. Margaret, I will tell you, and answer any questions this once, but after tonight let us never speak of it again. I can meet the consequences of my painful, miserable doubts; but it is an effort beyond me to speak of what has caused me so much suffering.' 'Doubts, papa! Doubts as to religion?' asked Margaret, more shocked than ever. 'No! not doubts as to religion.' He paused, and then began again, speaking rapidly, as if to get over a task: 'You could not understand it all, if I told you - my anxiety, for years, to know whether I had any right to hold my living - my efforts to quench my smouldering doubts by the authority of the Church. Oh! Margaret, how I love the holy Church from which I am to be shut out!' He could not go on for a moment. It seemed to Margaret as terribly mysterious as if her father were about to turn Mahometan. 'I have been reading today of the two thousand who were ejected from their churches,' continued Mr. Hale, smiling faintly, 'trying to steal some of their bravery; but I cannot help feeling it acutely.' 'But, papa, have you considered? Oh! it seems so terrible, so shocking,' said Margaret, suddenly bursting into tears. The staid foundation of her home, of her idea of her beloved father, seemed reeling and rocking. What could she say? What was to be done? Her distress made Mr. Hale nerve himself. He swallowed down the dry sobs which had been heaving up from his heart, and going to his bookcase, took down a volume which had lately given him strength. 'Listen, dear Margaret,' said he, putting one arm round her waist. She grasped his hand, but she could not lift up her head; nor indeed could she attend to what he read, so great was her agitation. 'This is written by one who was once a clergyman in a country parish, like me; a Mr. Oldfield, a minister in Derbyshire, a hundred and sixty years ago. His trials are over. He fought the good fight.' These last two sentences he spoke low, as if to himself. Then he read aloud: '"When thou canst no longer continue in thy work without dishonour to God, discredit to religion, foregoing thy integrity, wounding conscience, spoiling thy peace, and risking thy salvation; then thou must believe that God will turn thy very silence, deprivation, and laying aside, to His glory, and the advancement of the Gospel's interest. When God will not use thee in one kind, yet He will in another. A soul that desires to serve and honour Him shall never lack opportunity to do it; nor think He hath but one way in which He can glorify Himself by thee. Thou wilt have little thanks, O my soul! if, when thou art charged with corrupting God's worship, falsifying thy vows, thou pretendest a necessity for it in order to continue in the ministry."' As he read this, he felt as if he too could be brave and firm in doing what he believed to be right; but as he ceased he heard Margaret's low convulsive sob; and his courage sank. 'Margaret, dear!' said he, 'think of the early martyrs.' 'But, father,' said she, lifting up her flushed, tear-wet face, 'the early martyrs suffered for the truth, while you - oh! dear papa!' 'I suffer for conscience' sake, my child,' said he, with tremulous dignity. 'I must do what my conscience bids. Your poor mother's fond wish has brought on this crisis, for which I hope I am thankful. A month ago the bishop offered me another living; if I had accepted it, I should have had to make a fresh declaration of conformity to the Liturgy. Margaret, I tried to do it; I tried to content myself with simply refusing the preferment, and staying quietly here - strangling my conscience. God forgive me!' He rose and walked up and down the room. At last he said, 'Margaret, we must leave Helstone.' 'Yes! I see. But when?' 'I have written to the bishop,' said Mr. Hale, collapsing into his depressed manner as soon as he came to talk of hard matter-of-fact details, 'informing him of my intention to resign this vicarage. He has been most kind; he has argued with me in vain. I shall have to take my resignation to him in person. That will be a trial, but far worse will be the parting from my dear people. There is a curate appointed to read prayers. He will come tomorrow. Next Sunday I preach my farewell sermon.' So sudden? thought Margaret; and yet perhaps it was as well. Lingering would only add stings to the pain. 'What does mamma say?' asked she. Her father began to walk about again before he answered. 'Margaret, I am a poor coward after all. I cannot bear to give pain. I know your mother's married life has not been all she hoped - and this will be such a blow to her, that I have not had the heart to tell her. She must be told though, now,' said he, looking wistfully at his daughter. Margaret was almost overpowered with the idea that her mother knew nothing of it. 'Yes, indeed she must. She will be shocked - where are we to go?' said she, struck with fresh wonder as to their future plans. 'To Milton-Northern,' he answered, with a dull indifference, perceiving his daughter's pain. 'Milton-Northern! The manufacturing town in Darkshire? Why there, papa?' 'Because there I can earn bread for my family. Because I know no one there, and no one knows Helstone, or can ever talk to me about it.' 'Bread for your family! I thought you and mamma had-' She stopped as she saw the gathering gloom on her father's brow. But he turned it off with an effort. 'You shall be told all, Margaret. Only help me to tell your mother. The idea of her distress turns me sick with dread. Perhaps you could break it to her tomorrow. I will be going out for the day, to bid people good-bye. Would you dislike breaking it to her very much?' Margaret did dislike it, did shrink from it more than from anything she had ever had to do in her life before. She could not speak. Then she conquered herself, and said, with a bright strong look on her face: 'It is a painful thing, but it must be done, and I will do it as well as I can. You must have many painful things to do.' Mr. Hale shook his head: he pressed her hand in gratitude. Margaret nearly burst out crying again. To turn her thoughts, she said: 'Now tell me, papa, what our plans are. You and mamma have some money of your own, have you not?' 'Yes. I suppose we have about a hundred and seventy pounds a year. Seventy of that has always gone to Frederick, since he has been abroad. I don't know if he wants it all. He must have some pay for serving with the Spanish army.' 'Frederick must not suffer,' said Margaret decidedly, 'in a foreign country; so unjustly treated by his own. A hundred is left. Could not we live on a hundred a year in some very quiet part of England?' 'No!' said Mr. Hale. 'That would not answer. I must do something. I must make myself busy, to keep off morbid thoughts. But in a country parish I should be so painfully reminded of Helstone, I could not bear it, Margaret. And a hundred a year would not go far towards providing your mother with all the comforts she ought to have. No: we must go to Milton. That is settled. I can always decide better by myself,' said he, as a half apology for having arranged it already. Margaret resolved to keep silence. After all, what did it signify where they went, compared to the one terrible change? Mr. Hale continued: 'A few months ago, when my misery of doubt became more than I could bear, I wrote to Mr. Bell - you remember Mr. Bell, Margaret?' 'I never saw him, but I know who he is. Frederick's godfather - your old tutor at Oxford, don't you mean?' 'Yes. He is a Fellow of Plymouth College. He is a native of Milton-Northern, and has property there. Well, I felt sure of sympathy from Mr. Bell. I don't know that he gave me much strength; he has always lived an easy life in his college. But he has been as kind as can be. And it is owing to him we are going to Milton. He has tenants and houses there; so, though the place is too bustling for him, he keeps up the connection; and he tells me that there is a good opening for a private tutor.' 'A private tutor!' said Margaret scornfully. 'What do manufacturers want with the classics, or literature, or the accomplishments of a gentleman?' 'Oh,' said her father, 'some of them seem to be fine fellows, conscious of their own deficiencies, which is more than many a man at Oxford is. Some want to learn themselves; some want their children to be better instructed than they themselves have been. Mr. Bell has recommended me to a Mr. Thornton, a tenant of his, and a very intelligent man, as far as I can judge from his letters. And in Milton, Margaret, I shall find a busy life, if not a happy one, and I shall never be reminded of Helstone.' There was the secret motive, as Margaret knew from her own feelings. It would be different. Although she almost detested all she had ever heard of the North of England - the manufacturers, the people, the wild, bleak country - there was this one recommendation: it would be different from Helstone, and could never remind them of that beloved place. 'When do we go?' she asked. 'In a fortnight; after my resignation is sent in, I shall have no right to remain.' Margaret was almost stunned. 'In a fortnight!' 'Nothing is fixed,' said her father anxiously. But she recovered herself immediately. 'Yes, papa, it had better be fixed soon. Only mamma knows nothing about it! That is the great perplexity.' 'Poor Maria!' replied Mr. Hale. 'I dare not tell her!' 'No,' said Margaret, sadly. 'I will do it. Give me till tomorrow evening to choose my time. Oh, papa,' cried she, with sudden passionate entreaty, 'say it is a nightmare - not the waking truth! You cannot mean that you are really going to leave the Church - to give up Helstone - led away by some delusion!' Mr. Hale sat in rigid stillness. Then he said in a slow, hoarse, measured way: 'I do mean it, Margaret. Do not doubt the reality of my words and my resolve.' He looked at her in a steady, stony manner. She gazed back with pleading eyes before she would believe that it was irrevocable. Then she arose and went, without another word, towards the door. As her fingers were on the handle he called her back. He was standing by the fireplace, shrunk and stooping; but as she came near he drew himself up to his full height, and, placing his hands on her head, he said solemnly: 'The blessing of God be upon thee, my child!' 'And may He restore you to His Church,' responded she. The next moment she feared lest this answer might hurt him, and she threw her arms round his neck. He held her for a minute. She heard him murmur to himself, 'The martyrs and confessors had more pain to bear - I will not shrink.' They were startled by hearing Mrs. Hale inquiring for her daughter. Mr. Hale hurriedly said: 'Go, Margaret, go. I shall be out all tomorrow. Before night you will have told your mother.' 'Yes,' she replied, and returned to the drawing-room in a stunned and dizzy state.

North and South

Chapter 4: DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES

"Truth will fail thee never, never! Though thy bark be tempest-driven, Though each plank be rent and riven, Truth will bear thee on for ever!" ANON. The "bearing up better than likely" was a terrible strain upon Margaret. Sometimes she thought she must give way, and cry out with pain, as the sudden sharp thought came across her, even during her apparently cheerful conversations with her father, that she had no longer a mother. About Frederick, too, there was great uneasiness. The Sunday post intervened, and interfered with their London letters; and on Tuesday Margaret was surprised and disheartened to find that there was still no letter. She was quite in the dark as to his plans, and her father was miserable at all this uncertainty. It broke in upon his lately acquired habit of sitting still in one easy chair for half a day together. He kept pacing up and down the room; then out of it; and she heard him upon the landing opening and shutting the bed-room doors, without any apparent object. She tried to tranquillise him by reading aloud; but it was evident he could not listen for long together. How thankful she was then, that she had kept to herself the additional cause for anxiety produced by their encounter with Leonards. She was thankful to hear Mr. Thornton announced. His visit would force her father's thoughts into another channel. He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word--holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words. Then he turned to Margaret. Not "better than likely" did she look. Her stately beauty was dimmed with much watching and with many tears. The expression on her countenance was of gentle patient sadness--nay of positive present suffering. He had not meant to greet her otherwise than with his late studied coldness of demeanour; but he could not help going up to her, as she stood a little aside, rendered timid by the uncertainty of his manner of late, and saying the few necessary common-place words in so tender a voice, that her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away to hide her emotion. She took her work and sate down very quiet and silent. Mr. Thornton's heart beat quick and strong, and for the time he utterly forgot the Outwood lane. He tried to talk to Mr. Hale: and--his presence always a certain kind of pleasure to Mr. Hale, as his power and decision made him, and his opinions, a safe, sure port--was unusually agreeable to her father, as Margaret saw. Presently Dixon came to the door and said, "Miss Hale, you are wanted." Dixon's manner was so flurried that Margaret turned sick at heart. Something had happened to Fred. She had no doubt of that. It was well that her father and Mr. Thornton were so much occupied by their conversation. "What is it, Dixon?" asked Margaret, the moment she had shut the drawing-room door. "Come this way, miss," said Dixon, opening the door of what had been Mrs. Hale's bed-chamber, now Margaret's, for her father refused to sleep there again after his wife's death. "It's nothing, miss," said Dixon, choking a little. "Only a police-inspector. He wants to see you, miss. But I dare say, it's about nothing at all." "Did he name--" asked Margaret, almost inaudibly. "No, miss; he named nothing. He only asked if you lived here, and if he could speak to you. Martha went to the door, and let him in; she has shown him into master's study. I went to him myself, to try if that would do; but no--it's you, miss, he wants." Margaret did not speak again till her hand was on the lock of the study door. Here she turned round and said, "Take care papa does not come down. Mr. Thornton is with him now." The inspector was almost daunted by the haughtiness of her manner as she entered. There was something of indignation expressed in her countenance, but so kept down and controlled, that it gave her a superb air of disdain. There was no surprise, no curiosity. She stood awaiting the opening of his business there. Not a question did she ask. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, but my duty obliges me to ask you a few plain questions. A man has died at the Infirmary, in consequence of a fall, received at Outwood station, between the hours of five and six on Thursday evening, the twenty-sixth instant. At the time, this fall did not seem of much consequence; but it was rendered fatal, the doctors say, by the presence of some internal complaint, and the man's own habit of drinking." The large dark eyes, gazing straight into the inspector's face, dilated a little. Otherwise there was no motion perceptible to his experienced observation. Her lips swelled out into a richer curve than ordinary, owing to the enforced tension of the muscles, but he did not know what was their usual appearance, so as to recognise the unwonted sullen defiance of the firm sweeping lines. She never blenched or trembled. She fixed him with her eye. Now--as he paused before going on, she said, almost as if she would encourage him in telling his tale--"Well--go on!" "It is supposed that an inquest will have to be held; there is some slight evidence to prove that the blow, or push, or scuffle that caused the fall, was provoked by this poor fellow's half-tipsy impertinence to a young lady, walking with the man who pushed the deceased over the edge of the platform. This much was observed by some one on the platform, who, however, thought no more about the matter, as the blow seemed of slight consequence. There is also some reason to identify the lady with yourself; in which case--" "I was not there," said Margaret, still keeping her expressionless eyes fixed on his face, with the unconscious look of a sleep-walker. The inspector bowed but did not speak. The lady standing before him showed no emotion, no fluttering fear, no anxiety, no desire to end the interview. The information he had received was very vague; one of the porters, rushing out to be in readiness for the train, had seen a scuffle, at the other end of the platform, between Leonards and a gentleman accompanied by a lady, but heard no noise; and before the train had got to its full speed after starting, he had been almost knocked down by the headlong run of the enraged half-intoxicated Leonards, swearing and cursing awfully. He had not thought any more about it, till his evidence was routed out by the inspector, who, on making some farther inquiry at the railroad station, had heard from the station-master that a young lady and gentleman had been there about that hour--the lady remarkably handsome--and said, by some grocer's assistant present at the time, to be a Miss Hale, living at Crampton, whose family dealt at his shop. There was no certainty that the one lady and gentleman were identical with the other pair, but there was great probability. Leonards himself had gone, half-mad with rage and pain, to the nearest gin-palace for comfort; and his tipsy words had not been attended to by the busy waiters there; they, however, remembered his starting up and cursing himself for not having sooner thought of the electric telegraph, for some purpose unknown; and they believed that he left with the idea of going there. On his way, overcome by pain or drink, he had lain down in the road, where the police had found him and taken him to the Infirmary: there he had never recovered sufficient consciousness to give any distinct account of his fall, although once or twice he had had glimmerings of sense sufficient to make the authorities send for the nearest magistrate, in hopes that he might be able to take down the dying man's deposition of the cause of his death. But when the magistrate had come, he was rambling about being at sea, and mixing up names of captains and lieutenants in an indistinct manner with those of his fellow porters at the railway; and his last words were a curse on the "Cornish trick" which had, he said, made him a hundred pounds poorer than he ought to have been. The inspector ran all this over in his mind--the vagueness of the evidence to prove that Margaret had been at the station--the unflinching, calm denial which she gave to such a supposition. She stood awaiting his next word with a composure that appeared supreme. "Then, madam, I have your denial that you were the lady accompanying the gentleman who struck the blow, or gave the push, which caused the death of this poor man?" A quick, sharp pain went through Margaret's brain. "Oh God! that I knew Frederick were safe!" A deep observer of human countenances might have seen the momentary agony shoot out of her great gloomy eyes, like the torture of some creature brought to bay. But the inspector though a very keen, was not a very deep observer. He was a little struck, notwithstanding, by the form of the answer, which sounded like a mechanical repetition of her first reply--not changed and modified in shape so as to meet his last question. "I was not there," said she, slowly and heavily. And all this time she never closed her eyes, or ceased from that glassy, dream-like stare. His quick suspicions were aroused by this dull echo of her former denial. It was as if she had forced herself to one untruth, and had been stunned out of all power of varying it. He put up his book of notes in a very deliberate manner. Then he looked up; she had not moved any more than if she had been some great Egyptian statue. "I hope you will not think me impertinent when I say, that I may have to call on you again. I may have to summon you to appear on the inquest, and prove an alibi, if my witnesses" (it was but one who had recognised her) "persist in deposing to your presence at the unfortunate event." He looked at her sharply. She was still perfectly quiet--no change of colour, or darker shadow of guilt, on her proud face. He thought to have seen her wince: he did not know Margaret Hale. He was a little abashed by her real composure. It must have been a mistake of identity. He went on: "It is very unlikely, ma'am, that I shall have to do anything of the kind. I hope you will excuse me for doing what is only my duty, although it may appear impertinent." Margaret bowed her head as he went towards the door. Her lips were stiff and dry. She could not speak even the common words of farewell. But suddenly she walked forwards, and opened the study door, and preceded him to the door of the house, which she threw wide open for his exit. She kept her eyes upon him in the same dull, fixed manner, until he was fairly out of the house. She shut the door, and went half-way into the study; then turned back, as if moved by some passionate impulse, and locked the door inside. Then she went into the study, paused--tottered forward--paused again--swayed for an instant where she stood, and fell prone on the floor in a dead swoon.

The 'bearing up better than likely' was a terrible strain upon Margaret. Sometimes she thought she must give way, and cry out with pain, as the sudden sharp thought came across her, even during her apparently cheerful conversations with her father, that she no longer had a mother. About Frederick, too, there was great uneasiness. By Tuesday Margaret was surprised and disheartened to find that there was still no letter. She was quite in the dark as to his plans, and her father was miserable, and kept pacing up and down the room. She tried to tranquillise him by reading aloud; but he could not listen for long. She was glad that she had not told him about their encounter with Leonards. She was thankful to hear Mr. Thornton announced. His visit would force her father's thoughts into another channel. He came straight up to her father, whose hands he took silently - holding them in his for a minute or two, while his look told of more sympathy than could be put into words. Then he turned to Margaret. She did not look 'better than likely'. Her stately beauty was dimmed with much watching and with many tears. The expression on her face was of gentle patient sadness, nay, of positive suffering. He had meant to greet her coldly; but he could not help going up to her, and saying the few necessary commonplace words in so tender a voice, that her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away to hide her emotion. She took her needlework and sat down very quiet. Mr. Thornton's heart beat quick and strong, and for the time he utterly forgot the Outwood lane. He tried to talk to Mr. Hale: and his presence gave her father pleasure, Margaret saw. Presently Dixon came to the door and said, 'Miss Hale, you are wanted.' Dixon's manner was so flurried that Margaret turned sick at heart. Something had happened to Fred. She had no doubt of that. It was well that her father and Mr. Thornton were busy talking. 'What is it, Dixon?' asked Margaret, after shutting the drawing-room door. 'It's nothing, miss,' said Dixon, choking a little. 'Only a police-inspector. He wants to see you, miss. But I dare say, it's about nothing at all.' 'Did he name-' asked Margaret, almost inaudibly. 'No, miss; he named nothing. He only asked if you lived here, and if he could speak to you. Martha let him in; she has shown him into master's study.' Margaret did not speak again till her hand was on the study door. Then she turned and said, 'Take care papa does not come down. Mr. Thornton is with him now.' The inspector was almost daunted by the haughtiness of her manner as she entered. There was a controlled indignation in her face that gave her a superb air of disdain. She showed no surprise, no curiosity, but stood waiting for him to speak. 'I beg your pardon, ma'am, but my duty obliges me to ask you a few plain questions. A man has died at the Infirmary, in consequence of a fall received at Outwood station, between the hours of five and six on Thursday evening. At the time, this fall did not seem of much consequence; but it was rendered fatal, the doctors say, by the presence of some internal complaint, and the man's own habit of drinking.' The large dark eyes, gazing straight into the inspector's face, dilated a little. Otherwise he observed no motion. She never trembled, but fixed him with her eye. Now, as he paused, she said, 'Well - go on!' 'An inquest will have to be held; there is some slight evidence that the blow, or push, or scuffle that caused the fall, was provoked by this poor fellow's tipsy impertinence to a young lady, walking with a man who pushed the deceased over the edge of the platform. This much was observed by someone on the platform, who, however, thought no more about the matter, as the blow seemed of slight consequence. There is some reason to identify the lady with yourself; in which case-' 'I was not there,' said Margaret, still keeping her expressionless eyes fixed on his face. The inspector bowed but did not speak. The lady before him showed no emotion, no fluttering fear, no desire to end the interview. The information he had received was very vague; one of the porters had seen a scuffle at the other end of the platform, between Leonards and a gentleman with a lady, but heard no noise; and soon after the train had started, he had been almost knocked down by the headlong run of the enraged Leonards, who was cursing awfully. The station-master had told the inspector that a young lady and gentleman had been there about that hour - the lady remarkably handsome, and said by a grocer's assistant who was there to be a Miss Hale of Crampton. Leonards himself, half-mad with rage and pain, had gone to the nearest gin-palace, where the busy waiters did not attend much to his tipsy words. However, they remembered his starting up and cursing himself for not having thought of the electric telegraph, for some purpose unknown. They believed that he was going to telegraph when, overcome by pain or drink, he had lain down in the road, where the police had found him and taken him to the Infirmary. There he had never recovered full consciousness, although a magistrate was fetched in case he spoke; but he was rambling about being at sea, and mixing up names of captains and lieutenants in an indistinct manner with those of his fellow porters. His last words were a curse on the 'Cornish trick' which had, he said, made him a hundred pounds poorer than he ought to have been. The inspector ran over all this in his mind while Margaret stood awaiting his next words with supreme composure. 'Then, madam, I have your denial that you were the lady accompanying the gentleman who struck the blow, or gave the push, which caused the death of this poor man?' A quick, sharp pain went through Margaret's brain. 'Oh God! that I knew Frederick were safe!' The inspector was a little struck by the form of her answer, which sounded like a mechanical repetition of her first reply. 'I was not there,' said she, slowly and heavily, never ceasing from that glassy, dream-like stare. His quick suspicions were aroused by this dull echo of her former denial. He put away his notebook in a very deliberate manner. Still she did not move. 'Miss Hale, I may have to call on you again. I may have to summon you to appear at the inquest, and prove an alibi, if my witnesses persist in deposing to your presence at the unfortunate event.' He looked at her sharply. She was still perfectly quiet, with no change of colour, and he was a little abashed by her regal composure. His one witness must have mistaken her identity. He went on: 'It is very unlikely, ma'am, that I shall have to do anything of the kind. I hope you will excuse me for doing what is only my duty.' Margaret bowed her head as he went towards the door. Her lips were stiff and dry. She could not speak. But she walked before him to the door of the house, which she threw wide for his exit. Once he was out, she shut the door, and locked it. Then she went into the study, paused - tottered forward - swayed for an instant, and fell on the floor in a dead swoon.

North and South

Chapter 34: FALSE AND TRUE

"I have found that holy place of rest Still changeless." MRS. HEMANS. When Mr. Thornton had left the house that morning he was almost blinded by his baffled passion. He was as dizzy as if Margaret, instead of looking, and speaking, and moving like a tender graceful woman, had been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a sound blow with her fists. He had positive bodily pain--a violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse. He could not bear the noise, the garish light, the continued rumble and movement of the street. He called himself a fool for suffering so; and yet he could not, at the moment, recollect the cause of his suffering, and whether it was adequate to the consequences it had produced. It would have been a relief to him, if he could have sat down and cried on a door-step by a little child, who was raging and storming, through his passionate tears, at some injury he had received. He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of hatred. His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment and in feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain. He stood still for a moment, to make this resolution firm and clear. There was an omnibus passing--going into the country; the conductor thought he was wishing for a place, and stopped near the pavement. It was too much trouble to apologise and explain; so he mounted upon it, and was borne away--past long rows of houses--then past detached villas with trim gardens, till they came to real country hedge-rows, and, by-and-by, to a small country town. Then everybody got down; and so did Mr. Thornton, and because they walked away he did so too. He went into the fields, walking briskly, because the sharp motion relieved his mind. He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself. Was he bewitched by those beautiful eyes, that soft, half-open, sighing mouth which lay so close upon his shoulder only yesterday? He could not even shake off the recollection that she had been there; that her arms had been round him, once--if never again. He only caught glimpses of her; he did not understand her altogether. At one time she was so brave, and at another so timid; now so tender, and then so haughty and regal proud. And then he thought over every time he had ever seen her once again, by way of finally forgetting her. He saw her in every dress, in every mood, and did not know which became her best. Even this morning how magnificent she had looked--her eyes flashing out upon him at the idea that, because she had shared his danger yesterday, she had cared for him the least! If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he assured himself at least twenty times he was, he did not grow much wiser in the afternoon. All that he gained for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was, never could be, any one like Margaret; that she did not love him and never would; but that she--no! nor the whole world--should never hinder him from loving her. And so he returned to the little market-place, and remounted the omnibus to return to Milton. It was late in the afternoon when he was set down, near his warehouse. The accustomed places brought back the accustomed habits and trains of thought. He knew how much he had to do--more than his usual work, owing to the commotion of the day before. He had to see his brother magistrates; he had to complete the arrangements, only half made in the 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.

When Mr. Thornton had left the Hales' house that morning he was almost blinded by his baffled passion. He was as dizzy as if Margaret, instead of speaking like a tender graceful woman, had been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a sound blow with her fists. He had a violent headache, and a throbbing pulse. He could not bear the noise, the garish light, the rumble and movement of the street. He called himself a fool for suffering so; and yet it would have been a relief if he could have sat down and cried on a door-step beside a little child who was raging and storming there. He said to himself that he hated Margaret - but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words. His greatest comfort was in thinking that though she might despise him and treat him with proud indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable pain. He stood still for a moment, to make this resolution firm and clear. There was an omnibus passing; the conductor thought he wished to get on, and stopped. It was too much trouble to apologise and explain, so he mounted upon it, and was borne away - past long rows of houses - then past detached villas with trim gardens, till they came to real country hedge-rows, and a small country town. Then everybody got down; and so did Mr. Thornton, and because they walked away he did so too. He went into the fields, walking briskly to relieve his mind. He remembered the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had told himself would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the result which he might have expected. Was he bewitched by those beautiful eyes, that soft, half-open, sighing mouth which lay so close upon his shoulder only yesterday? He could not even shake off the recollection that she had been there; that her arms had been round him, once - if never again. He only caught glimpses of her nature; he did not understand her altogether. At one time she was so brave, and at another so timid; now so tender, and then so haughty. And then he thought over every time he had ever seen her, by way of finally forgetting her. Even this morning, how magnificent she had looked - her eyes flashing at the idea that she cared for him! If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he told himself twenty times, he did not grow much wiser in the afternoon. All that he gained in return for his omnibus ride was a conviction that there never could be anyone like Margaret; that she did not love him; but that she should never prevent him from loving her. And so he returned to the little market-place, and remounted the omnibus to Milton. It was late in the afternoon when he was set down near his warehouse. He knew he had much work to do, after the commotion of the day before. He had to see his brother magistrates; he had to complete arrangements for the safety of his new Irish hands; he had to ensure they could not communicate with the discontented work-people of Milton. Last of all, he had to go home and meet 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 a time, at some sudden noise; had caught up the half-dropped work, and begun to ply her needle diligently, though unsteadily. Many times had the door opened, and somebody entered on some insignificant errand. Then her rigid face had relaxed into despondency. She wrenched herself away from contemplating all the dreary changes that her son's marriage would bring; she forced her thoughts into the accustomed household grooves. The newly-married couple-to-be would need fresh stocks of linen; so Mrs. Thornton had clothes-baskets full of table-cloths and napkins brought in, and began to reckon up the store. Some were hers, and marked G. H. T. (for George and Hannah Thornton), and some were her son's, marked with his initials. Her own were old Dutch damask, exquisitely fine; they had been her pride when she was first married. Mrs. Thornton knit her brows, and pinched her lips tight, and carefully unpicked the G. H. Still her son did not come. Doubtless he was with Miss Hale. The new love was displacing her already. A terrible pang of vain jealousy shot through her, forcing her to sit down; but in a moment, she was up again as straight as ever - a grim smile upon her face, ready for the door opening. Her triumphant son should never know the sore regret his mother felt at his marriage. In all this, there was little thought of the future daughter-in-law as an individual. She was to be John's wife. She would take Mrs. Thornton's place as mistress of the house; all household plenty and comfort, all purple and fine linen, honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, would come as naturally as jewels on a king's robe. 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 had taste, and spirit, and flavour. 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. Then, by way of penance, she took up Henry's Bible Commentaries, and tried to fix her attention on it. His step at last! Her quickened sense could interpret every sound: now he was at the hat-stand - now at the very room-door. Why did he pause? Yet her head was still down over the book. He came close to the table, and stood there, waiting till she should have finished her paragraph. With an effort she looked up. 'Well, John?' 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 grey, 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 mantel-piece, tears forcing themselves into his manly eyes. She stood up - she tottered, for the first time in her life. She put her hands on his shoulders and 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, showing them like a dog. 'I am not fit for her, mother; I knew I was not.' She ground out words between her closed teeth. And yet her heart leapt up light, to know he was her own again. 'Mother!' said he. 'I cannot hear a word against her. Spare 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, because - I said to myself - she will make him happy. But now, I hate her for your misery's sake. 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.' '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 dim eyes filled with unwonted tears as she looked at him; but she seemed just as grim 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. They fell back into their usual mode of talk - about facts, not opinions or feelings. Their voices were calm and cold; a stranger might have thought that he had never seen such frigid indifference between such near relations.

North and South

Chapter 26: MOTHER AND SON

"Trust in that veiled hand, which leads None by the path that he would go; And always be for change prepared, For the world's law is ebb and flow." FROM THE ARABIC. The next afternoon Dr. Donaldson came to pay his first visit to Mrs. Hale. The mystery that Margaret hoped their late habits of intimacy had broken through was resumed. She was excluded from the room, while Dixon was admitted. Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy. She went into her mother's bed-room, just behind the drawing-room, and paced it up and down, while awaiting the doctor's coming out. Every now and then she stopped to listen; she fancied she heard a moan. She clenched her hands tight, and held her breath. She was sure she heard a moan. Then all was still for a few minutes more; and then there was the moving of chairs, the raised voices, all the little disturbances of leave-taking. When she heard the door open, she went quickly out of the bedroom. "My father is from home, Dr. Donaldson; he has to attend a pupil at this hour. May I trouble you to come into his room downstairs?" She saw, and triumphed over all the obstacles which Dixon threw in her way; assuming her rightful position as daughter of the house in something of the spirit of the Elder Brother, which quelled the old servant's officiousness very effectually. Margaret's conscious assumption of this unusual dignity of demeanour towards Dixon, gave her an instant's amusement in the midst of her anxiety. She knew, from the surprised expression on Dixon's face, how ridiculously grand she herself must be looking; and the idea carried her downstairs into the room; it gave her that length of oblivion from the keen sharpness of the recollection of the actual business in hand. Now, that came back, and seemed to take away her breath. It was a moment or two before she could utter a word. But she spoke with an air of command, as she asked-- "What is the matter with mamma? You will oblige me by telling the simple truth." Then, seeing a slight hesitation on the doctor's part, she added-- "I am the only child she has--here, I mean. My father is not sufficiently alarmed, I fear: and, therefore, if there is any serious apprehension, it must be broken to him gently. I can do this. I can nurse my mother. Pray, speak, sir; to see your face, and not be able to read it, gives me a worse dread than I trust any words of yours will justify." "My dear young lady, your mother seems to have a most attentive and efficient servant, who is more like her friend----" "I am her daughter, sir." "But when I tell you she expressly desired that you might not be told----" "I am not good or patient enough to submit to the prohibition. Besides, I am sure, you are too wise--too experienced to have promised to keep the secret." "Well," said he, half-smiling, though sadly enough, "there you are right. I did not promise. In fact, I fear, the secret will be known soon enough without my revealing it." He paused. Margaret then went very white, and compressed her lips a little more. Otherwise not a feature moved. With the quick insight into character, without which no medical man can rise to the eminence of Dr. Donaldson, he saw that she would exact the full truth; that she would know if one iota was withheld; and that the withholding would be torture more acute than the knowledge of it. He spoke two short sentences in a low voice, watching her all the time; for the pupils of her eyes dilated into a black horror, and the whiteness of her complexion became livid. He ceased speaking. He waited for that look to go off,--for her gasping breath to come. Then she said:-- "I thank you most truly, sir, for your confidence. That dread has haunted me for many weeks. It is a true, real agony. My poor, poor mother!" Her lips now began to quiver, and he let her have the relief of tears, sure of her power of self-control to check them. A few tears--those were all she shed, before she recollected the many questions she longed to ask. "Will there be much suffering?" He shook his head. "That we cannot tell. It depends on constitution; on a thousand things. But the late discoveries of medical science have given us large power of alleviation." "My father!" said Margaret, trembling all over. "I do not know Mr. Hale. I mean, it is difficult to give advice. But I should say, bear on, with the knowledge you have forced me to give you so abruptly, till the fact which I could not withhold has become in some degree familiar to you, so that you may without too great an effort, be able to give what comfort you can to your father. Before then,--my visits, which of course, I shall repeat from time to time, although I fear I can do nothing but alleviate,--a thousand little circumstances will have occurred to awaken his alarm, to deepen it--so that he will be all the better prepared.--Nay, my dear young lady--nay, my dear--I saw Mr. Thornton, and I honour your father for the sacrifice he has made, however mistaken I may believe him to be.--Well, this once, if it will please you, my dear. Only remember, when I come again, I come as a friend. And you must learn to look upon me as such, because seeing each other--getting to know each other at such times as these, is worth years of morning calls." Margaret could not speak for crying; but she wrang his hand at parting. "That's what I call a fine girl!" thought Dr. Donaldson, when he was seated in his carriage, and had time to examine his ringed hand, which had slightly suffered from her pressure. "Who would have thought that little hand could have given such a squeeze? But the bones were well put together, and that gives immense power. What a queen she is! With her head thrown back at first, to force me into speaking the truth; and then bent so eagerly forward to listen. Poor thing! I must see she does not overstrain herself. Though it's astonishing how much these thorough-bred creatures can do and suffer. That girl's game to the back-bone. Another, who had gone that deadly colour, could never have come round without either fainting or hysterics. But she wouldn't do either--not she! And the very force of her will brought her round. Such a girl as that would win my heart, if I were thirty years younger. It's too late now. Ah; here we are at the Archers'." So out he jumped, with thought, wisdom, experience, sympathy, and ready to attend to any of the calls made upon them by this family, just as if there were none other in the world. Meanwhile, Margaret had returned into her father's study for a moment, to recover strength before going upstairs into her mother's presence. "Oh, my God, my God! but this is terrible. How shall I bear it? Such a deadly disease! no hope! Oh, mamma, mamma, I wish I had never gone to aunt Shaw's, and been all those precious years away from you! Poor mamma! how much she must have borne! Oh, pray thee, my God, that her sufferings may not be too acute, too dreadful. How shall I bear to see them? How can I bear papa's agony? He must not be told yet; not all at once. It would kill him. But I won't lose another moment of my own dear, precious mother." She ran upstairs. Dixon was not in the room. Mrs. Hale lay back in an easy chair, with a soft white shawl wrapped around her, and a becoming cap put on, in expectation of the doctor's visit. Her face had a little faint colour in it, and the very exhaustion after the examination gave it a peaceful look. Margaret was surprised to see her look so calm. "Why, Margaret, how strange you look! What is the matter?" And then, as the idea stole into her mind of what was indeed the real state of the case, she added, as if a little displeased: "you have not been seeing Dr. Donaldson, and asking him any questions--have you child?" Margaret did not reply--only looked wistfully towards her. Mrs. Hale became more displeased. "He would not surely break his word to me, and"-- "Oh yes, mamma, he did. I made him. It was I--blame me." She knelt down by her mother's side, and caught her hand--she would not let it go, though Mrs. Hale tried to pull it away. She kept kissing it, and the hot tears she shed bathed it. "Margaret, it was very wrong of you. You knew I did not wish you to know." But, as if tired with the contest, she left her hand in Margaret's clasp, and by-and-by she returned the pressure faintly. That encouraged Margaret to speak. "Oh, mamma! let me be your nurse. I will learn anything Dixon can teach me. But you know I am your child, and I do think I have a right to do everything for you." "You don't know what you are asking," said Mrs. Hale, with a shudder. "Yes, I do. I know a great deal more than you are aware of. Let me be your nurse. Let me try, at any rate. No one has ever, shall ever try so hard as I will do. It will be such a comfort, mamma." "My poor child! Well, you shall try. Do you know, Margaret, Dixon and I thought you would quite shrink from me if you knew--" "Dixon thought!" said Margaret, her lip curling. "Dixon could not give me credit for enough true love--for as much as herself! She thought, I suppose, that I was one of those poor sickly women who like to lie on rose leaves, and be fanned all day. Don't let Dixon's fancies come any more between you and me, mamma. Don't please!" implored she. "Don't be angry with Dixon," said Mrs. Hale, anxiously. Margaret recovered herself. "No! I won't. I will try and be humble, and learn her ways, if you will only let me do all I can for you. Let me be in the first place, mother--I am greedy of that. I used to fancy you would forget me while I was away at aunt Shaw's, and cry myself to sleep at nights with that notion in my head." "And I used to think, how will Margaret bear our make-shift poverty after the thorough comfort and luxury in Harley Street, till I have many a time been more ashamed of your seeing our contrivances at Helstone than of any stranger finding them out." "Oh, mamma! and I did so enjoy them. They were so much more amusing than all the jog-trot Harley Street ways. The wardrobe shelf with handles that served as a supper-tray on grand occasions! And the old tea-chests stuffed and covered for ottomans! I think what you call the make-shift contrivances at dear Helstone were a charming part of the life there." "I shall never see Helstone again, Margaret," said Mrs. Hale, the tears welling up into her eyes. Margaret could not reply. Mrs. Hale went on. "While I was there, I was for ever wanting to leave it. Every place seemed pleasanter. And now I shall die far away from it. I am rightly punished." "You must not talk so," said Margaret impatiently. "He said you might live for years. Oh, mother! we will have you back at Helstone yet." "No, never! That I must take as a just penance. But, Margaret--Frederick!" At the mention of that one word, she suddenly cried out loud, as in some sharp agony. It seemed as if the thought of him upset all her composure, destroyed the calm, overcame the exhaustion. Wild passionate cry succeeded to cry--"Frederick! Frederick! Come to me. I am dying. Little first-born child, come to me once again!" She was in violent hysterics. Margaret went and called Dixon in terror. Dixon came in a huff, and accused Margaret of having over-excited her mother. Margaret bore all meekly, only trusting that her father might not return. In spite of her alarm, which was even greater than the occasion warranted, she obeyed all Dixon's directions promptly and well without a word of self-justification. By so doing she mollified her accuser. They put her mother to bed, and Margaret sate by her till she fell asleep, and afterwards till Dixon beckoned her out of the room, and, with a sour face, as if doing something against the grain, she bade her drink a cup of coffee which she had prepared for her in the drawing-room, and stood over her in a commanding attitude as she did so. "You shouldn't have been so curious, Miss, and then you wouldn't have needed to fret before your time. It would have come soon enough. And now, I suppose, you'll tell master, and a pretty household I shall have of you!" "No, Dixon," said Margaret, sorrowfully, "I will not tell papa. He could not bear it as I can." And by way of proving how well she bore it, she burst into tears. "Ay! I knew how it would be. Now you'll waken your mamma, just after she's gone to sleep so quietly. Miss Margaret my dear, I've had to keep it down this many a week: and though I don't pretend I can love her as you do, yet I loved her better than any other man, woman, or child--no one but Master Frederick ever came near her in my mind. Ever since Lady Beresford's maid first took me in to see her dressed out in white crape, and corn-ears, and scarlet poppies, and I ran a needle down into my finger, and broke it in, and she tore up her worked pocket-handkerchief, after they'd cut it out, and came in to wet the bandages again with lotion when she returned from the ball--where she'd been the prettiest young lady of all--I've never loved any one like her. I little thought then that I should live to see her brought so low. I don't mean no reproach to nobody. Many a one calls you pretty and handsome, and what not. Even in this smoky place, enough to blind one's eyes, the owls can see that. But you'll never be like your mother for beauty--never; not if you live to be a hundred." "Mamma is very pretty still. Poor mamma!" "Now don't ye set off again, or I shall give way at last" (whimpering). "You'll never stand master's coming home, and questioning, at this rate. Go out and take a walk, and come in something like. Many's the time I've longed to walk it off--the thought of what was the matter with her, and how it must all end." "Oh, Dixon!" said Margaret, "how often I've been cross with you, not knowing what a terrible secret you had to bear!" "Bless you, child! I like to see you showing a bit of a spirit. It's the good old Beresford blood. Why, the last Sir John but two shot his steward down, there where he stood, for just telling him that he racked the tenants, and he'd racked the tenants till he could get no more money off them than he could get skin off a flint." "Well, Dixon, I won't shoot you, and I'll try not to be cross again." "You never have. If I've said it at times, it has always been to myself, just in private, by way of making a little agreeable conversation, for there's no one here fit to talk to. And when you fire up you're the very image of Master Frederick. I could find in my heart to put you in a passion any day just to see his stormy look coming like a great cloud over your face. But now you go out, Miss. I'll watch over Missus; and as for master, his books are company enough for him, if he should come in." "I will go," said Margaret. She hung about Dixon for a minute or so, as if afraid and irresolute; then, suddenly kissing her, she went quickly out of the room. "Bless her!" said Dixon. "She's as sweet as a nut. There are three people I love; its Missus, Master Frederick, and her. Just them three. That's all. The rest be hanged, for I don't know what they're in the world for. Master was born, I suppose, for to marry missus. If I thought he loved her properly, I might get to love him in time. But he should ha' made a deal more on her, and not been always reading, reading, thinking, thinking. See what it has brought him to. Many a one who never reads or thinks either, gets to be Rector, and Dean, and what not; and I daresay master might, if he'd just minded missus, and let the weary reading and thinking alone.--There she goes" (looking out of the window as she heard the front door shut). "Poor young lady! her clothes look shabby to what they did when she came to Helstone a year ago. Then she hadn't so much as a darned stocking or a cleaned pair of gloves in all her wardrobe. And now--!"

The next afternoon Dr. Donaldson came to visit Mrs. Hale. Margaret was excluded from the room, though Dixon was admitted. Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy. She paced up and down in the next room, awaiting the doctor's coming out. Every now and then she fancied she heard a moan. She clenched her hands tight, and held her breath. All was still for a few minutes more; and then there was the moving of chairs, and the raised voices of leave-taking. When she heard the door open, she went quickly to meet him. 'My father is out with a pupil, Dr. Donaldson. May I trouble you to come into his room downstairs?' She saw and triumphed over all the obstacles which Dixon threw in her way; assuming her position as daughter of the house with a conscious dignity, which gave her an instant's amusement in the midst of her anxiety. She knew, from the surprised expression on Dixon's face, how ridiculously grand she must be looking; and the idea carried her downstairs into the room. But then recollection of the actual business in hand seemed to take away her breath. It was a moment or two before she could speak. 'What is the matter with mamma? Please tell the simple truth.' Seeing the doctor hesitate, she added, 'I am the only child she has here. My father is not alarmed, and if there is any serious cause for fear, it must be broken to him gently. I can do this. I can nurse my mother. Pray speak, sir.' 'My dear young lady, your mother expressly desired that you might not be told.' 'I am sure you are too wise - too experienced to have promised to keep the secret.' 'Well,' said he, half-smiling, though sadly, 'there you are right. I did not promise. In fact, I fear the secret will be known soon enough without my revealing it.' He paused. Margaret went very white. Dr. Donaldson saw that she would know if one iota of the truth was withheld; and that the withholding would be worse torture than the knowledge. He spoke two short sentences in a low voice, watching her pupils dilate into a black horror. Then she said: 'I thank you most truly, sir, for your confidence. That dread has haunted me for many weeks. My poor, poor mother!' Her lips began to quiver, and he let her have the relief of tears. She shed only a few, before she recollected the many questions she longed to ask. 'Will there be much suffering?' He shook his head. 'That we cannot tell. It depends on a thousand things. But the discoveries of medical science have given us large power of alleviating pain.' 'My father!' said Margaret, trembling. 'I do not know Mr. Hale. But I should say, wait until the fact has become more familiar to you, so that you may be able to comfort your father. I will visit, although I fear I can do nothing but alleviate; and some symptoms will have awakened his alarm, so that he will be better prepared. My dear - I saw Mr. Thornton, and I honour your father for the sacrifice he has made. Remember, when I come again, I come as a friend. And you must learn to look upon me as such, because getting to know each other at such times as these, is worth years of morning calls.' Margaret could not speak for crying: but she wrung his hand at parting. 'That's what I call a fine girl!' thought Dr. Donaldson, when he was in his carriage. 'What a queen she is! With her head thrown back at first, to force me into speaking the truth; and then bent so eagerly forward to listen. Poor thing! I must see she does not overstrain herself. Though that girl's game to the back-bone. No fainting or hysterics - not she! The very force of her will brought her round. Such a girl as that would win my heart, if I were thirty years younger. It's too late now. Ah! here we are.' So out he jumped, ready to attend fully to this next family, as if there were none other in the world. Meanwhile, Margaret had returned to her father's study to recover strength before going up to her mother. 'Oh, my God, my God! but this is terrible. How shall I bear it? Such a deadly disease! no hope! Oh, mamma, I wish I had never been all those precious years away from you! Poor mamma! how much she must have borne! Oh, I pray thee, my God, that her sufferings may not be too dreadful. How shall I bear to see them? How can I bear papa's agony? He must not be told yet. It would kill him. But I won't lose another moment of my own dear, precious mother.' She ran upstairs. Dixon was not in the room. Mrs. Hale lay back in an easy chair, with a soft white shawl wrapped around her. Her face had a little faint colour in it, and her very exhaustion gave it a peaceful look. Margaret was surprised to see her so calm. 'Why, Margaret, how strange you look! What is the matter?' And then she added, as if a little displeased, 'You have not been seeing Dr. Donaldson, and asking him any questions, have you, child?' Margaret did not reply; only looked wistful. Mrs. Hale became more displeased. 'He would not, surely, break his word to me!' 'Mamma, he did. I made him. Blame me.' She knelt down by her mother's side, and caught her hand. She would not let it go, though Mrs. Hale tried to pull it away. She kept kissing it, and shed hot tears. 'Margaret, it was very wrong of you. You knew I did not wish you to know.' But she left her hand in Margaret's clasp. 'Oh, mamma! let me be your nurse. I will learn anything Dixon can teach me.' 'You don't know what you are asking,' said Mrs. Hale, with a shudder. 'Yes, I do. I know a great deal more than you are aware of. Let me be your nurse. Let me try, at any rate. It will be such a comfort, mamma.' 'My poor child! Well, you shall try. Do you know, Margaret, Dixon and I thought you would quite shrink from me if you knew-' 'Dixon thought!' said Margaret, her lip curling. 'Dixon could not give me credit for as much love as herself! She thought, I suppose, that I was one of those poor women who like to lie on rose leaves, and be fanned all day. Don't let Dixon's fancies come any more between you and me, mamma!' 'Don't be angry with Dixon,' said Mrs. Hale anxiously. 'No! I won't. I will try and learn her ways, if you will only let me do all I can for you. I used to fancy you would forget me while I was away at aunt Shaw's, and cry myself to sleep at nights.' 'And I used to think, how will Margaret bear our poverty after the luxury in Harley Street? - till I have been more ashamed of your seeing our contrivances at Helstone than of any stranger finding them out.' 'Oh, mamma! and I did so enjoy them. The wardrobe shelf with handles, that served as a supper-tray on grand occasions! And the old tea-chests stuffed and covered for ottomans! I think the contrivances at dear Helstone were charming.' 'I shall never see Helstone again, Margaret,' said Mrs. Hale, the tears welling up into her eyes. 'While I was there, I was for ever wanting to leave. And now I shall die far away from it. I am rightly punished.' 'You must not talk so,' said Margaret. 'He said you might live for years. Oh, mother! we will have you back at Helstone yet.' 'No, never! But, Margaret - Frederick!' She suddenly cried out loud, as in some sharp agony; the thought of him upset all her calm composure. There came wild passionate cry after cry - 'Frederick! Frederick! Come to me. I am dying. Little first-born child, come to me once again!' She was in violent hysterics. In terror, Margaret went and called Dixon, who came in a huff, and accused Margaret of over-exciting her mother. Margaret bore all meekly, and obeyed Dixon's directions promptly and well, without a word of self-justification. By so doing she mollified her accuser. They put her mother to bed, and Margaret sat by her till she fell asleep. Then Dixon beckoned her out of the room, and with a sour face bade her drink a cup of coffee in the drawing-room, standing over her as she did so. 'You shouldn't have been so curious, Miss, and then you wouldn't have needed to fret. And now, I suppose, you'll tell master, and a pretty household I shall have!' 'No, Dixon,' said Margaret sorrowfully, 'I will not tell papa. He could not bear it as I can.' And to prove how well she bore it, she burst into tears. 'Ay! I knew how it would be. Now you'll waken your mamma again. Miss Margaret, my dear, I've had to keep it down this many a week; and though I don't pretend I can love her as you do, yet I've loved her better than any other but Master Frederick. Ever since Lady Beresford's maid first took me in to see her, and I ran a needle into my finger, and she tore up her pocket-handkerchief for bandages, I've never loved anyone like her. I little thought then that I should live to see her brought so low. I don't mean no reproach to nobody. Many a one calls you pretty and handsome, and what not, but you'll never be like your mother for beauty, not if you live to be a hundred.' 'Mamma is very pretty still. Poor mamma!' 'Now don't set off again. Go out and take a walk, and come in something like. Many's the time I've longed to walk it off - the thought of her illness, and how it must all end.' 'Oh, Dixon!' said Margaret, 'how often I've been cross with you, not knowing what a terrible secret you had to bear! I'll try not to be cross again.' 'Yet when you fire up, you're the very image of Master Frederick. I'd put you in a passion any day, just to see his stormy look coming like a great cloud over your face. But now you go out, Miss. I'll watch over missus.' 'I will go,' said Margaret. She hung about for a minute, irresolute; then suddenly kissing Dixon, she went quickly out of the room. 'Bless her!' said Dixon. 'There are three people I love: missus, Master Frederick, and her. Just them three. The rest be hanged - I don't know what they're in the world for. Master should ha' made more of her, and not been always reading, reading, thinking, thinking. See what it has brought him to! Many a one who never reads nor thinks gets to be Rector, and Dean, and what not; and I dare say master might, if he'd just minded missus, and let the weary reading and thinking alone. There she goes' (as she heard the front door shut). 'Poor young lady! her clothes look so shabby. When she came to Helstone a year ago, she hadn't a darned stocking in all her wardrobe. And now-!'

North and South

Chapter 16: THE SHADOW OF DEATH

"The saddest birds a season find to sing." SOUTHWELL. "Never to fold the robe o'er secret pain, Never, weighed down by memory's clouds again, 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!" 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. "By no means. What I do exclude is the remorse afterwards. Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect at last." If Margaret thought Frederick's theory rather a rough one at first, she saw how he worked it out into continual production of kindness in fact. After a bad night with his mother (for he insisted on taking his turn as a sitter-up) he was busy next morning before breakfast, contriving a leg-rest for Dixon, who was beginning to feel the fatigues of watching. At breakfast-time, he interested Mr. Hale with vivid, graphic, rattling accounts of the wild life he had led in Mexico, South America, and elsewhere. Margaret would have given up the effort in despair to rouse Mr. Hale out of his dejection; it would even have affected herself and rendered her incapable of talking at all. But Fred, true to his theory, did something perpetually; and talking was the only thing to be done, besides eating, at breakfast. Before the night of that day, Dr. Donaldson's opinion was proved to be too well founded. Convulsions came on; and when they ceased, Mrs. Hale was unconscious. Her husband might lie by her shaking the bed with his sobs; her son's strong arms might lift her tenderly up into a comfortable position; her daughter's hands might bathe her face; but she knew them not. She would never recognise them again, till they met in Heaven. Before the morning came all was over. Then Margaret rose from her trembling and despondency, and became as a strong angel of comfort to her father and brother. For Frederick had broken down now, and all his theories were of no use to him. He cried so violently when shut up in his little room at night, that Margaret and Dixon came down in affright to warn him to be quiet: for the house partitions were but thin, and the next door neighbours might easily hear his youthful passionate sobs, so different from the slower trembling agony of after-life, when we become inured to grief, and dare not be rebellious against the inexorable doom, knowing who it is that decrees. Margaret sate with her father in the room of the dead. If he had cried, she would have been thankful. But he sate by the bed quite quietly; only, from time to time, he uncovered the face, and stroked it gently, making a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some mother-animal caressing her young. He took no notice of Margaret's presence. Once or twice she came up to kiss him; and he submitted to it, giving her a little push away when she had done, as if her affection disturbed him from his absorption in the dead. He started when he heard Frederick's cries, and shook his head:--"Poor boy! poor boy!" he said, and then took no more notice. Margaret's heart ached within her. She could not think of her own loss in thinking of her father's case. The night was wearing away, and the day was at hand, when, without a word of preparation, Margaret's voice broke upon the stillness of the room, with a clearness of sound that startled even herself: "Let not your heart be troubled," it said; and she went steadily on through all that chapter of unspeakable consolation.

Mrs. Thornton came to see Mrs. Hale the next morning. She was much worse. A sudden change - a great visible stride towards death had been taken in the night, and her own family were startled by the grey sunken look of her features. Mrs. Thornton - who had not seen her for weeks - was softened at once. She had come because her son asked her, but with proud bitter feelings against Margaret's family. She doubted the reality of Mrs. Hale's illness; she told her son that she wished they had never come near the place; that he had never got acquainted with them. He bore all this silently; but when she had ended her invective, he quietly repeated his curt, decided wish that she should go and see Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Thornton submitted with a bad grace, yet liked her son the better for it, and exaggerated in her own mind his extraordinary goodness in keeping up with the Hales. Her contempt for Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and positive dislike of Margaret, occupied Mrs. Thornton, till she stood under the dark shadow of the wings of the angel of death. There lay Mrs. Hale - a mother like herself, though younger - without any hope that she might ever rise again. When Mrs. Thornton, strong and prosperous with life, came in, Mrs. Hale lay still, although she seemed conscious of who it was. But she did not even open her eyes for a minute. Then, with heavy tears on her eye-lashes, her hand groping feebly over the bed-clothes to find Mrs. Thornton's large firm fingers, she said faintly: '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 wistfully on Mrs. Thornton's face. That face was stern and unmoved; if the sick woman's eyes had not grown dim, 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 Mrs. Thornton's heart at last; but a sudden remembrance of a little daughter, dead in infancy long years ago that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the ice, behind which there was a real tender woman. 'You wish me to be a friend to Miss Hale,' said Mrs. Thornton, in her clear, measured voice. Mrs. Hale pressed her hand. She could not speak. Mrs. Thornton sighed. 'I will be a true friend, if circumstances require it. Not a tender friend; it is not my nature to show affection even where I feel it. Still, if it will be any comfort to you, I will promise you.' Then she paused. She was too conscientious to promise what she did not mean to perform; and to perform any kind act on behalf of Margaret, more disliked at this moment than ever, was difficult; almost impossible. 'I promise,' said she, with grave severity, '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 knowingly,' pleaded Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Thornton went on as if she had not heard: 'If ever I see her doing what I believe to be wrong - and it does not involve me or mine - 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, and she was 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. Mrs. Hale began to speak: 'I thank you. I pray God to bless you. I shall never see you again in this world. But I thank you for your promise of kindness to my child.' 'Not kindness!' said Mrs. Thornton, ungraciously truthful to the last. But she was not sorry that her words were not heard. She pressed Mrs. Hale's hand; and left the house. While 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 secret to all outside the house. A letter from him might be expected any day; and he would surely follow quickly on its heels. Martha must be sent away on her holiday; Dixon must keep stern guard on the front door - Mrs. Hale's illness giving her a good excuse for this. If Mary Higgins was asked to help Dixon in the kitchen, she was to hear and see as little of Frederick as possible; and he was to be spoken of as Mr. Dickinson. But Mary's sluggish and incurious nature was the greatest safeguard. 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 it might be thought strange to give a servant a holiday when her mistress's state was so much worse. Poor Margaret! All that afternoon she had to give strength to her father. Mr. Hale would hope, would not despair; he buoyed himself up in every respite from her pain, and believed that it was the beginning of recovery. And so, when the paroxysms came on again, each more severe than the last, they were fresh agonies to him. This afternoon, he sat in the drawing-room with his head buried 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 either. Martha was gone. Dixon sat with Mrs. Hale while she slept. The house was very still and quiet, and darkness came on. Margaret sat at the window, looking out at the lamps and the street, but seeing nothing - only hearing her father's heavy sighs. She did not like to go down for lights, lest he might give way to more violent emotion, without her being there to comfort him. Yet she was just thinking that she ought to go and check the kitchen fire, when she heard the muffled door-bell ring with so violent a pull, that the wires jingled all through the house. She started up, and kissed her father tenderly in passing, although he never moved. Then she went down softly, through the dark, to the door. When she opened it, 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 voice. Margaret trembled all over; at first she did not answer. Then she sighed out, 'Frederick!' and stretched out both her hands to catch his, and draw him in. 'Oh, Margaret!' said he, holding her by her shoulders, after they had kissed each other, as if even in that darkness he could see her face. 'My mother! is she alive?' 'Yes, she is alive, dear brother! She is as ill as she can be; but alive!' 'Thank God! 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. Step in here,' she said. 'Give me your hand. What is this? Oh! your carpet-bag. This is papa's study. Rest here for a few minutes, while I go and tell him.' She groped her way to the taper and the matches. When the little feeble light made them visible, she felt suddenly shy. All she could see was, that her brother's face was unusually dark, and she caught the stealthy look of a pair of remarkably long-cut blue eyes, that suddenly twinkled drolly as they inspected each other. They did not exchange a word; yet Margaret felt sure that she should like her brother as a companion as much as she already loved him as a relation. Her father still lay across the table; but now 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, and pulling up his weary head to look into his eyes. 'Papa! guess who is here!' He looked at her; and then hid his face once more, whispering: 'Don't tell me it is Frederick. I cannot bear it - I am too weak. And his mother is dying!' He began to cry like a child. It was so different to all that Margaret had hoped and expected, that she turned sick with disappointment. After a moment she spoke again very differently - not so exultingly, far more tenderly. '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!' With his face still hidden, he asked, 'Where is he?' 'In your study. He is quite alone, and will be wondering-' 'I will go to him,' broke in her father; and he lifted himself up and leant on her arm as she led him to the study door. Her spirits were so agitated that she could not bear to see the meeting. She ran upstairs, and cried most heartily: the first time she had dared to allow herself this relief for days. The strain had been terrible. But Frederick was come! He was there, safe, amongst them! She could hardly believe it. She stopped crying, and opened her bedroom door. Hearing no sound, she went downstairs. She heard the buzz of voices through the study door; and that was enough. She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire, and prepared some food. How fortunate it was that her mother slept! The traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the meeting with his father be over, before her mother became aware of anything unusual. When all was ready, Margaret opened the study door, and went in with a heavy tray. Frederick sprang up, and relieved her of her burden. It was a sign of all the relief which his presence would bring. The brother and sister arranged the table together, saying little, but their hands touching, and their eyes meeting. The fire had gone out, so Margaret tried to light it, for the evenings were chilly. 'Dixon says it is a gift to light a fire; not an art to be acquired.' 'Dear old Dixon!' 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 an awkward little pair of hands. Run away and wash them, and leave the fire. I'll manage it. Lighting fires is one of my natural accomplishments.' So Margaret passed in and out of the room, in glad restlessness. The more wants Frederick had, the better she was pleased; and he understood this by instinct. It was a joy snatched in the house of mourning, and all the sharper because they knew what great sorrow awaited them. They heard Dixon's foot on the stairs. Mr. Hale started up, and faced the door. He showed such a strange, sudden anxiety to conceal Frederick from the sight of anyone, even 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 yet they knew it was only Dixon's measured tread. They heard her walk into the kitchen, and Margaret rose up. 'I will go and tell her, and hear how mamma is.' Mrs. Hale was awake. She rambled at first. Although she was refreshed after they had given her some tea, it was better that the night should pass before she was told of her son's arrival. Dr. Donaldson's visit that evening would bring nervous excitement enough. Margaret could not sit still. It seemed as though she could never be tired again. Each glimpse into the room where Frederick sat talking with his father gave her strength. Her own time for talking and hearing would come later. She liked his appearance: he had delicate features under his swarthy complexion, and a 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 though it betrayed an impulsive nature, there was nothing in it to make Margaret recoil. On the contrary, all their talk was peculiarly charming to her from the very first. She knew then how much responsibility she had had to bear, from the relief she felt in Frederick's presence. He understood his father and mother's characters, and spoke with freedom, yet was most delicately careful not to hurt their feelings. He seemed to know instinctively when a little of the natural brilliancy of his manner would not jar on his father's deep depression, or might relieve his mother's pain. And his patient devotion and watchfulness made him an admirable nurse. 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 - all the time he had been roaming among distant countries. She had been afraid before he came, even while she had longed for his coming; she felt that she herself had changed so much in seven or eight years that his wild career must have almost substituted another Frederick for the tall stripling in his midshipman's uniform, whom she remembered looking up to with such admiring awe. But they had grown nearer to each other in age, as well as in many other things. And so it was that the weight of this sorrowful time was lightened to Margaret. Other light she had none. For a few hours, the mother rallied on seeing her son. She sat 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 that he should disturb her mother by removing a finger. Mrs. Hale wakened while they were doing this; she slowly moved her head round on the pillow, and smiled at her children, as she understood what they were doing. 'I am very selfish,' said she; 'but it will not be for long.' Frederick bent down and kissed the feeble hand. This state of tranquillity 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 remained concealed in the back parlour. She told him what Dr. Donaldson had said. 'I don't believe it,' he exclaimed. 'She is very ill; but I can't imagine that she is 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 impatiently. 'I have credit in Cadiz,' said he, 'but none here. Why did my father leave Helstone? That was the blunder.' 'It was no blunder,' said Margaret. 'And do not let papa hear you say 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 stopped opposite her as she stood drooping. 'My little Margaret!' said he, caressing her. 'Let us hope as long as we can. I will hope, 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! Let us go upstairs, and do something, rather than waste time that may be so precious. Thinking has often made me sad, darling; but doing never did. My motto is, "Do something, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something."' 'Not excluding mischief,' said Margaret, smiling faintly through her tears. 'By no means. What I do exclude is remorse afterwards. Blot your misdeeds out by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as at school we did a correct sum on the slate, over an incorrect one.' If Margaret thought Frederick's theory rather a rough one at first, she saw how he carried it out. After a bad night with his mother, he was busy next morning before breakfast, allowing some rest for Dixon, who was beginning to feel the fatigues of watching. At breakfast-time, he interested Mr. Hale with vivid, rattling accounts of the wild life he had led in Mexico and South America. Margaret would have despaired of rousing Mr. Hale out of his dejection; but Fred, true to his theory, did something perpetually; and talking was the only thing to be done, besides eating, at breakfast. Before the end of that day, Dr. Donaldson's opinion was proved to be too well founded. Convulsions came on; and when they ceased, Mrs. Hale was unconscious. Her husband might lie by her shaking the bed with his sobs; her son's strong arms might lift her tenderly into a comfortable position; her daughter might bathe her face; but she knew them not. She would never recognise them again, till they met in Heaven. Before the morning came all was over. Then Margaret rose from her despondency, and became as a strong angel of comfort to her father and brother. For Frederick broke down now, and all his theories were of no use to him. He cried so violently in his little room at night, that Margaret and Dixon came down to warn him to be quiet: for the walls were thin, and the next-door neighbours might easily hear his passionate sobs. Margaret sat with her father in the room with the dead. From time to time, he uncovered the face, and stroked it gently, making a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some mother-animal caressing her young. He took no notice of Margaret's presence. Once or twice she kissed him; and he submitted, giving her a little push away when she had done, as if it disturbed him from his absorption in the dead. On hearing Frederick's cries, he shook his head. 'Poor boy!' he said, and took no more notice. Margaret's heart ached. She could not think of her own loss in attending to her father. The night was wearing away, and the day was at hand, when her voice broke upon the stillness of the room, with a clearness that startled even herself: 'Let not your heart be troubled,' it said; and she went steadily on through all that chapter of unspeakable consolation.

North and South

Chapter 30: HOME AT LAST

"Some wishes crossed my mind and dimly cheered it, And one or two poor melancholy pleasures, Each in the pale unwarming light of hope, Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by-- Moths in the moonbeam!" COLERIDGE. The next morning brought Margaret a letter from Edith. It was affectionate and inconsequent like the writer. But the affection was charming to Margaret's own affectionate nature; and she had grown up with the inconsequence, so she did not perceive it. It was as follows:-- "Oh, Margaret, it is worth a journey from England to see my boy! He is a superb little fellow, especially in his caps, and most especially in the one you sent him, you good, dainty-fingered, persevering little lady! Having made all the mothers here envious, I want to show him to somebody new, and hear a fresh set of admiring expressions; perhaps, that's all the reason; perhaps it is not--nay, possibly, there is just a little cousinly love mixed with it; but I do want you so much to come here, Margaret! I'm sure it would be the very best thing for Aunt Hale's health; everybody here is young and well, and our skies are always blue, and our sun always shines, and the band plays deliciously from morning till night; and, to come back to the burden of my ditty, my baby always smiles. I am constantly wanting you to draw him from me, Margaret. It does not signify what he is doing; that very thing is prettiest, gracefullest, best. I think I love him a great deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy--what he calls 'busy.' No! he is not. He has just come in with news of such a charming pic-nic, given by the officers of the Hazard, at anchor in the bay below. Because he has brought in such a pleasant piece of news, I retract all I said just now. Did not somebody burn his hand for having said or done something he was sorry for? Well, I can't burn mine, because it would hurt me, and the scar would be ugly; but I'll retract all I said as fast as I can. Cosmo is quite as great a darling as baby, and not a bit stout, and as ungrumpy as ever husband was; only, sometimes he is very, very busy. I may say that without love--wifely duty--- where was I?--I had something very particular to say, I know, once. Oh, it is this--Dearest Margaret!--you must come and see me; it would do Aunt Hale good, as I said before. Get the doctor to order it for her. Tell him that it's the smoke of Milton that does her harm. I have no doubt it is that, really. Three months (you must not come for less) of this delicious climate--all sunshine, and grapes as common as blackberries, would quite cure her. I don't ask my uncle"--(Here the letter became more constrained, and better written. Mr. Hale was in the corner, like a naughty child, for having given up his living.)--"because, I dare say, he disapproves of war, soldiers, and bands of music; at least, I know that many Dissenters are members of the Peace Society, and I am afraid he would not like to come; but, if he would, dear, pray say that Cosmo and I will do our best to make him happy; and I'll hide up Cosmo's red coat and sword, and make the band play all sorts of grave, solemn things; or, if they do play pomps and vanities, it shall be in double slow time. Dear Margaret, if he would like to accompany you and Aunt Hale, we will try and make it pleasant, though I'm rather afraid of any one who has done anything for conscience' sake. You never did, I hope. Tell Aunt Hale not to bring any warm clothes, though I'm afraid it will be late in the year before you can come. But you have no idea of the heat here! I tried to wear my great beauty Indian shawl at a pic-nic. I kept myself up with proverbs as long as I could; 'Pride must abide,'--and such wholesome pieces of pith; but it was no use. I was like mamma's little dog Tiny with an elephant's trappings on; smothered, hidden, killed with my finery; so I made it into a capital carpet for us all to sit down upon. Here's this boy of mine, Margaret--if you don't pack up your things as soon as you get this letter, and come straight off to see him, I shall think you're descended from King Herod!" Margaret did long for a day of Edith's life--her freedom from care, her cheerful home, her sunny skies. If a wish could have transported her, she would have gone off; just for one day. She yearned for the strength which such a change would give--even for a few hours to be in the midst of that bright life, and to feel young again. Not yet twenty! and she had had to bear up against such hard pressure that she felt quite old. That was her first feeling after reading Edith's letter. Then she read it again, and, forgetting herself, was amused at its likeness to Edith's self, and was laughing merrily over it when Mrs. Hale came into the drawing-room, leaning on Dixon's arm. Margaret flew to adjust the pillows. Her mother seemed more than usually feeble. "What were you laughing at, Margaret?" asked she, as soon as she had recovered from the exertion of settling herself on the sofa. "A letter I have had this morning from Edith. Shall I read it to you, mamma?" She read it aloud, and for a time it seemed to interest her mother, who kept wondering what name Edith had given to her boy, and suggesting all probable names, and all possible reasons why each and all of these names should be given. Into the very midst of these wonders Mr. Thornton came, bringing another offering of fruit for Mrs. Hale. He could not--say rather, he would not--deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret. He had no end in this but the present gratification. It was the sturdy wilfulness of a man usually most reasonable and self-controlled. He entered the room, taking in at a glance the fact of Margaret's presence; but after the first cold distant bow, he never seemed to let his eyes fall on her again. He only stayed to present his peaches--to speak some gentle kindly words--and then his cold offended eyes met Margaret's with a grave farewell, as he left the room. She sat down silent and pale. "Do you know, Margaret, I really begin to like Mr. Thornton." No answer at first. Then Margaret forced out an icy "Do you?" "Yes! I think he is really getting quite polished in his manners." Margaret's voice was more in order now. She replied, "He is very kind and attentive--there is no doubt of that." "I wonder Mrs. Thornton never calls. She must know I am ill, because of the water-bed." "I dare say, she hears how you are from her son." "Still, I should like to see her. You have so few friends here, Margaret." Margaret felt what was in her mother's thoughts--a tender craving to bespeak the kindness of some woman towards the daughter that might soon be left motherless. But she could not speak. "Do you think," said Mrs. Hale, after a pause, "that you could go and ask Mrs. Thornton to come and see me? Only once--I don't want to be troublesome." "I will do anything, if you wish it, mamma--but if--but when Frederick comes----" "Ah, to be sure! we must keep our doors shut--we must let no one in. I hardly know whether I dare wish him to come or not. Sometimes I think I would rather not. Sometimes I have such frightful dreams about him." "Oh, mamma! we'll take good care. I will put my arm in the bolt sooner than he should come to the slightest harm. Trust the care of him to me, mamma. I will watch over him like a lioness over her young." "When can we hear from him?" "Not for a week yet, certainly--perhaps more." "We must send Martha away in good time. It would never do to have her here when he comes, and then send her off in a hurry." "Dixon is sure to remind us of that. I was thinking that, if we wanted any help in the house while he is here, we could perhaps get Mary Higgins. She is very slack of work, and is a good girl, and would take pains to do her best, I am sure, and would sleep at home, and need never come upstairs, so as to know who is in the house." "As you please. As Dixon pleases. But, Margaret, don't get to use these horrid Milton words. 'Slack of work:' it is a provincialism. What will your aunt Shaw say, if she hears you use it on her return?" "Oh, mamma! don't try and make a bugbear of aunt Shaw," said Margaret, laughing. "Edith picked up all sorts of military slang from Captain Lennox, and aunt Shaw never took any notice of it." "But yours is factory slang." "And if I live in a factory town, I must speak factory language when I want it. Why, mamma, I could astonish you with a great many words you never heard in your life. I don't believe you know what a knobstick is." "Not I, child. I only know it has a very vulgar sound; and I don't want to hear you using it." "Very well, dearest mother, I won't. Only I shall have to use a whole explanatory sentence instead." "I don't like this Milton," said Mrs. Hale. "Edith is right enough in saying it's the smoke that has made me so ill." Margaret started up as her mother said this. Her father had just entered the room, and she was most anxious that the faint impression she had seen on his mind that the Milton air had injured her mother's health, should not be deepened--should not receive any confirmation. She could not tell whether he had heard what Mrs. Hale had said or not; but she began speaking hurriedly of other things, unaware that Mr. Thornton was following him. "Mamma is accusing me of having picked up a great deal of vulgarity since we came to Milton." The "vulgarity" Margaret spoke of, referred purely to the use of local words, and the expression arose out of the conversation they had just been holding. But Mr. Thornton's brow darkened; and Margaret suddenly felt how her speech might be misunderstood by him; so, in the natural sweet desire to avoid giving unnecessary pain, she forced herself to go forwards with a little greeting, and continue what she was saying, addressing herself to him expressly. "Now, Mr. Thornton, though 'knobstick' has not a very pretty sound, is it not expressive? Could I do without it, in speaking of the thing it represents? If using local words is vulgar, I was very vulgar in the Forest,--was I not, mamma?" It was unusual with Margaret to obtrude her own subject of conversation on others; but, in this case, she was so anxious to prevent Mr. Thornton from feeling annoyance at the words he had accidentally overheard, that it was not until she had done speaking that she coloured all over with consciousness, more especially as Mr. Thornton seemed hardly to understand the exact gist or bearing of what she was saying, but passed her by, with a cold reserve of ceremonious movement, to speak to Mrs. Hale. The sight of him reminded her of the wish to see his mother, and commend Margaret to her care. Margaret, sitting in burning silence, vexed and ashamed of her difficulty in keeping her right place, and her calm unconsciousness of heart, when Mr. Thornton was by, heard her mother's slow entreaty that Mrs. Thornton would come and see her; see her soon; to-morrow, if it were possible. Mr. Thornton promised that she should--conversed a little, and then took his leave; and Margaret's movements and voice seemed at once released from some invisible chains. He never looked at her; and yet, the careful avoidance of his eyes betokened that in some way he knew exactly where, if they fell by chance, they would rest on her. If she spoke, he gave no sign of attention, and yet his next speech to any one else was modified by what she had said; sometimes there was an express answer to what she had remarked, but given to another person as though unsuggested by her. It was not the bad manners of ignorance; it was the wilful bad manners arising from deep offence. It was wilful at the time; repented of afterwards. But no deep plan, no careful cunning could have stood him in such good stead. Margaret thought about him more than she had ever done before; not with any tinge of what is called love, but with regret that she had wounded him so deeply,--and with a gentle, patient striving to return to their former position of antagonistic friendship; for a friend's position was what she found that he had held in her regard, as well as in that of the rest of the family. There was a pretty humility in her behaviour to him, as if mutely apologising for the over-strong words which were the reaction from the deeds of the day of the riot. But he resented those words bitterly. They rung in his ears; and he was proud of the sense of justice which made him go in every kindness he could offer to her parents. He exulted in the power he showed in compelling himself to face her, whenever he could think of any action which might give her father or mother pleasure. He thought that he disliked seeing one who had mortified him so keenly; but he was mistaken. It was a stinging pleasure to be in the room with her, and feel her presence. But he was no great analyser of his own motives and was mistaken, as I have said.

The next morning brought a letter from Edith. It was affectionate and inconsequent like the writer. But the affection was charming to Margaret; and she had grown up with the inconsequence, so she did not perceive it. It was as follows: 'Oh, Margaret, you should see my boy! He is a superb little fellow, especially in his caps, and most especially in the one you sent him, you good, dainty-fingered little lady! Having made all the mothers here envious, I want to show him to somebody new - I do want you so much to come here, Margaret! I'm sure it would be the very best thing for Aunt Hale's health; everybody here is young and well, and our skies are always blue, and our sun always shines, and the band plays deliciously from morning till night; and my baby always smiles. I think I love him a great deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy - what he calls "busy." No! he is not. He has just come in with news of a charming picnic, given by the officers of the Hazard, at anchor in the bay below; so I retract all I said just now. Cosmo is quite as great a darling as baby, and not a bit stout, and as un-grumpy as ever husband was; only, sometimes he is very busy. 'Where was I? Oh, yes - Dearest Margaret! - you must come and see me. Get the doctor to order it for your mother. Tell him that it's the smoke of Milton that does her harm. This delicious climate - all sunshine, and grapes as common as blackberries, would quite cure her. I don't ask my uncle, because I dare say he disapproves of war, and soldiers, and military bands; but if he would like to come, Cosmo and I will do our best to make him happy; and I'll hide Cosmo's red coat and sword, and make the band play all sorts of grave, solemn things in double slow time. Tell Aunt Hale not to bring many warm clothes. You have no idea of the heat here! I tried to wear my great Indian shawl at a picnic, but I was like mamma's little dog Tiny with an elephant's trappings on, smothered with my finery; so I made it into a capital carpet for us all to sit upon. Pack up your things as soon as you get this letter, and come straight off to see us!' Margaret did long for a day of Edith's life - her freedom from care, her cheerful home, her sunny skies. If a wish could have transported her, she would have gone off, just for one day. She yearned for the strength which such a change would give - even for a few hours in the midst of that bright life, to feel young again. Not yet twenty! She felt quite old. Then she read Edith's letter again, and, forgetting herself, was laughing merrily over it when Mrs. Hale came into the drawing-room, leaning feebly on Dixon's arm. 'What were you laughing at, Margaret?' asked she. 'A letter from Edith.' She read it aloud, and for a time it seemed to interest her mother, who kept wondering what name Edith had given to her boy. Into the midst of these wonders Mr. Thornton came, bringing more fruit for Mrs. Hale. He could not - or would not - deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret. It was the sturdy wilfulness of a man usually reasonable and self-controlled. He entered the room, taking in at a glance the fact of Margaret's presence; but after the first cold distant bow, he did not look at her. He only stayed to present his peaches - to speak some gentle kindly words - and then his cold offended eyes met Margaret's with a grave farewell, as he left the room. She sat down silent and pale. 'Do you know, Margaret, I really begin quite to like Mr. Thornton.' Margaret forced out an icy 'Do you?' 'Yes! I think he is really getting quite polished in his manners.' Margaret's voice was more in order now. She replied, 'He is very kind and attentive.' 'I wonder Mrs. Thornton never calls. She must know I am ill, because of the water-bed. I should like to see her. You have so few friends here, Margaret.' Margaret felt what was in her mother's thoughts - a craving to ask for the kindness of some woman towards the daughter that might so soon be motherless. She could not speak. 'Do you think,' said Mrs. Hale, 'that you could go and ask Mrs. Thornton to come and see me? Only once. I don't want to be troublesome.' 'If you wish it, mamma - but when Frederick comes-' 'Ah, to be sure! we must let no one in. I hardly know whether I wish him to come or not. Sometimes I have such frightful dreams about him.' 'Oh, mamma! we'll take good care. Trust me; I will watch over him like a lioness over her young.' 'When can we hear from him?' 'Not for a week yet, perhaps more.' 'We must send Martha away in good time.' 'Dixon is sure to remind us of that. I was thinking that if we wanted any help in the house while he is here, we could perhaps get Mary Higgins. She is very slack of work, and is a good girl, and would do her best, I am sure, and would sleep at home, and need never come upstairs.' 'As you and Dixon please. But, Margaret, don't use these horrid Milton words. "Slack of work!" What will your aunt Shaw say, if she hears you on her return?' 'Oh, mamma!' said Margaret, laughing. 'Edith picked up all sorts of military slang from Captain Lennox, and aunt Shaw never took any notice.' 'But yours is factory slang.' 'I live in a factory town. Why, mamma, I could astonish you with a great many words you never heard in your life. Do you know what a knobstick is? It means a strike-breaker.' 'I don't want to hear you using such words. I don't like this Milton,' said Mrs. Hale. 'Edith is right enough in saying it's the smoke that has made me so ill.' Margaret started up as her mother said this. Her father had just entered the room, and she was most anxious that he should not hear. She began speaking hurriedly of other things, unaware that Mr. Thornton was following him. 'Mamma is accusing me of having picked up a great deal of vulgarity since we came to Milton.' By 'vulgarity' Margaret referred purely to the use of local words. But Mr. Thornton's brow darkened; and Margaret suddenly felt she might be misunderstood by him; so, in the natural sweet desire to avoid giving unnecessary pain, she forced herself to go forwards with a little greeting, and continue what she was saying. 'Now, Mr. Thornton, though "knobstick" has not a very pretty sound, is it not expressive? If using local words is vulgar, I was very vulgar in the Forest - was I not, mamma?' It was unusual with Margaret to obtrude her own subject of conversation on others; but, in this case, she was so anxious to prevent Mr. Thornton from feeling annoyed at her words, that after speaking she coloured all over; especially as Mr. Thornton seemed hardly to understand what she was saying, but passed her by, with a cold ceremonious movement, to speak to Mrs. Hale. Margaret, sitting in burning silence, was vexed and ashamed of her difficulty in keeping calm when Mr. Thornton was by. She heard her mother's slow entreaty that Mrs. Thornton would come and see her soon; tomorrow, if possible. Mr. Thornton promised that she should - conversed a little, and then left; and Margaret's movements and voice seemed at once released from invisible chains. He never looked at her; and yet the careful avoidance of his eyes showed that he knew exactly where she was. If she spoke, he gave no sign of attention, and yet his next speech to anyone else was modified by what she had said; sometimes with an answer to what she had remarked, but given to another person. It was not the bad manners of ignorance; it was the wilful bad manners arising from deep offence. He repented of it afterwards. But no deep plan, no careful cunning could have stood him in such good stead. Margaret thought about him more than she had ever done before; not with any love, but with regret that she had wounded him so deeply; and with a gentle, patient striving to return to their former position of antagonistic friendship. There was a pretty humility in her behaviour to him, as if mutely apologising for the over-strong words which had been the reaction from the day of the riot. But he resented those words bitterly. They rung in his ears; and he was proud of the sense of justice which made him offer every kindness he could to her parents. He exulted in the power he showed in compelling himself to face her. He thought that he disliked seeing one who had mortified him so keenly; but he was mistaken. It was a stinging pleasure to be in the room with her, and feel her presence. But he was no great analyser of his own motives.

North and South

Chapter 29: A RAY OF SUNSHINE

"Learn to win a lady's faith Nobly, as the thing is high; Bravely, as for life and death-- With a loyal gravity. Lead her from the festive boards, Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words, Pure from courtship's flatteries." MRS. BROWNING. "Mr. Henry Lennox." Margaret had been thinking of him only a moment before, and remembering his inquiry into her probable occupations at home. It was "parler du soleil et l'on en voit les rayons;" and the brightness of the sun came over Margaret's face as she put down her board, and went forward to shake hands with him. "Tell mamma, Sarah," said she. "Mamma and I want to ask you so many questions about Edith; I am so much obliged to you for coming." "Did not I say that I should?" asked he, in a lower tone than that in which he had spoken. "But I heard of you so far away in the Highlands that I never thought Hampshire could come in." "Oh!" said he, more lightly, "our young couple were playing such foolish pranks, running all sorts of risks, climbing this mountain, sailing on that lake, that I really thought they needed a Mentor to take care of them. And indeed they did: they were quite beyond my uncle's management, and kept the old gentleman in a panic for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. Indeed, when I once saw how unfit they were to be trusted alone, I thought it my duty not to leave them till I had seen them safely embarked at Plymouth." "Have you been at Plymouth? Oh! Edith never named that. To be sure, she has written in such a hurry lately. Did they really sail on Tuesday?" "Really sailed, and relieved me from many responsibilities. Edith gave me all sorts of messages for you. I believe I have a little diminutive note somewhere; yes, here it is." "Oh! thank you," exclaimed Margaret; and then, half wishing to read it alone and unwatched, she made the excuse of going to tell her mother again (Sarah surely had made some mistake) that Mr. Lennox was there. When she had left the room, he began in his scrutinising way to look about him. The little drawing-room was looking its best in the streaming light of the morning sun. The middle window in the bow was opened, and clustering roses and the scarlet honeysuckle came peeping round the corner; the small lawn was gorgeous with verbenas and geraniums of all bright colours. But the very brightness outside made the colours within seem poor and faded. The carpet was far from new; the chintz had been often washed; the whole apartment was smaller and shabbier than he had expected, as back-ground and frame-work for Margaret, herself so queenly. He took up one of the books lying on the table; it was the Paradise of Dante, in the proper old Italian binding of white vellum and gold; by it lay a dictionary, and some words copied out in Margaret's handwriting. They were a dull list of words, but somehow he liked looking at them. He put them down with a sigh. "The living is evidently as small as she said. It seems strange, for the Beresfords belong to a good family." Margaret meanwhile had found her mother. It was one of Mrs. Hale's fitful days, when everything was a difficulty and a hardship: and Mr. Lennox's appearance took this shape, although secretly she felt complimented by his thinking it worth while to call. "It is most unfortunate! We are dining early to-day, and having nothing but cold meat, in order that the servants may get on with their ironing; and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner--Edith's brother-in-law and all. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning about something--I don't know what. I went into the study just now, and he had his face on the table, covering it with his hands. I told him I was sure Helstone air did not agree with him any more than with me, and he suddenly lifted up his head, and begged me not to speak a word more against Helstone, he could not bear it; if there was one place he loved on earth it was Helstone. But I am sure, for all that, it is the damp and relaxing air." Margaret felt as if a thin cold cloud had come between her and the sun. She had listened patiently, in hopes that it might be some relief to her mother to unburden herself; but now it was time to draw her back to Mr. Lennox. "Papa likes Mr. Lennox; they got on together famously at the wedding breakfast. I daresay his coming will do papa good. And never mind the dinner, dear mamma. Cold meat will do capitally for a lunch, which is the light in which Mr. Lennox will most likely look upon a two o'clock dinner." "But what are we to do with him till then? It is only half-past ten now." "I'll ask him to go out sketching with me. I know he draws, and that will take him out of your way, mamma. Only do come in now; he will think it so strange if you don't." Mrs. Hale took off her black silk apron, and smoothed her face. She looked a very pretty lady-like woman, as she greeted Mr. Lennox with the cordiality due to one who was almost a relation. He evidently expected to be asked to spend the day, and accepted the invitation with a glad readiness that made Mrs. Hale wish she could add something to the cold beef. He was pleased with everything; delighted with Margaret's idea of going out sketching together; would not have Mr. Hale disturbed for the world, with the prospect of so soon meeting him at dinner. Margaret brought out her drawing materials for him to choose from; and after the paper and brushes had been duly selected, the two set out in the merriest spirits in the world. "Now, please, just stop here for a minute or two," said Margaret. "These are the cottages that haunted me so during the rainy fortnight, reproaching me for not having sketched them." "Before they tumbled down and were no more seen. Truly, if they are to be sketched--and they are very picturesque--we had better not put it off till next year. But where shall we sit?" "Oh! You might have come straight from chambers in the Temple, instead of having been two months in the Highlands! Look at this beautiful trunk of a tree, which the woodcutters have left just in the right place for the light. I will put my plaid over it, and it will be a regular forest throne." "With your feet in that puddle for a regal footstool! Stay, I will move, and then you can come nearer this way. Who lives in these cottages?" "They were built by squatters fifty or sixty years ago. One is uninhabited; the foresters are going to take it down, as soon as the other is dead, poor old fellow! Look--there he is--I must go and speak to him. He is so deaf you will hear all our secrets." The old man stood bareheaded in the sun, leaning on his stick at the front of his cottage. His stiff features relaxed into a slow smile as Margaret went up and spoke to him. Mr. Lennox hastily introduced the two figures into his sketch, and finished up the landscape with a subordinate reference to them--as Margaret perceived, when the time came for getting up, putting away water, and scraps of paper, and exhibiting to each other their sketches. She laughed and blushed: Mr. Lennox watched her countenance. "Now, I call that treacherous," said she. "I little thought that you were making old Isaac and me into subjects, when you told me to ask him the history of these cottages." "It was irresistible. You can't know how strong a temptation it was. I hardly dare tell you how much I shall like this sketch." He was not quite sure whether she heard this latter sentence before she went to the brook to wash her palette. She came back rather flushed, but looking perfectly innocent and unconscious. He was glad of it, for the speech had slipped from him unawares--a rare thing in the case of a man who premeditated his actions so much as Henry Lennox. The aspect of home was all right and bright when they reached it. The clouds on her mother's brow had cleared off under the propitious influence of a brace of carp, most opportunely presented by a neighbour. Mr. Hale had returned from his morning's round, and was awaiting his visitor just outside the wicket gate that led into the garden. He looked a complete gentleman in his rather threadbare coat and well-worn hat. Margaret was proud of her father; she had always a fresh and tender pride in seeing how favourably he impressed every stranger; still her quick eye sought over his face and found there traces of some unusual disturbance, which was only put aside, not cleared away. Mr. Hale asked to look at their sketches. "I think you have made the tints on the thatch too dark, have you not?" as he returned Margaret's to her, and held out his hand for Mr. Lennox's, which was withheld from him one moment, no more. "No, papa! I don't think I have. The house-leek and stone-crop have grown so much darker in the rain. Is it not like, papa?" said she, peeping over his shoulder, as he looked at the figures in Mr. Lennox's drawing. "Yes, very like. Your figure and way of holding yourself is capital. And it is just poor old Isaac's stiff way of stooping his long rheumatic back. What is this hanging from the branch of the tree? Not a bird's nest, surely." "Oh no! that is my bonnet. I never can draw with my bonnet on; it makes my head so hot. I wonder if I could manage figures. There are so many people about here whom I should like to sketch." "I should say that a likeness you very much wish to take you would always succeed in," said Mr. Lennox. "I have great faith in the power of will. I think myself I have succeeded pretty well in yours." Mr. Hale had preceded them into the house, while Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses, with which to adorn her morning gown for dinner. "A regular London girl would understand the implied meaning of that speech," thought Mr. Lennox. "She would be up to looking through every speech that a young man made her for the arrire-pense of a compliment. But I don't believe Margaret,--Stay!" exclaimed he, "Let me help you;" and he gathered for her some velvety cramoisy roses that were above her reach, and then dividing the spoil he placed two in his button-hole, and sent her in, pleased and happy, to arrange her flowers. The conversation at dinner flowed on quietly and agreeably. There were plenty of questions to be asked on both sides--the latest intelligence which each could give of Mrs. Shaw's movements in Italy to be exchanged; and in the interest of what was said, the unpretending simplicity of the parsonage-ways--above all in the neighbourhood of Margaret, Mr. Lennox forgot the little feeling of disappointment with which he had at first perceived that she had spoken but the simple truth when she had described her father's living as very small. "Margaret, my child, you might have gathered us some pears for our dessert," said Mr. Hale, as the hospitable luxury of a freshly-decanted bottle of wine was placed on the table. Mrs. Hale was hurried. It seemed as if desserts were impromptu and unusual things at the parsonage; whereas, if Mr. Hale would only have looked behind him, he would have seen biscuits and marmalade, and what not, all arranged in formal order on the side-board. But the idea of pears had taken possession of Mr. Hale's mind, and was not to be got rid of. "There are a few brown beurrs against the south wall which are worth all foreign fruits and preserves. Run, Margaret, and gather some." "I propose that we adjourn into the garden, and eat them there," said Mr. Lennox. "Nothing is so delicious as to set one's teeth into the crisp, juicy fruit, warm and scented by the sun. The worst is, the wasps are impudent enough to dispute it with one, even at the very crisis and summit of enjoyment." He rose, as if to follow Margaret, who had disappeared through the window: he only awaited Mrs. Hale's permission. She would rather have wound up the dinner in the proper way, and with all the ceremonies which had gone on so smoothly hitherto, especially as she and Dixon had got out the finger-glasses from the store-room on purpose to be as correct as became General Shaw's widow's sister; but as Mr. Hale got up directly, and prepared to accompany his guest, she could only submit. "I shall arm myself with a knife," said Mr. Hale: "the days of eating fruit so primitively as you describe are over with me. I must pare it and quarter it before I can enjoy it." Margaret made a plate for the pears out of a beet-root leaf, which threw up their brown gold colour admirably. Mr. Lennox looked more at her than at the pears; but her father, inclined to cull fastidiously the very zest and perfection of the hour he had stolen from his anxiety, chose daintily the ripest fruit, and sat down on the garden bench to enjoy it at his leisure. Margaret and Mr. Lennox strolled along the little terrace-walk under the south wall, where the bees still hummed and worked busily in their hives. "What a perfect life you seem to live here! I have always felt rather contemptuously towards the poets before, with their wishes, 'Mine be a cot beside a hill,' and that sort of thing; but now I am afraid that the truth is, I have been nothing better than a Cockney. Just now I feel as if twenty years' hard study of law would be amply rewarded by one year of such an exquisite serene life as this--such skies!" looking up--"such crimson and amber foliage, so perfectly motionless as that!" pointing to some of the great forest trees which shut in the garden as if it were a nest. "You must please to remember that our skies are not always as deep a blue as they are now. We have rain, and our leaves do fall, and get sodden: though I think Helstone is about as perfect a place as any in the world. Recollect how you rather scorned my description of it one evening in Harley Street: 'a village in a tale.'" "Scorned, Margaret! That is rather a hard word." "Perhaps it is. Only I know I should have liked to have talked to you of what I was very full at the time, and you--what must I call it then?--spoke disrespectfully of Helstone as a mere village in a tale." "I will never do so again," said he, warmly. They turned the corner of the walk. "I could almost wish, Margaret----" he stopped and hesitated. It was so unusual for the fluent lawyer to hesitate that Margaret looked up at him, in a little state of questioning wonder; but in an instant--from what about him she could not tell--she wished herself back with her mother--her father--anywhere away from him, for she was sure he was going to say something to which she should not know what to reply. In another moment the strong pride that was in her came to conquer her sudden agitation, which she hoped he had not perceived. Of course she could answer, and answer the right thing; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech, as if she had not power to put an end to it with her high maidenly dignity. "Margaret," said he, taking her by surprise, and getting sudden possession of her hand, so that she was forced to stand still and listen, despising herself for the fluttering at her heart all the time; "Margaret, I wish you did not like Helstone so much--did not seem so perfectly calm and happy here. I have been hoping for these three months past to find you regretting London--and London friends, a little--enough to make you listen more kindly" (for she was quietly, but firmly, striving to extricate her hand from his grasp) "to one who has not much to offer, it is true--nothing but prospects in the future--but who does love you, Margaret, almost in spite of himself. Margaret, have I startled you too much? Speak!" For he saw her lips quivering almost as if she were going to cry. She made a strong effort to be calm; she would not speak till she had succeeded in mastering her voice, and then she said: "I was startled. I did not know that you cared for me in that way. I have always thought of you as a friend; and, please, I would rather go on thinking of you so. I don't like to be spoken to as you have been doing. I cannot answer you as you want me to do, and yet I should feel so sorry if I vexed you." "Margaret," said he, looking into her eyes, which met his with their open, straight look, expressive of the utmost good faith and reluctance to give pain, "Do you"--he was going to say--"love any one else?" But it seemed as if this question would be an insult to the pure serenity of those eyes. "Forgive me! I have been too abrupt. I am punished. Only let me hope. Give me the poor comfort of telling me you have never seen any one whom you could----" Again a pause. He could not end his sentence. Margaret reproached herself acutely as the cause of his distress. "Ah! if you had but never got this fancy into your head! It was such a pleasure to think of you as a friend." "But I may hope, may I not, Margaret, that some time you will think of me as a lover? Not yet, I see--there is no hurry--but some time----" She was silent for a minute or two, trying to discover the truth as it was in her own heart, before replying, then she said: "I have never thought of--you, but as a friend. I like to think of you so; but I am sure I could never think of you as anything else. Pray let us both forget that all this" ("disagreeable," she was going to say, but stopped short) "conversation has taken place." He paused before he replied. Then, in his habitual coldness of tone, he answered: "Of course, as your feelings are so decided, and as this conversation has been so evidently unpleasant to you, it had better not be remembered. That is all very fine in theory, that plan of forgetting whatever is painful, but it will be somewhat difficult for me, at least, to carry it into execution." "You are vexed," said she, sadly; "yet how can I help it?" She looked so truly grieved as she said this, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone: "You should make allowances for the mortification, not only of a lover, Margaret, but of a man not given to romance in general--prudent, worldly, as some people call me--who has been carried out of his usual habits by the force of a passion--well, we will say no more of that; but in the one outlet which he has formed for the deeper and better feelings of his nature, he meets with rejection and repulse. I shall have to console myself with scorning my own folly. A struggling barrister to think of matrimony!" Margaret could not answer this. The whole tone of it annoyed her. It seemed to touch on and call out all the points of difference which had often repelled her in him; while yet he was the pleasantest man, the most sympathising friend, the person of all others who understood her best in Harley Street. She felt a tinge of contempt mingle itself with her pain at having refused him. Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain. It was well that, having made the round of the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr. Hale, whose whereabouts had been quite forgotten by them. He had not yet finished the pear, which he had delicately peeled in one long strip of silver-paper thinness, and which he was enjoying in a deliberate manner. It was like the story of the eastern king, who dipped his head into a basin of water, at the magician's command, and ere he instantly took it out went through the experience of a lifetime. Margaret felt stunned, and unable to recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial conversation that ensued between her father and Mr. Lennox. She was grave, and little disposed to speak; full of wonder when Mr. Lennox would go, and allow her to relax into thought on the events of the last quarter of an hour. He was almost as anxious to take his departure as she was for him to leave; but a few minutes light and careless talking, carried on at whatever effort, was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or his self-respect. He glanced from time to time at her sad and pensive face. "I am not so indifferent to her as she believes," thought he to himself. "I do not give up hope." Before a quarter of an hour was over, he had fallen into a way of conversing with quiet sarcasm; speaking of life in London and life in the country, as if he were conscious of his second mocking self, and afraid of his own satire. Mr. Hale was puzzled. His visitor was a different man to what he had seen him before at the wedding-breakfast, and at dinner to-day; a lighter, cleverer, more worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr. Hale. It was a relief to all three when Mr. Lennox said that he must go directly if he meant to catch the five o'clock train. They proceeded to the house to find Mrs. Hale, and wish her good-bye. At the last moment, Henry Lennox's real self broke through the crust. "Margaret, don't despise me; I have a heart, notwithstanding all this good-for-nothing way of talking. As a proof of it, I believe I love you more than ever--if I do not hate you--for the disdain with which you have listened to me during this last half-hour. Good-bye, Margaret--Margaret!"

Margaret had been thinking of him only a moment before. Her face brightened as she put down her board, and went forward to shake hands with him. 'Mamma and I want to ask you about Edith; I am so obliged to you for coming,' she said. 'Did not I say that I should?' asked he, in a low tone. 'But I heard of you far away in the Highlands.' 'Oh!' said he, more lightly, 'our young couple were playing such foolish pranks, running all sorts of risks, climbing this mountain, sailing on that lake, that I really thought they needed a mentor to take care of them. They were quite beyond my uncle's management, and kept the old gentleman in a panic. I thought it my duty not to leave them till I had seen them safely embarked at Plymouth.' 'Edith never mentioned that. To be sure, she has written in such a hurry lately. Did they really sail on Tuesday?' 'Yes. Edith gave me all sorts of messages for you. I believe I have a little note somewhere; here it is.' 'Thank you,' exclaimed Margaret; and then, wishing to read it alone and unwatched, she made the excuse of going to tell her mother that Mr. Lennox was there. When she had left him, he began to scrutinise the little drawing-room. It was looking its best in the streaming light of the morning sun. The window was open, and clustering roses and honeysuckle came peeping round the corner; the small lawn was gorgeous with verbenas and bright geraniums. But the very brightness outside made the colours within seem poor and faded. The room was smaller and shabbier than he had expected as a background for Margaret, herself so queenly. He took up one of the books lying on the table; it was the Paradiso of Dante. By it lay a dictionary, and some words copied out in Margaret's hand-writing. They made a dull list, but somehow he liked looking at them. He put them down with a sigh. Margaret meanwhile had found her mother. It was one of Mrs. Hale's fitful days, when everything was a difficulty; including Mr. Lennox's visit, although secretly she felt complimented by his calling. 'It is most unfortunate! We have nothing but cold meat, and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning - I don't know why. I went into the study just now, and he had his face in his hands. I told him I was sure Helstone air did not agree with him, and he suddenly lifted up his head, and begged me not to speak a word more against Helstone, he could not bear it; if there was one place he loved on earth it was Helstone. But I am sure it is the damp air.' Margaret felt as if a thin cold cloud had come between her and the sun. She drew her mother back to the subject of Mr. Lennox. 'Papa likes Mr. Lennox; they got on together famously at the wedding. His coming will do papa good. And never mind dinner, dear mamma. Cold meat will do capitally for lunch.' 'But what are we to do with him till then? It is only half-past ten.' 'I'll ask him to go out sketching with me. That will take him out of your way, mamma. Only do come in now; he will think it strange if you don't.' Mrs. Hale took off her black silk apron, and smoothed her face. She looked a very pretty lady-like woman, as she greeted Mr. Lennox cordially. He accepted the invitation to lunch with a glad readiness that made Mrs. Hale wish she could add something to the cold beef. He was delighted with Margaret's idea of going sketching together. She brought out her drawing materials, and the two set out in merry spirits. 'Now, please, just stop here for a minute,' said Margaret. 'These are the cottages that haunted me so during the rainy fortnight, reproaching me for not having sketched them.' 'Before they tumbled down. Truly, if they are to be sketched - and they are very picturesque - we had better not put it off till next year. But where shall we sit?' 'Oh! On this beautiful tree trunk. I will put my shawl over it, and it will be a regular forest throne.' 'With your feet in that puddle for a regal footstool! Who lives in these cottages?' 'One is uninhabited,' said she; 'the foresters are going to take it down, as soon as the old man who lives in the other is dead, poor old fellow! Look - there he is - I must go and speak to him.' The old man stood bareheaded in the sun, leaning on his stick in front of his cottage. His stiff features relaxed into a slow smile as Margaret went up to him. Mr. Lennox hastily added the two figures to his sketch - as Margaret perceived later, when they were putting away the paints. She laughed and blushed. 'Now, I call that treacherous,' said she. 'I little thought you were drawing old Isaac and me.' 'It was irresistible. You can't know how strong a temptation it was. I hardly dare tell you how much I shall like this sketch.' He was not quite sure whether she heard this latter sentence before she went to the brook to wash her palette. She came back rather flushed, but looking perfectly unconscious. He was glad of it, for the speech had slipped from him unawares - a rare thing in his case. When they reached home, the clouds on her mother's brow had cleared under the lucky influence of a brace of carp, most opportunely presented by a neighbour. Mr. Hale had returned from his morning's round, and was waiting by the garden gate. He looked a complete gentleman in his rather threadbare coat and well-worn hat. Margaret was proud of her father; she had always a tender pride in seeing how favourably he impressed every stranger. Still her quick eye sought his face and found there traces of some unusual disturbance. Mr. Hale asked to look at their sketches. 'I think you have made the tints on the thatch too dark, have you not?' He returned Margaret's to her, and held out his hand for Mr. Lennox's. 'No, papa! I don't think I have. It is so much darker in the rain. Is that not like, papa?' said she, peeping over his shoulder, as he looked at the figures in Mr. Lennox's drawing. 'Yes, very like. Your way of holding yourself is capital. And it is just like poor old Isaac. What is this hanging from the branch of the tree? Not a bird's nest, surely.' 'Oh no! that is my bonnet. I wonder if I could manage figures. There are so many people about here whom I should like to sketch.' 'I should say you would succeed,' said Mr. Lennox. 'I think myself I have succeeded pretty well in yours.' Mr. Hale had gone into the house, while Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses. 'A regular London girl would understand the implied meaning of that speech,' thought Mr. Lennox. 'She would look through every speech a young man made her for a compliment. But I don't believe - stay!' exclaimed he. 'Let me help you.' He gathered some velvety roses that were above her reach, and sent her in, pleased and happy, to arrange her flowers. The conversation at dinner flowed on quietly and agreeably. There was the latest news of Mrs. Shaw in Italy to be exchanged; and in the unpretending simplicity of the parsonage-ways, Mr. Lennox forgot his first feeling on finding her father's living was so small. 'Margaret, my child, you might have gathered us some pears for our dessert,' said Mr. Hale. 'There are a few brown beurres against the south wall. Run and gather us some.' 'I propose that we adjourn into the garden, and eat them there,' said Mr. Lennox. 'Nothing is so delicious as the crisp, juicy fruit, scented by the sun. The worst is, the wasps are impudent enough to dispute it.' He rose to follow Margaret outside. She made a plate for the pears out of a beetroot leaf, which threw up their colour admirably. Mr. Lennox looked more at her than at the pears; but her father, determined to make the most of the hour he had stolen from his anxiety, chose the ripest fruit, and sat down on the garden bench to enjoy it. Margaret and Mr. Lennox strolled along the little terrace-walk under the south wall, where the bees still hummed busily. 'What a perfect life you seem to live here! I have always felt rather contemptuously towards the poets, with their "Mine be a cot beside a hill," and that sort of thing: but just now I feel as if twenty years' hard study of law would be amply rewarded by one year of such an exquisite serene life as this. Such skies!' - looking up - 'such crimson and amber foliage, so perfectly motionless!' He pointed to some of the great forest trees which shut in the garden like a nest. 'Our skies are not always so deep a blue as now. We have rain, and our leaves do fall, and get sodden: though I think Helstone is about as perfect a place as any in the world. Recollect how you scorned my description of it in Harley Street: "a village in a tale."' 'Scorned, Margaret! That is rather a hard word.' 'Perhaps it is. Only I should have liked to have talked to you about Helstone, and you spoke disrespectfully of it as a mere village in a tale.' 'I will never do so again,' said he, warmly. They turned the corner. 'I could almost wish, Margaret-' He stopped and hesitated. It was so unusual for the fluent lawyer to hesitate that Margaret looked up at him in questioning wonder; but in an instant she wished herself back with her mother - her father - anywhere away from him, for she was sure he was going to say something to which she should not know what to reply. Her pride made her conquer her sudden agitation, which she hoped he had not perceived. Of course she could answer; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech. 'Margaret,' said he, getting sudden possession of her hand, so that she was forced to stand still and listen, despising herself for the fluttering of her heart. 'Margaret, I wish you did not like Helstone so much - did not seem so perfectly happy here. I have been hoping to find you regretting London - and London friends - enough to make you listen more kindly' (for she was quietly, but firmly, striving to remove her hand from his grasp) 'to one who has not much to offer apart from future prospects - but who does love you, Margaret, almost in spite of himself. Margaret, have I startled you too much? Speak!' For he saw her lips quivering almost as if she were going to cry. She made a strong effort to be calm; she would not speak till she had mastered her voice, and then she said: 'I was startled. I did not know that you cared for me in that way. I have always thought of you as a friend; and, please, I would rather go on thinking of you so. I cannot answer you as you want me to do, and yet I should feel so sorry if I vexed you.' 'Margaret,' said he, looking into her eyes, which met his with their open, straight look. 'Do you' - he was going to say, 'love anyone else?' But it seemed as if this question would be an insult. 'Forgive me. I have been too abrupt. I am punished. Only let me hope. Tell me you have never seen anyone whom you could-' Again he could not end his sentence. Margaret reproached herself as the cause of his distress. 'Ah! if only you had never got this fancy into your head! It was such a pleasure to think of you as a friend.' 'But may I not hope, Margaret, that some time you will think of me as a lover? Not yet, but some time.' She was silent, trying to discover the truth in her own heart, before replying. Then she said: 'I could never think of you except as a friend. Pray, let us both forget that all this' ('disagreeable,' she was going to say, but stopped short) 'conversation has taken place.' He paused. Then, in his habitual cold tone, he answered: 'Of course, as your feelings are so decided, and as this conversation has been so evidently unpleasant to you, it had better not be remembered. That is all very fine in theory, that plan of forgetting whatever is painful, but it will be somewhat difficult for me, at least, to carry it out.' 'You are vexed,' said she, sadly; 'yet how can I help it?' She looked so truly grieved, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone: 'You should make allowances for the mortification, not only of a lover, Margaret, but of a man not given to romance in general, who has been carried out of his usual habits by the force of a passion - well, we will say no more of that; but he meets only with rejection. I shall have to console myself with scorning my own folly. A struggling barrister to think of matrimony!' Margaret could not answer this. The whole tone of it annoyed her. It seemed to call out the points which had often repelled her; while yet he was the pleasantest man, the most sympathising friend, the person of all others who understood her best in Harley Street. She felt a tinge of contempt mingle itself with her pain at having refused him. Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain. It was well that, having made the round of the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr. Hale. He had not yet finished the pear, which he had delicately peeled in one long strip, and which he was enjoying in a deliberate manner. Margaret felt stunned, and unable to recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial conversation between her father and Mr. Lennox. She was grave; wondering when Mr. Lennox would go, and allow her to think. He was almost as anxious to depart as she was for him to leave; but a few minutes light talking was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or his self-respect. He glanced at her sad and pensive face. 'She is not so indifferent to me as she believes,' thought he. 'I do not give up hope.' He had begun conversing with quiet sarcasm, speaking of life in London and the country in a mocking manner. Mr. Hale was puzzled. His visitor was a different man to the one he had seen earlier; a lighter, cleverer, more worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr. Hale. It was a relief to all three when Mr. Lennox said that he must go to catch the train. They went to the house to find Mrs. Hale, and wish her good-bye. At the last moment, Henry Lennox's real self broke through the crust. 'Margaret, don't despise me; I have a heart, despite all this good-for-nothing way of talking. I believe I love you more than ever - if I do not hate you - for the disdain with which you have listened to me during this last half-hour. Good-bye, Margaret!'

North and South

Chapter 3: "THE MORE HASTE THE WORSE SPEED"

"Unwatch'd the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved that beech will gather brown, The maple burn itself away; Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air; * * * * * Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger's child; As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills." TENNYSON. The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being carted off at the front door, to the nearest railway station. Even the pretty lawn at the side of the house, was made unsightly and untidy by the straw that had been wafted upon it through the open door and windows. The rooms had a strange echoing sound in them,--and the light came harshly and strongly in through the uncurtained windows,--seeming already unfamiliar and strange. Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; and there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and interrupting each other every now and then to exclaim at, and turn over with fond regard, some forgotten treasure, in the shape of some relic of the children while they were yet little. They did not make much progress with their work. Down-stairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to counsel or advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte. These two last, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady could keep up so this last day, and settled it between them that she was not likely to care much for Helstone, having been so long in London. There she stood, very pale and quiet, with her large grave eyes observing everything--up to every present circumstance however small. They could not understand how her heart was aching all the time, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could lift off or relieve, and how constant exertion for her perceptive faculties was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain. Moreover, if she gave way, who was to act? Her father was examining papers, books, registers, what not, in the vestry with the clerk; and when he came in, there were his own books to pack up, which no one but himself could do to his satisfaction. Besides, was Margaret one to give way before strange men, or even household friends like the cook and Charlotte? Not she! But at last the four packers went into the kitchen to their tea; and Margaret moved stiffly and slowly away from the place in the hall where she had been standing so long, out through the bare echoing drawing-room, into the twilight of an early November evening. There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing,--perhaps, Margaret thought, the very robin that her father had so often talked of as his winter pet, and for which he had made, with his own hands, a kind of robin-house by his study-window. The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low on the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays. Margaret went along the walk under the pear-tree wall. She had never been along it since she paced it at Henry Lennox's side. Here, at this bed of thyme, he began to speak of what she must not think of now. Her eyes were on that late-blowing rose as she was trying to answer; and she had caught the idea of the vivid beauty of the feathery leaves of the carrots in the very middle of his last sentence. Only a fortnight ago! And all so changed! Where was he now? In London,--going through the old round; dining with the old Harley Street set, or with gayer young friends of his own. Even now, while she walked sadly through that damp and drear garden in the dusk, with everything falling and fading, and turning to decay around her, he might be gladly putting away his law-books after a day of satisfactory toil, and freshening himself up, as he had told her he often did, by a run in the Temple Gardens, taking in the while the grand inarticulate mighty roar of tens of thousands of busy men, nigh at hand, but not seen, and catching ever, at his quick turns, glimpses of the lights of the city coming up out of the depths of the river. He had often spoken to Margaret of these hasty walks, snatched in the intervals between study and dinner. At his best times and in his best moods had he spoken of them; and the thought of them had struck upon her fancy. Here there was no sound. The robin had gone away into the vast stillness of night. Now and then, a cottage door in the distance was opened and shut, as if to admit the tired labourer to his home; but that sounded very far away. A stealthy, creeping, cranching sound among the crisp fallen leaves of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed almost close at hand. Margaret knew it was some poacher. Sitting up in her bedroom this past autumn, with the light of her candle extinguished, and purely revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and the earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of the poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy moonlit lawn, their disappearance in the black still shadow beyond. The wild adventurous freedom of their life had taken her fancy; she felt inclined to wish them success; she had no fear of them. But to-night she was afraid, she knew not why. She heard Charlotte shutting the windows, and fastening up for the night, unconscious that any one had gone out into the garden. A small branch--it might be of rotten wood, or it might be broken by force--came heavily down in the nearest part of the forest; Margaret ran, swift as Camilla, down to the window, and rapped at it with a hurried tremulousness which startled Charlotte within. "Let me in! Let me in! It is only me, Charlotte!" Her heart did not still its fluttering till she was safe in the drawing-room, with the windows fastened and bolted, and the familiar walls hemming her round, and shutting her in. She had sate down upon a packing-case; cheerless, chill was the dreary and dismantled room--no fire, nor other light, but Charlotte's long unsnuffed candle. Charlotte looked at Margaret with surprise; and Margaret, feeling it rather than seeing it, rose up. "I was afraid you were shutting me out altogether, Charlotte," said she, half-smiling. "And then you would never have heard me in the kitchen, and the doors into the lane and churchyard are locked long ago." "Oh, miss, I should have been sure to have missed you soon. The men would have wanted you to tell them how to go on. And I have put tea in master's study, as being the most comfortable room, so to speak." "Thank you, Charlotte. You are a kind girl. I shall be sorry to leave you. You must try and write to me, if I can ever give you any little help or good advice. I shall always be glad to get a letter from Helstone, you know. I shall be sure and send you my address when I know it." The study was all ready for tea. There was a good blazing fire, and unlighted candles on the table. Margaret sat down on the rug, partly to warm herself, for the dampness of the evening hung about her dress, and over-fatigue had made her chilly. She kept herself balanced by clasping her hands together round her knees; her head dropped a little towards her chest; the attitude was one of despondency, whatever her frame of mind might be. But when she heard her father's step on the gravel outside, she started up, and hastily shaking her heavy black hair back, and wiping a few tears away that had come on her cheeks she knew not how, she went out to open the door for him. He showed far more depression than she did. She could hardly get him to talk, although she tried to speak on subjects that would interest him, at the cost of an effort every time which she thought would be her last. "Have you been a very long walk to-day?" asked she, on seeing his refusal to touch food of any kind. "As far as Fordham Beeches. I went to see Widow Maltby; she is sadly grieved at not having wished you good-bye. She says little Susan has kept watch down the lane for days past.--Nay, Margaret, what is the matter, dear?" The thought of the little child watching for her, and continually disappointed--from no forgetfulness on her part, but from sheer inability to leave home--was the last drop in poor Margaret's cup, and she was sobbing away as if her heart would break. Mr. Hale was distressingly perplexed. He rose, and walked nervously up and down the room. Margaret tried to check herself, but would not speak until she could do so with firmness. She heard him talking, as if to himself. "I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see the sufferings of others. I think I could go through my own with patience. Oh, is there no going back?" "No, father," said Margaret, looking straight at him, and speaking low and steadily. "It is bad to believe you in error. It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite." She dropped her voice at the last few words, as if entertaining the idea of hypocrisy for a moment in connection with her father savoured of irreverence. "Besides," she went on, "it is only that I am tired to-night; don't think that I am suffering from what you have done, dear papa. We can't either of us talk about it to-night, I believe," said she, finding that tears and sobs would come in spite of herself. "I had better go and take mamma up this cup of tea. She had hers very early, when I was too busy to go to her, and I am sure she will be glad of another now." Railroad time inexorably wrenched them away from lovely, beloved Helstone, the next morning. They were gone; they had seen the last of the long low parsonage home, half-covered with China-roses and pyracanthus--more homelike than ever in the morning sun that glittered on its windows, each belonging to some well-loved room. Almost before they had settled themselves into the car, sent from Southampton to fetch them to the station, they were gone away to return no more. A sting at Margaret's heart made her strive to look out to catch the last glimpse of the old church tower at the turn where she knew it might be seen above a wave of the forest trees; but her father remembered this too, and she silently acknowledged his greater right to the one window from which it could be seen. She leant back and shut her eyes, and the tears welled forth, and hung glittering for an instant on the shadowing eyelashes before rolling slowly down her cheeks, and dropping, unheeded, on her dress. They were to stop in London all night at some quiet hotel. Poor Mrs. Hale had cried in her way nearly all day long; and Dixon showed her sorrow by extreme crossness, and a continual irritable attempt to keep her petticoats from even touching the unconscious Mr. Hale, whom she regarded as the origin of all this suffering. They went through the well-known streets, past houses which they had often visited, past shops in which she had lounged, impatient, by her aunt's side, while that lady was making some important and interminable decision--nay, absolutely passed acquaintances in the streets; for though the morning had been of an incalculable length to them, and they felt as if it ought long ago to have closed in for the repose of darkness, it was the very busiest time of a London afternoon in November when they arrived there. It was long since Mrs. Hale had been in London; and she roused up, almost like a child, to look about her at the different streets, and to gaze after and exclaim at the shops and carriages,-- "Oh, there's Harrison's, where I bought so many of my wedding things. Dear! how altered! They've got immense plate-glass windows, larger than Crawford's in Southampton. Oh, and there, I declare--no, it is not--yes, it is--Margaret, we have just passed Mr. Henry Lennox. Where can he be going, among all these shops?" Margaret started forwards, and as quickly fell back, half-smiling at herself for the sudden motion. They were a hundred yards away by this time; but he seemed like a relic of Helstone--he was associated with a bright morning, an eventful day, and she should have liked to have seen him, without his seeing her,--without the chance of their speaking. The evening, without employment, passed in a room high up in an hotel, was long and heavy. Mr. Hale went out to his bookseller's, and to call on a friend or two. Every one they saw, either in the house or out in the streets, appeared hurrying to some appointment, expected by, or expecting somebody. They alone seemed strange and friendless, and desolate. Yet within a mile, Margaret knew of house after house, where she for her own sake, and her mother for her aunt Shaw's, would be welcomed, if they came in gladness, or even in peace of mind. If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends. London life is too whirling and full to admit of even an hour of that deep silence of feeling which the friends of Job showed, when "they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great."

The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being carted off to the railway station. The rooms had strange echoes, and the light came harshly and strongly in through the uncurtained windows. The house seemed already unfamiliar. Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and now and then exclaiming fondly on some forgotten treasure, or relic of the children when they were little. They did not make much progress with their work. Downstairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte. These two, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady could keep up so, and agreed that she probably did not care much for Helstone, having been so long in London. There she stood, very pale and quiet, with her large grave eyes observing everything. They could not understand how her heart was aching, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could relieve. Constant exertion was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain. Moreover, if she gave way, who was to manage? Her father was examining papers, books, registers and what not, in the vestry with the clerk; and he had his own books to pack up. Besides, was Margaret one to give way before strange men, or even household friends like the cook and Charlotte? Not she. But at last the four packers went into the kitchen to their tea; and Margaret moved stiffly and slowly away from her place in the hall, through the bare echoing drawing-room, out into the twilight of an early November evening. There was a veil of soft dull mist obscuring all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing. The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low on the ground. Already one or two were floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays. Margaret went along the walk under the pear-tree wall. She had never been along it since she paced it at Henry Lennox's side. Here he began to speak of what she must not think of now. Only a fortnight ago! And all so changed! Where was he now? In London; dining with the Harley Street set, or with friends of his own. Even now, while she walked sadly through that damp and drear garden in the dusk, with everything falling and fading, and turning to decay around her, he might be gladly putting away his law-books, and freshening himself up, as he had told her he often did, by a run in the Temple Gardens, hearing the roar of the city and catching glimpses of its lights in the river. Here there was no sound. The robin had gone away into the vast stillness of night. Now and then, a distant cottage door opened and shut, as if to admit the tired labourer to his home. A stealthy, creeping, crunching sound among the crisp fallen leaves of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed closer. Margaret knew it was some poacher. From her bedroom, with her candle extinguished, and revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy moonlit lawn to disappear in the black still shadow beyond. She had felt no fear of them. But tonight she was afraid, she knew not why. She heard Charlotte locking up for the night, unaware that anyone had gone out into the garden. A small branch came down heavily in the forest. Margaret ran to the window, and rapped at it hurriedly. 'Let me in, Charlotte!' Her heart did not stop fluttering till she was safe in the drawing-room, with the windows fastened. Chill was the dreary and dismantled room, with no fire or light but Charlotte's candle. 'I was afraid you were shutting me out, Charlotte,' said Margaret, half-smiling. 'And then you would never have heard me in the kitchen.' 'Oh, miss, I should have been sure to have missed you. I have put tea in master's study, as being the most comfortable room.' 'Thank you, Charlotte. You are a kind girl. I shall be sorry to leave you. You must try and write to me. I shall always be glad to get a letter from Helstone, you know.' In the study, there was a good blazing fire. Margaret sat down on the rug to warm herself, clasping her hands round her knees; her head dropped a little in despondency. But when she heard her father's step outside, she started up, and hastily shaking back her heavy black hair, and wiping a few tears away, she went to open the door for him. He showed far more depression than she did. She could hardly get him to talk, despite her efforts. 'Have you been for a very long walk today?' asked she, on seeing his refusal to touch any food. 'To Fordham Beeches. I went to see Widow Maltby; she is sadly grieved at not having wished you good-bye. She says little Susan has kept watch down the lane for days past. - Nay, Margaret, what is the matter, dear?' The thought of the child watching for her, and continually disappointed - from no forgetfulness on her part, but from sheer inability to leave home - was the last drop in poor Margaret's cup, and she was sobbing as if her heart would break. Mr. Hale was perplexed. Margaret tried to check herself, but could not yet speak. She heard him talking to himself. 'I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see the sufferings of others. Oh, is there no going back?' 'No, father,' said Margaret, looking straight at him, and speaking low and steadily. 'It is bad to believe you in error, but it would be infinitely worse to think you a hypocrite. It is only that I am tired tonight; I am not suffering from what you have done, dear papa.' Finding that tears would come in spite of herself, she added, 'I had better go and take mamma this cup of tea.' The next morning they were wrenched away from beloved Helstone. They had seen the last of the long low parsonage, half-covered with China-roses and pyracanthus. In the carriage to the station, Margaret strove to catch the last glimpse of the old church tower above the forest trees; but her father was looking for it too, and she silently acknowledged his greater right to the window from which it could be seen. She leant back and shut her eyes, the tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. They were to stop in London overnight. Poor Mrs. Hale had cried nearly all day; and Dixon showed her sorrow by extreme crossness, and an irritable attempt to keep her skirts from touching Mr. Hale, whom she regarded as the cause of all this suffering. It was the very busiest time of a London afternoon in November when they arrived. It was long since Mrs. Hale had been in London; and she roused up, almost like a child, to look at the streets, and exclaim at the shops and carriages. 'Oh, there's Harrison's, where I bought so many of my wedding-things. Dear! how altered! They've got immense plate-glass windows, larger than Crawford's in Southampton. Oh, I declare - Margaret, we have just passed Mr. Henry Lennox. Where can he be going, among all these shops?' Margaret started forwards, and then quickly fell back, half-smiling at herself. They were a hundred yards away by this time; but he seemed like a relic of Helstone - he was associated with a bright morning, an eventful day, and she should have liked to have seen him, without his seeing her. The long evening was passed in an hotel. Everyone they saw appeared hurrying to some appointment. They alone seemed friendless and desolate. Yet within a mile, Margaret knew of house after house where she and her mother would be welcomed, if they came in gladness. But if they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in their complicated trouble, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these acquaintances' homes. London life is too whirling and full to allow that deep silence of feeling which the friends of Job showed, when 'they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great.'

North and South

Chapter 6: FAREWELL

"Old and young, boy, let 'em all eat, I have it; Let 'em have ten tire of teeth a-piece, I care not. ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY. Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard and seen that she hardly knew how to rouse herself up to the duties which awaited her; the necessity for keeping up a constant flow of cheerful conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out, always looked to Margaret's return from the shortest walk as bringing in some news. "And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?" "She was so ill I never thought of asking her," said Margaret, dolefully. "Dear! Everybody is ill now, I think," said Mrs. Hale, with a little of the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another. "But it must be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets." (Her kindly nature prevailing, and the old Helstone habits of thought returning.) "It's bad enough here. What could you do for her, Margaret? Mr. Thornton has sent me some of his old port wine since you went out. Would a bottle of that do her good, think you?" "No, mamma! I don't believe they are very poor,--at least, they don't speak as if they were; and, at any rate, Bessy's illness is consumption--she won't want wine. Perhaps, I might take her a little preserve, made of our dear Helstone fruit. No! there's another family to whom I should like to give--Oh mamma, mamma! how am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I've seen to-day?" exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had preordained for herself before she came in, and telling her mother what she had seen and heard at Higgins's cottage. It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively. It made her restlessly irritated till she could do something. She directed Margaret to pack up a basket in the very drawing-room, to be sent there and then to the family; and was almost angry with her for saying, that it would not signify if it did not go till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy. Mrs. Hale called her unfeeling for saying this; and never gave herself breathing-time till the basket was sent out of the house. Then she said: "After all, we may have been doing wrong. It was only the last time Mr. Thornton was here that he said, those were no true friends who helped to prolong the struggle by assisting the turn-outs. And this Boucher-man was a turn-out, was he not?" The question was referred to Mr. Hale by his wife, when he came upstairs, fresh from giving a lesson to Mr. Thornton, which had ended in conversation, as was their wont. Margaret did not care if their gifts had prolonged the strife; she did not think far enough for that, in her present excited state. Mr. Hale listened, and tried to be as calm as a judge; he recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise. His wife and daughter had not only done quite right in this instance, but he did not see for a moment how they could have done otherwise. Nevertheless, as a general rule, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said, that as the strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters bringing hands from a distance (if, indeed, the final result were not, as it had often been before, the invention of some machine which would diminish the need of hands at all), why, it was clear enough that the kindest thing was to refuse all help which might bolster them up in their folly. But as to this Boucher, he would go and see him the first thing in the morning, and try and find out what could be done for him. Mr. Hale went the next morning, as he proposed. He did not find Boucher at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised to ask for an Infirmary order for; and, seeing the plenty provided by Mrs. Hale, and somewhat lavishly used by the children, who were masters downstairs in their father's absence, he came back with a more consoling and cheerful account than Margaret had dared to hope for; indeed, what she had said the night before had prepared her father for so much worse a state of things that, by a re-action of his imagination, he described all as better than it really was. "But I will go again, and see the man himself," said Mr. Hale. "I hardly know as yet how to compare one of these houses with our Helstone cottages. I see furniture here which our labourers would never have thought of buying, and food commonly used which they would consider luxuries; yet for these very families there seems no other resource now that their weekly wages are stopped, but the pawn-shop. One had need to learn a different standard, up here in Milton." Bessy, too, was rather better this day. Still she was so weak that she seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see Margaret dressed--if, indeed, that had not been the feverish desire of a half delirious state. Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers, to go where she did not care to be--her heart heavy with various anxieties--with the old, merry, girlish toilettes that she and Edith had performed scarcely more than a year ago. Her only pleasure now in decking herself out was in thinking that her mother would take delight in seeing her dressed. She blushed when Dixon, throwing the drawing-room door open, made an appeal for admiration. "Miss Hale looks well, ma'am,--doesn't she? Mrs. Shaw's coral couldn't have come in better. It just gives the right touch of colour, ma'am. Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too pale." Margaret's black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness compressed into massive coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a large spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together by two large coral pins, like small arrows for length. Her white silk sleeves were looped up with strings of the same material, and on her neck, just below the base of her curved and milk-white throat, there lay heavy coral beads. "Oh, Margaret! how I should like to be going with you to one of the old Barrington assemblies,--taking you as Lady Beresford used to take me." Margaret kissed her mother for this little burst of maternal vanity; but she could hardly smile at it, she felt so much out of spirits. "I would rather stay at home with you,--much rather, mamma." "Nonsense, darling! Be sure you notice the dinner well. I shall like to hear how they manage these things in Milton. Particularly the second course, dear. Look what they have instead of game." Mrs. Hale would have been more than interested,--she would have been astonished, if she had seen the sumptuousness of the dinner-table and its appointments. Margaret, with her London cultivated taste, felt the number of delicacies to be oppressive; one half of the quantity would have been enough, and the effect tighter and more elegant. But it was one of Mrs. Thornton's rigorous laws of hospitality, that of each separate dainty enough should be provided for all the guests to partake, if they felt inclined. Careless to abstemiousness in her daily habits, it was part of her pride to set a feast before such of her guests as cared for it. Her son shared this feeling. He had never known--though he might have imagined, and had the capability to relish--any kind of society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals: and even now, though he was denying himself the personal expenditure of an unnecessary sixpence, and had more than once regretted that the invitations for this dinner had been sent out, still, as it was to be, he was glad to see the old magnificence of preparation. Margaret and her father were the first to arrive. Mr. Hale was anxiously punctual to the time specified. There was no one upstairs in the drawing-room but Mrs. Thornton and Fanny. Every cover was taken off, and the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly flowered carpet. Every corner seemed filled up with ornament, until it became a weariness to the eye, and presented a strange contrast to the bald ugliness of the look-out into the great mill-yard, where wide folding gates were thrown open for the admission of carriages. The mill loomed high on the left-hand side of the windows, casting a shadow down from its many stories, which darkened the summer evening before its time. "My son was engaged up to the last moment on business. He will be here directly, Mr. Hale. May I beg you to take a seat?" Mr. Hale was standing at one of the windows as Mrs. Thornton spoke. He turned away, saying, "Don't you find such close neighbourhood to the mill rather unpleasant at times?" She drew herself up: "Never. I am not become so fine as to desire to forget the source of my son's wealth and power. Besides, there is not such another factory in Milton. One room alone is two hundred and twenty square yards." "I meant that the smoke and the noise--the constant going out and coming in of the workpeople, might be annoying!" "I agree with you, Mr. Hale!" said Fanny. "There is a continual smell of steam and oily machinery--and the noise is perfectly deafening." "I have heard noise that was called music far more deafening. The engine-room is at the street-end of the factory; we hardly hear it, except in summer weather, when all the windows are open; and as for the continual murmur of the workpeople, it disturbs me no more than the humming of a hive of bees. If I think of it at all, I connect it with my son, and feel how all belongs to him, and that his is the head that directs it. Just now, there are no sounds to come from the mill; the hands have been ungrateful enough to turn out, as perhaps you have heard. But the very business (of which I spoke when you entered), had reference to the steps he is going to take to make them learn their place." The expression on her face, always stern, deepened into dark anger, as she said this. Nor did it clear away when Mr. Thornton entered the room; for she saw in an instant, the weight of care and anxiety which he could not shake off, although his guests received from him a greeting that appeared both cheerful and cordial. He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact. He inquired after Mrs. Hale, and heard Mr. Hale's sanguine, hopeful account; and, glancing to Margaret, to understand how far she agreed with her father, he saw that no dissenting shadow crossed her face. And as he looked with this intention, he was struck anew with her great beauty. He had never seen her in such dress before; and yet now it appeared that such elegance of attire was so befitting her noble figure and lofty serenity of countenance that she ought to go always thus apparelled. She was talking to Fanny; about what he could not hear; but he saw his sister's restless way of continually arranging some part of her gown, her wandering eyes, now glancing here, now there, but without any purpose in her observation; and he contrasted them uneasily with the large soft eyes that looked forth steadily at one object, as if from out their light beamed some gentle influence of repose: the curving lines of the red lips, just parted in the interest of listening to what her companion said--the head a little bent forwards, so as to make a long sweeping line from the summit, where the light caught on the glossy raven hair, to the smooth ivory tip of the shoulder; the round white arms, and taper hands, laid lightly across each other, but perfectly motionless in their pretty attitude. Mr. Thornton sighed as he took in all this with one of his sudden comprehensive glances. And then he turned his back to the young ladies, and threw himself, with an effort, but with all his heart and soul, into a conversation with Mr. Hale. More people came--more and more. Fanny left Margaret's side and helped her mother to receive her guests. Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent neglect. But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing--or not doing--better than he knew the movements of any one else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed or not. Somebody took her down to dinner; she did not catch the name; nor did he seem much inclined to talk to her. There was a very animated conversation going on among the gentlemen; the ladies, for the most part, were silent, employing themselves in taking notes of the dinner and criticising each other's dresses. Margaret caught the clue to the general conversation, grew interested and listened attentively. Mr. Horsfall, the stranger, whose visit to the town was the original germ of the party, was asking questions relative to the trade and manufactures of the place; and the rest of the gentlemen--all Milton men--were giving him answers and explanations. Some dispute arose, which was warmly contested; it was referred to Mr. Thornton, who had hardly spoken before; but who now gave an opinion, the grounds of which were so clearly stated that even the opponents yielded. Margaret's attention was thus called to her host; his whole manner, as master of the house, and entertainer of his friends, was so straightforward, yet simple and modest, as to be thoroughly dignified. Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much advantage. When he had come to their house, there had been always something, either of over-eagerness or of that kind of vexed annoyance which seemed ready to pre-suppose that he was unjustly judged, and yet felt too proud to try and make himself better understood. But now, among his fellows, there was no uncertainty as to his position. He was regarded by them as a man of great force of character; of power in many ways. There was no need to struggle for their respect. He had it, and he knew it; and the security of this gave a fine grand quietness to his voice and ways, which Margaret had missed before. He was not in the habit of talking to ladies; and what he did say was a little formal. To Margaret herself he hardly spoke at all. She was surprised to think how much she enjoyed this dinner. She knew enough now to understand many local interests--nay, even some of the technical words employed by the eager millowners. She silently took a very decided part in the question they were discussing. At any rate, they talked in desperate earnest,--not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the old London parties. She wondered that, with all this dwelling on the manufacturers and trade of the place, no allusion was made to the strike then pending. She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by the masters, as having only one possible end. To be sure, the men were cutting their own throats, as they had done many a time before; but if they would be fools, and put themselves into the hands of a rascally set of paid delegates, they must take the consequence. One or two thought Thornton looked out of spirits; and, of course, he must lose by this turn-out. But it was an accident that might happen to themselves any day; and Thornton was as good to manage a strike as any one; for he was as iron a chap as any in Milton. The hands had mistaken their man in trying that dodge on him. And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the workmen's discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of what Thornton had decreed. It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father's eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about. She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be. If in her cooler moments she might not approve of the spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time which none of them would live to see. She was rather startled when Mr. Thornton spoke to her close at her elbow: "I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner,--were you not, Miss Hale?" "Certainly. But then I know so little about it. I was surprised, however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who thought in so diametrically opposite a manner, as the Mr. Morison he spoke about. He cannot be a gentleman--is he?" "I am not quite the person to decide on another's gentlemanliness, Miss Hale. I mean, I don't quite understand your application of the word. But I should say that this Morison is no true man. I don't know who he is; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall's account." "I suspect my 'gentleman' includes your 'true man.'" "And a great deal more, you would imply. I differ from you. A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman." "What do you mean?" asked Margaret. "We must understand the words differently." "I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity. A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe--a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life--nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as 'a man.' I am rather weary of this word 'gentlemanly,' which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun 'man,' and the adjective 'manly' are acknowledged--that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day." Margaret thought a moment--but before she could speak her slow conviction, he was called away by some of the eager manufacturers, whose speeches she could not hear, though she could guess at their import by the short clear answers Mr. Thornton gave, which came steady and firm as the boom of a distant minute gun. They were evidently talking of the turn-out, and suggesting what course had best be pursued. She heard Mr. Thornton say: "That has been done." Then came a hurried murmur, in which two or three joined. "All those arrangements have been made." Some doubts were implied, some difficulties named by Mr. Slickson, who took hold of Mr. Thornton's arm, the better to impress his words. Mr. Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows a very little, and then replied: "I take the risk. You need not join in it unless you choose." Still some more fears were urged. "I'm not afraid of anything so dastardly as incendiarism. We are open enemies; and I can protect myself from any violence that I apprehend. And I will assuredly protect all others who come to me for work. They know my determination by this time, as well and as fully as you do." Mr. Horsfall took him a little on one side, as Margaret conjectured, to ask him some other question about the strike; but, in truth, it was to inquire who she herself was--so quiet, so stately, and so beautiful. "A Milton lady?" asked he, as the name was given. "No! from the south of England--Hampshire, I believe," was the cold, indifferent answer. Mrs. Slickson was catechising Fanny on the same subject. "Who is that fine distinguished-looking girl? a sister of Mr. Horsfall's?" "Oh dear, no! That is Mr. Hale, her father, talking now to Mr. Stephens. He gives lessons; that is to say, he reads with young men. My brother John goes to him twice a week, and so he begged mamma to ask them here, in hopes of getting him known. I believe we have some of their prospectuses, if you would like to have one." "Mr. Thornton! Does he really find time to read with a tutor, in the midst of all his business,--and this abominable strike in hand as well?" Fanny was not sure, from Mrs. Slickson's manner, whether she ought to be proud or ashamed of her brother's conduct; and, like all people who try and take other people's "ought" for the rule of their feelings, she was inclined to blush for any singularity of action. Her shame was interrupted by the dispersion of the guests.

Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard that she could hardly keep up a flow of cheerful conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out, always looked to Margaret to bring some news. 'And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?' 'She was so ill I never thought of asking her,' said Margaret, dolefully. 'Dear! Everybody is ill now, I think,' said Mrs. Hale, with a little of the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another. 'But it must be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets.' (Her kindly nature prevailing.) 'Mr. Thornton has sent me some old port wine. Would a bottle of that do her good, think you?' 'No, mamma. I don't believe they are very poor; and Bessy's illness is consumption - she won't want wine. Perhaps I might take her a little fruit preserve. No! there's another family to whom I should like to give - Oh mamma! how am I to dress up in my finery, and go to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?' exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had set for herself, and telling her mother about John Boucher. It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively. She told Margaret to pack up a basket, to be sent there and then to the family; and was almost angry with her for saying that it would wait till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy. Mrs. Hale called her unfeeling, and ordered the basket to be sent out of the house. Then she said: 'After all, we may have been doing wrong. Mr. Thornton said, those were no true friends who helped to prolong the struggle by assisting the turn-outs. And this Boucher-man was a turn-out, was he not?' She asked this of Mr. Hale when he came upstairs, after giving a lesson to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Hale listened, and tried to judge calmly; he recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise. He did not see how his wife and daughter could have done otherwise. Nevertheless, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said; that the strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters' bringing hands from a distance, so the kindest thing was to refuse all help which might bolster them up in their folly. But, as to this Boucher, he would go and see him first thing in the morning, and try and find out what could be done for him. Mr. Hale went the next morning. He did not find Boucher at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised to ask for an Infirmary order for her; and, seeing the plenty provided by Mrs. Hale, and somewhat lavishly used by the children, who were masters in their father's absence, he came back with a more cheerful account than Margaret had hoped for. 'But I will go again, and see the man himself,' said Mr. Hale. 'I hardly know how to compare these houses with our Helstone cottages. I see furniture here which our labourers would never have thought of buying, and food which they would consider luxuries; yet for these very families there seems no other resource, now that their wages are stopped, but the pawn-shop. One needs to measure by a different standard, up here in Milton.' Bessy, too, was rather better this day; although still so weak that she seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see Margaret dressed up. Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers - her heart heavy with anxieties - with the old, merry preparations that she and Edith had performed scarcely more than a year ago. Her only pleasure now in decking herself out was in thinking that her mother would take delight in seeing her dressed. She blushed when Dixon admired her. 'Miss Hale looks well, ma'am, doesn't she? Mrs. Shaw's coral gives the right touch of colour. Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too pale.' Margaret's black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round into massive silky coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together by two large coral pins. On her neck, just below her curved white throat, there lay heavy coral beads. 'Oh, Margaret! how I should like to be going with you to one of the old Barrington assemblies.' Margaret kissed her mother, but said, 'I would rather stay at home with you, mamma.' 'Nonsense, darling! Be sure you take note of the dinner. I shall like to hear how they manage these things in Milton.' Mrs. Hale would have been astonished if she had seen the sumptuousness of the dinner-table. Margaret felt the number of delicacies to be oppressive; half would have been enough, and the effect more elegant. But it was one of Mrs. Thornton's rigorous laws of hospitality that enough should be provided of each separate dainty for all the guests to partake, if they wished. Abstemious herself, it was part of her pride to set a feast before her guests. Her son shared this feeling. He had never known any kind of society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals; and even though he was denying himself any unnecessary personal expense, and had regretted that the invitations for this dinner had been sent out, still he was glad to see the old magnificence. Mr. Hale was anxiously punctual, and Margaret and her father were the first to arrive. There was no one in the drawing-room but Mrs. Thornton and Fanny. The covers were taken off, and the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly-flowered carpet. Every corner seemed filled up with ornament, until it wearied the eye, and presented a strange contrast to the bald ugliness of the view into the great mill-yard, where the gates were thrown open to admit carriages. The mill loomed high on the left, casting a long shadow which darkened the summer evening. 'My son will be here directly, Mr. Hale. May I beg you to take a seat?' Mr. Hale was standing at one of the windows as Mrs. Thornton spoke. He turned away, saying, 'Don't you find such close neighbourhood to the mill rather unpleasant at times?' She drew herself up. 'Never. I am not become so fine as to desire to forget the source of my son's wealth and power. Besides, there is not another such factory in Milton. One room alone is two hundred and twenty square yards.' 'I meant that the smoke and the noise - the constant going in and out of people, might be annoying.' 'I agree with you, Mr. Hale!' said Fanny. 'There is a continual smell of steam and oil - and the noise is perfectly deafening.' 'I have heard noise that was called music far more deafening. The engine-room is at the other end of the factory; we hardly hear it, except when all the windows are open. As for the work-people, they disturb me no more than the humming of a hive of bees. Just now, there are no sounds from the mill; the hands have been ungrateful enough to turn out, as perhaps you have heard. But my son is going to make them learn their place.' The expression on her face, always stern, deepened into dark anger as she said this. Nor did it clear when Mr. Thornton entered the room; for she saw, in an instant, the weight of care which he could not shake off, although his guests received a cheerful greeting. He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact. He inquired after Mrs. Hale, and heard Mr. Hale's hopeful account; and glancing at Margaret, he saw that no dissenting shadow crossed her face. As he looked, he was struck anew with her great beauty. He had never seen her in such dress before; her elegant attire befitted her noble figure and serene face. She was talking to Fanny; about what, he could not hear. He saw his sister's restless way of constantly re-arranging her gown, her eyes wandering without any purpose; and he contrasted them uneasily with the large soft eyes that looked steadily at one object; the curving red lips, just parted in listening - the head a little bent forwards, so as to make a long sweeping line from the glossy raven hair to the smooth ivory tip of the shoulder; the round white arms, and hands laid lightly across each other. Mr. Thornton sighed as he took in all this with a sudden comprehensive glance. And then he turned his back on the young ladies, and threw himself, with an effort, into a conversation with Mr. Hale. More people came. Fanny left Margaret's side, and helped her mother to receive her guests. Mr. Thornton felt that no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless; but he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing better than he knew the movements of anyone else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed. Somebody took her down to dinner; she did not catch the name; nor did he seem much inclined to talk to her. There was a very animated conversation going on among the gentlemen; Margaret grew interested and listened attentively. Mr. Horsfall, a stranger to the town, was asking about Milton's trade and manufactures; and the rest of the gentlemen were giving him answers and explanations. Some dispute arose, and was referred to Mr. Thornton, who had hardly spoken; but who now gave an opinion so clearly that the opponents yielded. His whole manner as master of the house, and entertainer of his friends, was so straightforward, yet simple and modest, as to be thoroughly dignified. Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much advantage. When he had come to their house, there had been always some over-eagerness or vexed annoyance which seemed ready to pre-suppose that he was unjustly judged. But now, among his fellows, there was no uncertainty as to his position. He was regarded by them as a man of great force of character; of power in many ways. He had their respect, and he knew it; and the security of this gave a fine grand quietness to his voice and manner. Margaret was surprised at how much she enjoyed this dinner. She knew enough now to understand many local interests - even some of the technical words used by the eager mill-owners. They talked in desperate earnest, not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the old London parties. She wondered that no one mentioned the strike. She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by the masters, as having only one possible end. To be sure, the men were cutting their own throats; but if they would be fools, they must take the consequence. One or two thought Thornton looked out of spirits; of course, he must lose by this turn-out. But Thornton could manage a strike, for he was as iron a chap as any in Milton. And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the workmen's discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of what Thornton had decreed. It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, because she could listen to something larger than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about. She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication caused by what had been achieved, and what yet should be. If she might not approve of their spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time. She was rather startled when Mr. Thornton spoke to her, close at her elbow: 'I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner - were you not, Miss Hale?' 'Certainly. But then I know so little about it. I was surprised, however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who thought so differently, like the Mr. Morison he mentioned. He cannot be a gentleman - is he?' 'I cannot decide on another's gentlemanliness, Miss Hale. I mean, I don't quite understand your application of the word. But I should say that this Morison is no true man. I don't know him; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall's account.' 'I suspect my "gentleman" includes your "true man."' 'And a great deal more, you would imply. I differ from you. A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.' 'What do you mean?' asked Margaret. 'I take it that "gentleman" is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as "a man," we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself - to life - to eternity. I am rather weary of this word "gentlemanly," which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and with much distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of "man" and "manly" are unacknowledged.' Margaret thought a moment - but before she could speak, he was called away by the eager manufacturers. Although she could not hear their questions, she could guess at them by the short, firm answers Mr. Thornton gave. They were evidently talking of the turn-out, and suggesting what course to take. She heard Mr. Thornton say: 'That has been done. All those arrangements have been made.' Some doubts were implied by Mr. Slickson, who took hold of Mr. Thornton's arm. Mr. Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows, and replied: 'I take the risk. You need not join in it unless you choose. I'm not afraid; I can protect myself from any violence. And I will assuredly protect all others who come to me for work. They know my determination by this time.' Mr. Horsfall took him on one side. Margaret assumed it was to ask him some question about the strike; but, in truth, it was to inquire who she herself was - so quiet, so stately, and so beautiful. 'A Milton lady?' asked he. 'No! from the south - Hampshire, I believe,' was the cold, indifferent answer. Mrs. Slickson was questioning Fanny on the same subject. 'Who is that fine distinguished-looking girl?' 'Oh! Mr. Hale there is her father. He gives lessons; my brother John goes to him twice a week, and so he begged mamma to ask them here, in hopes of getting him known.' 'Does Mr. Thornton really find time to read with a tutor, in the midst of all his business - and this abominable strike as well?' Fanny was not sure, from Mrs. Slickson's manner, whether she ought to be proud or ashamed of her brother; she was inclined to blush. Her shame was interrupted by the dispersion of the guests.

North and South

Chapter 20: MEN AND GENTLEMEN

"My heart revolts within me, and two voices Make themselves audible within my bosom." WALLENSTEIN. On Margaret's return home she found two letters on the table: one was a note for her mother,--the other, which had come by the post, was evidently from her aunt Shaw--covered with foreign post-marks--thin, silvery, and rustling. She took up the other, and was examining it, when her father came in suddenly: "So your mother is tired, and gone to bed early! I'm afraid, such a thundery day was not the best in the world for the doctor to see her. What did he say? Dixon tells me he spoke to you about her." Margaret hesitated. Her father's looks became more grave and anxious: "He does not think her seriously ill?" "Not at present; she needs care, he says; he was very kind, and he said he would call again, and see how his medicines worked." "Only care?--he did not recommend change of air?--he did not say this smoky town was doing her any harm, did he, Margaret?" "No! not a word," she replied, gravely. "He was anxious, I think." "Doctors have that anxious manner; its professional," said he. Margaret saw, in her father's nervous ways, that the first impression of possible danger was made upon his mind, in spite of all his making light of what she told him. He could not forget the subject,--could not pass from it to other things; he kept recurring to it through the evening, with an unwillingness to receive even the slightest unfavourable idea, which made Margaret inexpressibly sad. "This letter is from Aunt Shaw, papa. She has got to Naples, and finds it too hot, so she has taken apartments at Sorrento. But I don't think she likes Italy." "He did not say anything about diet, did he?" "It was to be nourishing, and digestible. Mamma's appetite is pretty good, I think." "Yes! and that makes it all the more strange he should have thought of speaking about diet." "I asked him, papa." Another pause. Then Margaret went on: "Aunt Shaw says she has sent me some coral ornaments, papa: but," added Margaret, half smiling, "she's afraid the Milton dissenters won't appreciate them. She has got all her ideas of Dissenters from the Quakers, has she not?" "If ever you hear or notice that your mother wishes for anything, be sure you let me know. I am so afraid she does not tell me always what she would like. Pray, see after that girl Mrs. Thornton named. If we had a good, efficient house-servant, Dixon could be constantly with her, and I'd answer for it we'd soon set her up amongst us, if care will do it. She's been very much tired of late, with the hot weather, and the difficulty of getting a servant. A little rest will put her quite to rights--eh, Margaret?" "I hope so," said Margaret,--but so sadly, that her father took notice of it. He pinched her cheek. "Come; if you look so pale as this, I must rouge you up a little. Take care of yourself, child, or you'll be wanting the doctor next." But he could not settle to anything that evening. He was continually going backwards and forwards, on laborious tiptoe, to see if his wife was still asleep. Margaret's heart ached at his restlessness--his trying to stifle and strangle the hideous fear that was looming out of the dark places of his heart. He came back at last, somewhat comforted. "She's awake now, Margaret. She quite smiled as she saw me standing by her. Just her old smile. And she says she feels refreshed, and ready for tea. Where's the note for her? She want's to see it. I'll read it to her while you make tea." The note proved to be a formal invitation from Mrs. Thornton, to Mr., Mrs., and Miss Hale to dinner, on the twenty-first instant. Margaret was surprised to find an acceptance contemplated, after all she had learnt of sad probabilities during the day. But so it was. The idea of her husband's and daughter's going to this dinner had quite captivated Mrs. Hale's fancy, even before Margaret had heard the contents of the note. It was an event to diversify the monotony of the invalid's life; and she clung to the idea of their going, with even fretful pertinacity, when Margaret objected. "Nay, Margaret: if she wishes it, I'm sure we'll both go willingly. She never would wish it unless she felt herself really stronger--really better than we thought she was, eh, Margaret?" said Mr. Hale, anxiously, as she prepared to write the note of acceptance, the next day. "Eh! Margaret?" questioned he, with a nervous motion of his hands. It seemed cruel to refuse him the comfort he craved for. And besides, his passionate refusal to admit the existence of fear, almost inspired Margaret herself with hope. "I do think she is better since last night," said she. "Her eyes look brighter, and her complexion clearer." "God bless you," said her father earnestly. "But is it true? Yesterday was so sultry every one felt ill. It was a most unlucky day for Mr. Donaldson to see her on." So he went away to his day's duties, now increased by the preparation of some lectures he had promised to deliver to the working people at a neighbouring Lyceum. He had chosen Ecclesiastical Architecture as his subject, rather more in accordance with his own taste and knowledge than as falling in with the character of the place or the desire for particular kinds of information among those to whom he was to lecture. And the institution itself, being in debt, was only too glad to get a gratis course from an educated and accomplished man like Mr. Hale, let the subject be what it might. "Well, mother," asked Mr. Thornton that night, "who have accepted your invitations for the twenty-first?" "Fanny, where are the notes? The Slicksons accept, Collingbrooks accept, Stephenses accept, Browns decline. Hales--father and daughter come--mother too great an invalid--Macphersons come, and Mr. Horsfall, and Mr. Young. I was thinking of asking the Porters, as the Browns can't come." "Very good. Do you know, I'm really afraid Mrs. Hale is very far from well, from what Dr. Donaldson says." "It's strange of them to accept a dinner-invitation if she's very ill," said Fanny. "I didn't say very ill," said her brother, rather sharply. "I only said far from well. They may not know it either." And then he suddenly remembered that, from what Dr. Donaldson had told him, Margaret, at any rate, must be aware of the exact state of the case. "Very probably they are quite aware of what you said yesterday, John--of the great advantage it would be to them--to Mr. Hale, I mean, to be introduced to such people as the Stephenses and the Collingbrooks." "I'm sure that motive would not influence them. No! I think I understand how it is." "John!" said Fanny, laughing in her little, weak, nervous way. "How you profess to understand these Hales, and how you never will allow that we can know anything about them. Are they really so very different to most people one meets with?" She did not mean to vex him; but if she had intended it, she could not have done it more thoroughly. He chafed in silence, however, not deigning to reply to her question. "They do not seem to me out of the common way," said Mrs. Thornton. "He appears a worthy kind of man enough; rather too simple for trade--so it's perhaps as well he should have been a clergyman first, and now a teacher. She's a bit of a fine lady, with her invalidism; and as for the girl--she's the only one who puzzles me when I think about her,--which I don't often do. She seems to have a great notion of giving herself airs; and I can't make out why. I could almost fancy she thinks herself too good for her company at times. And yet they're not rich; from all I can hear they never have been." "And she's not accomplished, mamma. She can't play." "Go on, Fanny. What else; does she want to bring her up to your standard?" "Nay! John," said his mother, "that speech of Fanny's did no harm. I myself heard Miss Hale say she could not play. If you would let us alone, we could perhaps like her, and see her merits." "I'm sure I never could!" murmured Fanny, protected by her mother. Mr. Thornton heard, but did not care to reply. He was walking up and down the dining-room, wishing that his mother would order candles, and allow him to set to work at either reading or writing, and so put a stop to the conversation. But he never thought of interfering in any of the small domestic regulations that Mrs. Thornton observed, in habitual remembrance of her old economies. "Mother," said he, stopping, and bravely speaking out the truth, "I wish you would like Miss Hale." "Why," asked she, startled by his earnest, yet tender manner. "You're never thinking of marrying her?--a girl without a penny." "She would never have me," said he, with a short laugh. "No, I don't think she would," answered his mother. "She laughed in my face, when I praised her for speaking out something Mr. Bell had said in your favour. I liked the girl for doing so frankly, for it made me sure she had no thought of you; and the next minute she vexed me so by seeming to think---- Well, never mind! Only you're right in saying she's too good an opinion of herself to think of you! The saucy jade! I should like to know where she'd find a better!" "Well, as I'm just as much convinced of the truth of what you have been saying as you can be; and as I have no thought or expectation of ever asking her to be my wife, you'll believe me for the future that I'm quite disinterested in speaking about her. I foresee trouble for that girl--perhaps, want of motherly care--and I only wish you to be ready to be a friend to her, in case she needs one. Now, Fanny," said he, "I trust you have delicacy enough to understand, that it is as great an injury to Miss Hale as to me--in fact, she would think it a greater--to suppose that I have any reason, more than I now give, for begging you and my mother to show her every kindly attention." "I cannot forgive her her pride," said his mother; "I will befriend her, if there is need, for your asking, John. I would befriend Jezebel herself if you asked me. But this girl, who turns up her nose at us all--who turns up her nose at you----" "Nay, mother; I have never yet put myself, and I mean never to put myself, within reach of her contempt." "Contempt, indeed!"--(One of Mrs. Thornton's expressive snorts.)--"Don't go on speaking of Miss Hale, John, if I've to be kind to her. When I'm with her, I don't know if I like or dislike her most; but when I think of her, and hear you talk of her, I hate her. I can see she's given herself airs to you as well as if you'd told me out." "And if she has," said he--and then he paused for a moment--then went on: "I'm not a lad, to be cowed by a proud look from a woman, or to care for her misunderstanding me and my position. I can laugh at it!" "To be sure! and at her too, with her fine notions, and haughty tosses!" "I only wonder why you talk so much about her, then," said Fanny. "I'm sure, I'm tired enough of the subject." "Well!" said her brother, with a shade of bitterness. "Suppose we find some more agreeable subject. What do you say to a strike, by way of something pleasant to talk about?" "Have the hands actually turned out?" asked Mrs. Thornton, with vivid interest. "Hamper's men are actually out. Mine are working out their week, through fear of being prosecuted for breach of contract. I'd have had every one of them up and punished for it, that left his work before his time was out." "The law expenses would have been more than the hands themselves were worth--a set of ungrateful naughts!" said his mother. "To be sure. But I'd have shown them how to keep my word, and how I mean them to keep their's. They know me by this time. Slickson's men are off--pretty certain he won't spend money in getting them punished. We're in for a turn-out, mother." "I hope there are not many orders in hand?" "Of course there are. They know that well enough. But they don't quite understand all, though they think they do." "What do you mean, John?" Candles had been brought, and Fanny had taken up her interminable piece of worsted-work, over which she was yawning; throwing herself back in her chair, from time to time to gaze at vacancy, and think of nothing at her ease. "Why," said he, "the Americans are getting their yarns so into the general market, that our only chance is producing them at a lower rate. If we can't, we may shut up shop at once, and hands and masters alike go on tramp. Yet these fools go back to the prices paid three years ago--nay, some of their leaders quote Dickinson's price now--though they know as well as we do that, what with fines pressed out of their wages, as no honourable man would extort them, the real rate of wage paid at Dickinson's is less than at ours. Upon my word, mother, I wish the old combination laws were in force. It is too bad to find out that fools--ignorant, wayward men like these--just by uniting their silly heads, are to rule over the fortunes of those who bring all the wisdom that knowledge and experience, and often painful thought and anxiety, can give. The next thing will be--indeed, we've all but come to it now--that we shall have to go and ask--stand hat in hand--and humbly ask the secretary of the Spinner's Union to be so kind as to furnish us with labour at their own price. That's what they want--they, who haven't the sense to see that, if we don't get a fair share of the profits to compensate us for our wear and tear here in England, we can move off to some other country; and that, what with home and foreign competition, we are none of us likely to make above a fair share, and may be thankful enough if we can get that, in an average number of years." "Can't you get hands from Ireland? I wouldn't keep these fellows a day. I'd teach them that I was master, and could employ what servants I liked." "Yes! to be sure, I can; and will, too, if they go on long. It will be trouble and expense, and I fear there will be some danger; but I will do it, rather than give in." "If there is to be all this extra expense, I'm sorry we're giving a dinner just now." "So am I,--not because of the expense, but because I shall have much to think about, and many unexpected calls on my time. But we must have had Mr. Horsfall, and he does not stay in Milton long. And as for the others, we owe them dinners, and it's all one trouble." He kept on with his restless walk--not speaking any more, but drawing a deep breath from time to time, as if endeavouring to throw off some annoying thought. Fanny asked her mother numerous small questions, all having nothing to do with the subject, which a wiser person would have perceived was occupying her attention. Consequently, she received many short answers. She was not sorry when, at ten o'clock, the servants filed in to prayers. These her mother always read,--first reading a chapter. They were now working steadily through the Old Testament. When prayers were ended, and his mother had wished him good-night, with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had the intensity of a blessing, Mr. Thornton continued his walk. All his business plans had received a check, a sudden pull-up, from this approaching turn-out. The forethought of many anxious hours was thrown away, utterly wasted by their insane folly, which would injure themselves even more than him, though no one could set any limit to the mischief they were doing. And these were the men who thought themselves fitted to direct the masters in the disposal of their capital; Hamper had said, only this very day, that if he were ruined by the strike, he would start life again, comforted by the conviction that those who had brought it on were in a worse predicament than he himself,--for he had head as well as hands, while they had only hands; and if they drove away their market, they could not follow it, nor turn to anything else. But this thought was no consolation to Mr. Thornton. It might be that revenge gave him no pleasure; it might be that he valued the position he had earned with the sweat of his brow, so much that he keenly felt its being endangered by the ignorance or folly of others,--so keenly that he had no thoughts to spare for what would be the consequences of their conduct to themselves. He paced up and down, setting his teeth now and then. At last it struck two. The candles were flickering in their sockets. He lighted his own, muttering to himself: "Once for all they shall know whom they have got to deal with. I can give them a fortnight,--no more. If they don't see their madness before the end of that time, I must have hands from Ireland. I believe it's Slickson's doing,--confound him and his dodges! He thought he was overstocked; so he seemed to yield at first, when the deputation came to him,--and of course, he only confirmed them in their folly, as he meant to do. That's where it spread from."

On Margaret's return home she found two letters on the table. One was a note for her mother; the other was from her Aunt Shaw, covered with foreign post-marks. She was examining it when her father came in. 'So your mother is tired, and gone to bed early! I'm afraid such a thundery day was not the best for the doctor to see her. What did he say?' Margaret hesitated. 'He does not think her seriously ill?' asked her father. 'Not at present; she needs care, he says; he was very kind, and said he would call again.' 'He did not recommend change of air? - he did not say this smoky town was doing her any harm, did he, Margaret?' 'Not a word,' she replied, gravely. 'He was anxious, I think.' 'Doctors have that anxious manner; it's professional.' Margaret saw that the first impression of possible danger was made upon his mind, in spite of his making light of what she told him. He kept recurring to the subject through the evening, with an unwillingness to receive even the slightest unfavourable idea, which made Margaret inexpressibly sad. 'This letter is from Aunt Shaw, papa. She has got to Naples, and finds it too hot. I don't think she likes Italy.' 'He did not say anything about diet, did he?' 'It was to be nourishing. Mamma's appetite is pretty good, I think.' 'Yes! that makes it all the more strange he should have spoken about diet.' 'I asked him, papa.' Margaret went on: 'Aunt Shaw says, she has sent me some coral ornaments, papa; but she's afraid the Milton Dissenters won't appreciate them.' 'If ever you hear that your mother wishes for anything, be sure you let me know. I am afraid she does not always tell me what she would like. Pray, see about that girl Mrs. Thornton named. If we had a good house-servant, Dixon could be constantly with your mother. We could soon set her up. She's been very tired of late, with the hot weather, but a little rest will put her to rights - eh, Margaret?' 'I hope so,' said Margaret sadly. Her father pinched her cheek. 'Come; you must take care of yourself, child, or you'll be wanting the doctor next.' But he could not settle to anything that evening. He was continually going backwards and forwards, on laborious tiptoe, to see if his wife was still asleep. Margaret's heart ached at his restlessness. He came back at last, somewhat comforted. 'She's awake now, Margaret. She smiled as she saw me - just her old smile. And she says she feels refreshed, and ready for tea. Where's the note for her? She wants to see it.' The note was a formal invitation from Mrs. Thornton, to dinner on the twenty-first. Margaret was surprised to find an acceptance was contemplated. But so it was. The idea of her husband's and daughter's going to this dinner quite captivated Mrs. Hale's fancy. She clung to the idea of their going, even when Margaret objected. 'She wouldn't wish it unless she really felt stronger - would she, Margaret?' said Mr. Hale anxiously, as she prepared to write the note of acceptance the next day. It seemed cruel to refuse him the comfort he craved for. 'I do think she is better since last night,' said she. 'Her eyes look brighter, and her complexion clearer.' 'God bless you,' said her father, earnestly. 'Yesterday was so sultry everyone felt ill. It was a most unlucky day for Mr. Donaldson to see her.' So he went away to his day's duties, which were now increased by some lectures he had promised to deliver on Church Architecture. 'Well, mother,' asked Mr. Thornton that night, 'who have accepted your invitations for the twenty-first?' 'Fanny, where are the notes? The Slicksons accept, Collingbrooks accept, Stephenses accept, Browns decline. Hales - father and daughter come - mother too great an invalid - Macphersons come, and Mr. Horsfall, and Mr. Young.' 'Very good. Do you know, I'm really afraid Mrs. Hale is very far from well, from what Dr. Donaldson says.' 'It's strange of them to accept a dinner-invitation if she's very ill,' said Fanny. 'I didn't say very ill,' said her brother, rather sharply. 'I only said very far from well. They may not know it either.' Then he remembered that, from what Dr. Donaldson had told him, Margaret, at any rate, must be aware of the exact state of the case. 'Very probably they know the great advantage it would be to them, to be introduced to such people as the Stephenses and the Collingbrooks.' 'I'm sure that motive would not influence them. No! I think I understand how it is.' 'John!' said Fanny, laughing in her little, weak, nervous way. 'How you profess to understand these Hales, and yet make out they are so different to most people.' She did not mean to vex him; but she could not have done it more thoroughly. He was silent. 'They do not seem to me out of the common way,' said Mrs. Thornton. 'He appears a worthy kind of man enough. She's a bit of a fine lady, with her invalidism; and as for the girl - she's the one who puzzles me. She seems to have a great notion of giving herself airs; and I can't make out why. I could almost fancy she thinks herself too good for her company. And yet they're not rich.' 'And she's not accomplished, mamma. She can't play.' 'Go on, Fanny. What else does she want to bring her up to your standard?' 'Nay! John,' said his mother, 'I myself heard Miss Hale say she could not play. If you would let us alone, we could perhaps like her, and see her merits.' 'I'm sure I never could!' murmured Fanny. Mr. Thornton heard her, but did not reply. He walked up and down the dining-room, wishing that his mother would order candles, and allow him to read or write, and so end the conversation. But he never thought of interfering in any of the small domestic rules that Mrs. Thornton observed, in remembrance of her old economies. 'Mother,' said he, stopping, and bravely speaking out the truth, 'I wish you would like Miss Hale.' 'Why?' asked she, startled by his earnest, yet tender manner. 'You're never thinking of marrying her? - a girl without a penny.' 'She would never have me,' said he, with a short laugh. 'No, I don't think she would,' answered his mother. 'She laughed in my face, when I praised her for repeating something Mr. Bell had said in your favour. I liked the girl for doing it so frankly, for it made me sure she had no thought of you; and the next minute she vexed me so by- Well, never mind! But she's too good an opinion of herself to think of you. The saucy jade! I should like to know where she'd find a better!' If these words hurt her son, the dusky light prevented him from showing it. He came up quite cheerfully to his mother, and putting one hand on her shoulder, said: 'Well, as I have no thought of ever asking her to be my wife, you'll believe that I'm quite disinterested in speaking about her. I foresee trouble for that girl - perhaps want of motherly care. I only wish you to be ready to be a friend to her, if she needs one. Now, Fanny, I trust you understand that I have no other reason for begging you and my mother to be kind to her.' 'I cannot forgive her pride,' said his mother. 'I will befriend her, if there is need, John. I would befriend Jezebel herself if you asked me. But this girl, who turns up her nose at us-' 'If she does,' said he, 'I'm not a lad to be cowed by a proud look from a woman, or to care for her misunderstanding me. I can laugh at it!' 'I only wonder why you talk so much about her, then,' said Fanny. 'I'm sure, I'm tired of the subject.' 'Well!' said her brother, with a shade of bitterness. 'Suppose we find some more agreeable subject - like a strike?' 'Have the hands actually turned out?' asked Mrs. Thornton. 'Hamper's men are out. Mine are working out their week, through fear of being prosecuted for breach of contract. I'd have had every one of them up for that, if they left their work before time.' 'The law fees would have been more than the hands themselves were worth - the ungrateful naughts!' said his mother. 'To be sure. But I'd have shown them how I keep my word, and how I mean them to keep theirs. They know me. Slickson's men are off - we're in for a turn-out, mother.' 'I hope there are not many orders in hand?' 'Of course there are. They know that well enough. But they don't quite understand all, though they think they do.' 'What do you mean, John?' Candles had been brought, and Fanny was sewing and yawning in turn; throwing herself back in her chair, from time to time, to gaze at vacancy, and think of nothing. 'Why,' said he, 'the Americans are selling so many yarns, that our only chance is producing them at a lower rate. If we can't, we may shut up shop at once. Yet these fools go back to the prices paid three years ago - nay, some of their leaders quote Dickinson's prices now, though they know as well as we do that, what with fines taken out of their wages, and other fees, the real rate of wage paid at Dickinson's is less than at ours. Upon my word, mother, it is too bad to find that ignorant fools like these are to rule over the fortunes of those with knowledge and experience. The next thing, we shall have to go hat in hand and humbly ask the Spinners' Union to kindly give us labour at their own price. That's what they want. They haven't the sense to see that, if we don't get enough profit here in England, we can move off to some other country.' 'Can't you get hands from Ireland? I wouldn't keep these fellows a day. I'd teach them that I could employ what servants I liked.' 'Yes! to be sure, I can; and I will, too, if they go on long. It will be trouble and expense; but I will do it, rather than give in.' 'If there is to be all this extra expense, I'm sorry we're giving a dinner just now.' 'So am I - not because of the expense, but because I shall have much to think about, and many calls on my time. But we owe the dinners.' He kept on with his restless walk, drawing a deep breath from time to time, as if trying to throw off some annoying thought. Fanny was not sorry when, at ten o'clock, the servants filed in to prayers, which her mother read. When prayers were ended, his mother wished him goodnight, with a long steady look which conveyed none of the tenderness in her heart, but yet had the intensity of a blessing. Mr. Thornton continued his walk. All his business plans had received a check from this approaching turn-out. The forethought of many anxious hours was thrown away, utterly wasted by their insane folly, which would injure themselves even more than him. And these were the men who thought themselves fitted to direct the masters in the use of their money! Hamper had said that if he were ruined by the strike, he would start again, comforted by the conviction that the strikers were in a worse predicament - for he had head as well as hands, while they had only hands, and could turn to nothing else. But this thought was no consolation to Mr. Thornton. It might be that revenge gave him no pleasure; it might be that he felt keenly that all his efforts were endangered by the folly of others - so keenly that he had no thoughts to spare for what would happen to them. He paced up and down until the clock struck two. The candles were flickering in their sockets. He muttered to himself: 'Once for all, they shall know whom they have got to deal with. I can give them a fortnight. If they don't see their madness before the end of that time, I must have hands from Ireland.'

North and South

Chapter 18: LIKES AND DISLIKES

"Revenge may have her own; Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause, And injured navies urge their broken laws." BYRON. Margaret began to wonder whether all offers were as unexpected beforehand,--as distressing at the time of their occurrence, as the two she had had. An involuntary comparison between Mr. Lennox and Mr. Thornton arose in her mind. She had been sorry, that an expression of any other feeling than friendship had been lured out by circumstances from Henry Lennox. That regret was the predominant feeling, on the first occasion of her receiving a proposal. She had not felt so stunned--so impressed as she did now, when echoes of Mr. Thornton's voice yet lingered about the room. In Lennox's case, he seemed for a moment to have slid over the boundary between friendship and love; and the instant afterwards, to regret it nearly as much as she did, although for different reasons. In Mr. Thornton's case, as far as Margaret knew, there was no intervening stage of friendship. Their intercourse had been one continued series of opposition. Their opinions clashed; and indeed, she had never perceived that he had cared for her opinions, as belonging to her, the individual. As far as they defied his rock-like power of character, his passion-strength, he seemed to throw them off from him with contempt, until she felt the weariness of the exertion of making useless protests; and now, he had come, in this strange wild passionate way, to make known his love! For, although at first it had struck her, that his offer was forced and goaded out of him by sharp compassion for the exposure she had made of herself,--which he, like others, might misunderstand--yet, even before he left the room,--and certainly not five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright upon her, that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would love her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life. She crept away, and hid from his idea. But it was of no use. To parody a line out of Fairfax's Tasso-- "His strong idea wandered through her thought." She disliked him the more for having mastered her inner will. How dared he say that he would love her still, even though she shook him off with contempt? She wished she had spoken more--stronger. Sharp, decisive speeches came thronging into her mind, now that it was too late to utter them. The deep impression made by the interview, was like that of a horror in a dream; that will not leave the room although we waken up, and rub our eyes, and force a stiff rigid smile upon our lips. It is there--there, cowering and gibbering, with fixed ghastly eyes, in some corner of the chamber, listening to hear whether we dare to breathe of its presence to any one. And we dare not; poor cowards that we are! And so she shuddered away from the threat of his enduring love. What did he mean? Had she not the power to daunt him? She would see. It was more daring than became a man to threaten her so. Did he ground it upon the miserable yesterday? If need were, she would do the same to-morrow,--by a crippled beggar, willingly and gladly,--but by him, she would do it, just as bravely, in spite of his deductions, and the cold slime of woman's impertinence. She did it because it was right, and simple, and true to save where she could save; even to try to save. "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra." Hitherto she had not stirred from where he had left her; no outward circumstances had roused her out of the trance of thought in which she had been plunged by his last words, and by the look of his deep intent passionate eyes, as their flames had made her own fall before them. She went to the window, and threw it open, to dispel the oppression which hung around her. Then she went and opened the door, with a sort of impetuous wish to shake off the recollection of the past hour, in the company of others, or in active exertion. But all was profoundly hushed in the noonday stillness of a house, where an invalid catches the unrefreshing sleep that is denied to the night-hours. Margaret would not be alone. What should she do? "Go and see Bessy Higgins, of course," thought she, as the recollection of the message sent the night before flashed into her mind. And away she went. When she got there, she found Bessy lying on the settle, moved close to the fire, though the day was sultry and oppressive. She was laid down quite flat, as if resting languidly after some paroxysm of pain. Margaret felt sure she ought to have the greater freedom of breathing which a more sitting posture would procure; and, without a word, she raised her up, and so arranged the pillows, that Bessy was more at ease, though very languid. "I thought I should na' ha' seen yo' again," said she, at last, looking wistfully in Margaret's face. "I'm afraid you're much worse. But I could not have come yesterday, my mother was so ill--for many reasons," said Margaret, colouring. "Yo'd m'appen think I went beyond my place in sending Mary for yo'. But the wraglin' and the loud voices had just torn me to pieces, and I thought when father left, oh! if I could just hear her voice, reading me some words o' peace and promise, I could die away into the silence and rest o' God, just as a baby is hushed up to sleep by its mother's lullaby." "Shall I read you a chapter, now?" "Ay, do! M'appen I shan't listen to th' sense, at first; it will seem far away--but when yo' come to words I like--to th' comforting texts--it'll seem close in my ear, and going through me as it were." Margaret began. Bessy tossed to and fro. If, by an effort, she attended for one moment, it seemed as though she were convulsed into double restlessness the next. At last, she burst out: "Don't go on reading. It's no use. I'm blaspheming all the time in my mind, wi' thinking angrily on what canna be helped.--Yo'd hear of th' riot, m'appen, yesterday at Marlborough Mills? Thornton's factory, yo' know." "Your father was not there, was he?" said Margaret colouring deeply. "Not he. He'd ya' given his right hand if it had never come to pass. It's that that's fretting me. He's fairly knocked down in his mind by it. It's no use telling him, fools will always break out o' bounds. Yo' never saw a man so downhearted as he is." "But why?" asked Margaret. "I don't understand." "Why, yo' see, he's a committee-man on this special strike. Th' Union appointed him because, though I say it as shouldn't say it, he's reckoned a deep chap, and true to th' back-bone. And he and t'other committee-men laid their plans. They were to hou'd together through thick and thin; what the major part thought, t'others were to think, whether they would or no. And above all there was to be no going again the law of the land. Folk would go with them if they saw them striving and starving wi' dumb patience; but if there was once any noise o' fighting and struggling--even wi' knobsticks--all was up, as they know by th' experience of many, and many a time before. They would try and get speech o' th' knobsticks, and coax 'em, and reason wi' 'em, and m'appen warn 'em off; but whatever came, the Committee charged all members o' th' Union to lie down and die, if need were, without striking a blow; and then they reckoned they were sure o' carrying th' public with them. And besides all that, Committee knew they were right in their demand, and they didn't want to have right all mixed up wi' wrong, till folk can't separate it, no more nor I can the physic-powder from th' jelly yo' gave me to mix it in; jelly is much the biggest, but powder tastes it all through. Well, I've told yo' at length about this'n, but I am tired out. Yo' just think for yor'sel, what it mun be for father to have a' his work undone, and by such a fool as Boucher, who must needs go right again the orders of Committee, and ruin th' strike, just as bad as if he meant to be a Judas. Eh! but father giv'd it him last night! He went so far as to say, he'd go and tell police where they might find th' ringleader o' th' riot; he'd give him up to th' mill-owners to do what they would wi' him. He'd show the world that th' real leaders o' the strike were not such as Boucher, but steady thoughtful men; good hands, and good citizens, who were friendly to law and judgment, and would uphold order; who only wanted their right wage, and wouldn't work, even though they starved, till they got 'em; but who would ne'er injure property or life. For," dropping her voice, "they do say, that Boucher threw a stone at Thornton's sister, that welly killed her." "That's not true," said Margaret. "It was not Boucher that threw the stone"--she went first red, then white. "Yo'd be there then, were yo'?" asked Bessie languidly: for indeed, she had spoken with many pauses, as if speech was unusually difficult to her. "Yes. Never mind. Go on. Only it was not Boucher that threw the stone. But what did he answer to your father?" "He did na' speak words. He were all in such a tremble wi' spent passion, I could na' bear to look at him. I heard his breath coming quick, and at one time I thought he were sobbing. But when father said he'd give him up to police, he gave a great cry, and struck father on th' face wi' his closed fist, and he off like lightning. Father were stunned wi' the blow at first, for all Boucher were weak wi' passion and wi' clemming. He sat down a bit, and put his hand afore his eyes; and then made for th' door. I dunno' where I got strength, but I threw mysel' oh th' settle and clung to him. 'Father, father!' said I. 'Thou'll never go peach on that poor clemmed man. I'll never leave go on thee, till thou sayst thou wunnot.' 'Dunnot be a fool,' says he, 'words come readier than deeds to most men. I never thought o' telling th' police on him; though by G--, he deserves it, and I should na' ha' minded if some one else had done the dirty work, and got him clapped up. But now he has strucken me, I could do it less nor ever, for it would be getting other men to take up my quarrel. But if ever he gets well o'er this clemming, and is in good condition, he and I'll have an up and down fight, purring an' a', and I'll see what I can do for him.' And so father shook me off,--for indeed I was low and faint enough, and his face was all clay white, where it weren't bloody, and turned me sick to look at. And I know not if I slept or waked, or were in a dead swoon, till Mary come in; and I telled her to fetch yo' to me. And now dunnot talk to me, but just read out th' chapter. I'm easier in my mind for having spit it out; but I want some thoughts of the world that's far away to take the weary taste of it out of my mouth. Read me not a sermon chapter, but a story chapter; they've pictures in them, which I see when my eyes are shut. Read about the New Heavens, and the New Earth; and m'appen I'll forget this." Margaret read in her soft low voice. Though Bessy's eyes were shut, she was listening for some time, for the moisture of tears gathered heavy on her eyelashes. At last she slept; with many starts, and muttered pleadings. Margaret covered her up, and left her, for she had an uneasy consciousness that she might be wanted at home, and yet, until now, it seemed cruel to leave the dying girl. Mrs. Hale was in the drawing-room on her daughter's return. It was one of her better days, and she was full of praises of the water-bed. It had been more like the beds at Sir John Beresford's than anything she had slept on since. She did not know how it was, but people seemed to have lost the art of making the same kind of beds as they used to do in her youth. One would think it was easy enough; there was the same kind of feathers to be had, and yet somehow, till this last night she did not know when she had had a good sound resting sleep. Mr. Hale suggested, that something of the merits of the feather-beds of former days might be attributed to the activity of youth, which gave a relish to rest; but this idea was not kindly received by his wife. "No, indeed, Mr. Hale, it was those beds at Sir John's. Now, Margaret, you're young enough, and go about in the day; are the beds comfortable? I appeal to you. Do they give you a feeling of perfect repose when you lie down upon them; or rather, don't you toss about, and try in vain to find an easy position, and wake in the morning as tired as when you went to bed?" Margaret laughed. "To tell the truth, mamma, I've never thought about my bed at all, what kind it is. I'm so sleepy at night, that if I only lie down anywhere, I nap off directly. So I don't think I'm a competent witness. But then, you know, I never had the opportunity of trying Sir John Beresford's beds. I never was at Oxenham." "Were you not? Oh, no! to be sure. It was poor darling Fred I took with me, I remember. I only went to Oxenham once after I was married,--to your Aunt Shaw's wedding; and poor little Fred was the baby then. And I know Dixon did not like changing from lady's maid to nurse, and I was afraid that if I took her near her old home, and amongst her own people, she might want to leave me. But poor baby was taken ill at Oxenham, with his teething; and, what with my being a great deal with Anna just before her marriage, and not being very strong myself, Dixon had more of the charge of him than she ever had before; and it made her so fond of him, and she was so proud when he would turn away from every one and cling to her, that I don't believe she ever thought of leaving me again; though it was very different from what she'd been accustomed to. Poor Fred! Everybody loved him. He was born with the gift of winning hearts. It makes me think very badly of Captain Reid when I know that he disliked my own dear boy. I think it a certain proof he had a bad heart. Ah! Your poor father, Margaret. He has left the room. He can't bear to hear Fred spoken of." "I love to hear about him, mamma. Tell me all you like; you never can tell me too much. Tell me what he was like as a baby." "Why, Margaret, you must not be hurt, but he was much prettier than you were. I remember, when I first saw you in Dixon's arms, I said, 'Dear, what an ugly little thing!' And she said, 'It's not every child that's like Master Fred, bless him!' Dear! how well I remember it. Then I could have had Fred in my arms every minute of the day, and his cot was close by my bed; and now, now--Margaret--I don't know where my boy is, and sometimes I think I shall never see him again." Margaret sat down by her mother's sofa on a little stool, and softly took hold of her hand, caressing it and kissing it, as if to comfort. Mrs. Hale cried without restraint. At last, she sat straight, stiff up on the sofa, and turning round to her daughter, she said with tearful, almost solemn earnestness, "Margaret, if I can get better,--if God lets me have a chance of recovery, it must be through seeing my son Frederick once more. It will waken up all the poor springs of health left in me." She paused, and seemed to try and gather strength for something more yet to be said. Her voice was choked as she went on--was quavering as with the contemplation of some strange, yet closely-present idea. "And, Margaret, if I am to die--if I am one of those appointed to die before many weeks are over--I must see my child first. I cannot think how it must be managed; but I charge you, Margaret, as you yourself hope for comfort in your last illness, bring him to me that I may bless him. Only for five minutes, Margaret. There could be no danger in five minutes. Oh, Margaret, let me see him before I die!" Margaret did not think of anything that might be utterly unreasonable in this speech: we do not look for reason or logic in the passionate entreaties of those who are sick unto death; we are stung with the recollection of a thousand slighted opportunities of fulfilling the wishes of those who will soon pass away from among us: and do they ask us for the future happiness of our lives, we lay it at their feet, and will it away from us. But this wish of Mrs. Hale's was so natural, so just, so right to both parties, that Margaret felt as if, on Frederick's account as well as on her mother's, she ought to overlook all intermediate chances of danger, and pledge herself to do everything in her power for its realization. The large, pleading, dilated eyes were fixed upon her wistfully, steady in their gaze, though the poor white lips quivered like those of a child. Margaret gently rose up and stood opposite to her frail mother; so that she might gather the secure fulfilment of her wish from the calm steadiness of her daughter's face. "Mamma, I will write to-night, and tell Frederick what you say. I am as sure that he will come directly to us, as I am sure of my life. Be easy, mamma, you shall see him as far as anything earthly can be promised." "You will write to-night? Oh, Margaret! the post goes out at five--you will write by it, won't you? I have so few hours left--I feel dear, as if I should not recover, though sometimes your father over-persuades me into hoping; you will write directly, won't you? Don't lose a single post; for just by that very post I may miss him." "But, mamma, papa is out." "Papa is out! and what then? Do you mean that he would deny me this last wish, Margaret? Why, I should not be ill, be dying--if he had not taken me away from Helstone, to this unhealthy, smoky, sunless place." "Oh, mamma!" said Margaret. "Yes; it is so, indeed. He knows it himself; he has said so many a time. He would do anything for me; you don't mean he would refuse me this last wish--prayer, if you will. And, indeed, Margaret, the longing to see Frederick stands between me and God. I cannot pray till I have this one thing; indeed, I cannot. Don't lose time, dear, dear Margaret. Write by this very next post. Then he may be here--here in twenty-two days! For he is sure to come. No cords or chains can keep him. In twenty-two days I shall see my boy." She fell back, and for a short time she took no notice of the fact that Margaret sat motionless, her hand shading her eyes. "You are not writing!" said her mother at last. "Bring me some pens and paper; I will try and write myself." She sat up, trembling all over with feverish eagerness. Margaret took her hand down, and looked at her mother sadly. "Only wait till papa comes in. Let us ask him how best to do it?" "You promised, Margaret, not a quarter of an hour ago,--you said he should come." "And so he shall, mamma; don't cry, my own dear mother. I'll write here, now--you shall see me write--and it shall go by this very post; and if papa thinks fit he can write again when he comes in--it is only a day's delay. Oh, mamma, don't cry so pitifully, it cuts me to the heart." Mrs. Hale could not stop her tears; they came hysterically; and, in truth, she made no effort to control them, but rather called up all the pictures of the happy past, and the probable future--painting the scene when she should lie a corpse, with the son she had longed to see in life weeping over her, and she unconscious of his presence--till she was melted by self-pity into a state of sobbing and exhaustion that made Margaret's heart ache. But at last she was calm, and greedily watched her daughter, as she began her letter; wrote it with swift urgent entreaty; sealed it up hurriedly, for fear her mother should ask to see it: and then to make security most sure, at Mrs. Hale's own bidding, took it herself to the post-office. She was coming home when her father overtook her. "And where have you been, my pretty maid?" asked he. "To the post-office--with a letter; a letter to Frederick. Oh, papa, perhaps I have done wrong: but mamma was seized with such a passionate yearning to see him--she said it would make her well again--and then she said that she must see him before she died--I cannot tell you how urgent she was! Did I do wrong?" Mr. Hale did not reply at first. Then he said: "You should have waited till I came in, Margaret." "I tried to persuade her--" and then she was silent. "I don't know," said Mr. Hale, after a pause. "She ought to see him if she wishes it so much; for I believe it would do her much more good than all the doctor's medicine--and, perhaps, set her up altogether; but the danger to him, I'm afraid, is very great." "All these years since the mutiny, papa?" "Yes; it is necessary, of course, for government to take very stringent measures for the repression of offences against authority, more particularly in the navy, where a commanding officer needs to be surrounded in his men's eyes with a vivid consciousness of all the power there is at home to back him, and take up his cause, and avenge any injuries offered to him, if need be. Ah! it's no matter to them how far their authorities have tyrannised--galled hasty tempers to madness--or, if that can be any excuse afterwards, it is never allowed for in the first instance; they spare no expense, they send out ships--they scour the seas to lay hold of the offenders--the lapse of years does not wash out the memory of the offence--it is a fresh and vivid crime on the Admiralty books till it is blotted out by blood." "Oh, papa, what have I done! And yet it seemed so right at the time. I'm sure Frederick himself, would run the risk." "So he would; so he should! Nay, Margaret, I'm glad it is done, though I durst not have done it myself. I'm thankful it is as it is; I should have hesitated till, perhaps, it might have been too late to do any good. Dear Margaret, you have done what is right about it; and the end is beyond our control." It was all very well; but her father's account of the relentless manner in which mutinies were punished made Margaret shiver and creep. If she had decoyed her brother home to blot out the memory of his error by his blood! She saw her father's anxiety lap deeper than the source of his latter cheering words. She took his arm and walked home pensively and wearily by his side.

Margaret began to wonder whether all offers were as unexpected and distressing as the two she had had. She compared Mr. Lennox and Mr. Thornton in her mind. When Mr. Lennox proposed, her main feeling had been regret that he had expressed a feeling other than friendship. She had not felt so stunned - so impressed as she did now, when echoes of Mr. Thornton's voice yet lingered about the room. In Lennox's case, he seemed for a moment to have slid over the boundary between friendship and love; and the instant afterwards, to regret it nearly as much as she did. In Mr. Thornton's case there was no stage of friendship, only opposition. Their opinions clashed; and indeed, she had never perceived that he had cared for her opinions. He seemed to throw them off with contempt, until she felt weary of the exertion of making useless protests; and now he had come, in this strange wild passionate way, to make known his love. For, although at first it had struck her that his offer was forced out of him by sharp compassion for the exposure she had made of herself - which he, like others, might misunderstand - yet five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her that he did love her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life. She crept away and hid from the idea, but in vain. She disliked him the more for having mastered her inner will. How dared he say that he would love her still, even though she shook him off? She wished she had spoken more strongly. Sharp, decisive speeches came into her mind, now that it was too late to say them. The deep impression made by the interview was like that of a horror in a dream, that will not leave when we waken. It is there, cowering with fixed ghastly eyes, in some corner of the room, listening to hear whether we dare to breathe of its presence to anyone. And we dare not! And so she shuddered away from the threat of his enduring love. What did he mean? Had she not the power to daunt him? She would see. Did he base his vow upon yesterday? If need were, she would do the same tomorrow, for a crippled beggar, or for him, in spite of his deductions; because it was right to try to save where she could save. Hitherto she had not stirred. Nothing had roused her out of the trance of thought in which she had been plunged by his words, and the look of his deep intent passionate eyes. Now she went to the window, and threw it open, and opened the door, with an impetuous wish to shake off the recollection of the past hour. But all was profoundly hushed in the noonday stillness of the invalid's house. Margaret did not wish to be alone. What should she do? 'Go and see Bessy Higgins, of course,' thought she; and away she went. When she got there, she found Bessy lying on the settle close to the fire, though the day was warm and oppressive. She was laid down flat, as if resting after some paroxysm of pain. Margaret felt sure she would breathe more easily in a sitting posture; and she raised her up, and arranged the pillows, until Bessy was more at ease, though very languid. 'I thought I should na' ha' seen yo' again,' said she, wistfully. 'I'm afraid you're much worse. But I could not come yesterday, my mother was so ill - and other reasons,' said Margaret, colouring. 'Yo' may think I went beyond my place in sending Mary for yo'. But the wranglin' and the loud voices had just torn me to pieces, and when father left, I thought oh! if I could just hear her voice, reading me some words o' peace, I could die away into the silence o' God, like a babby is hushed to sleep by its mother's lullaby.' 'Shall I read you a chapter, now?' 'Ay, do! Happen I shan't listen to th' sense, at first; but when yo' come to th' comforting texts, it'll seem close in my ear, and going through me as it were.' Margaret began. Bessy tossed to and fro. If she attended for one moment, she was convulsed into restlessness the next. At last, she burst out: 'Don't go on reading. It's no use. I'm blaspheming all the time in my mind, thinking angrily on what canna be helped. Yo' heard of th' riot yesterday at Marlborough Mills?' 'Your father was not there, was he?' said Margaret, colouring deeply. 'Not he. He'd ha' given his right hand if it had never come to pass. It's that that's fretting me. He's fairly knocked down in his mind by it. It's no use telling him, fools will always break out o' bounds. Yo' never saw a man so down-hearted.' 'But why?' asked Margaret. 'Yo' see, he's a committee-man on this strike. Th' Union appointed him because he's reckoned true to th' back-bone. And he and t'other committee-men laid their plans, to hold together through thick and thin; what the major part thought, t'others were to think, whether they would or no. And above all there was to be no going again the law of the land. Folk would go with them if they saw them striving patiently; but if there was any fighting, all was up, as they knew from many a time before. The Committee charged all members o' th' Union not to strike a blow; they didn't want to have right mixed up wi' wrong. 'Well, yo' just think what it must be for father to have his work undone, and by such a fool as Boucher, who must needs go right again the orders of Committee, and ruin th' strike as if he meant to be a Judas. Eh! but father giv'd it him last night! He even said he'd go and tell police where they might find th' ringleader; he'd give him up to th' mill-owners to do what they would wi' him. He'd show the world that th' real leaders o' the strike were not such as Boucher, but steady thoughtful men; good hands, and good citizens, who would uphold order; who only wanted their right wages, and would ne'er injure property or life. For they do say, that Boucher threw a stone at Thornton's sister, that nearly killed her.' 'That's not true,' said Margaret, flushing. 'It was not Boucher that threw the stone.' 'Yo'd be there then, were yo'?' asked Bessy languidly. 'Yes. Never mind. Go on. What did Boucher answer to your father?' 'He did na' speak. He were all in such a tremble, I could na' bear to look at him. I heard his breath coming quick, and at one time I thought he were sobbing. But when father said he'd give him up to the police, he gave a great cry, and struck father on th' face wi' his fist, and be off like lightning. Father were stunned wi' the blow at first. He sat down, and put his hand afore his eyes; and then made for th' door. I dunno' where I got strength, but I threw mysel' off th' settle and clung to him. "Father, father!" said I. "Thou'll never go tell on that poor clemmed man. I'll never leave go, till thou sayst thou wunnot." "Dunnot be a fool," says he. "I never thought o' telling th' police on him; though by G-, he deserves it. But if ever he gets well o'er this clemming, he and I'll have a fight." And father shook me off, and his face was all clay white, where it weren't bloody, and turned me sick to look at. 'And I know not if I slept or waked, or were in a dead swoon, till Mary come in; and I telled her to fetch yo'. And now dunnot talk to me, but just read. I'm easier in my mind for having spit it out; but I want some thoughts of the world that's far away to take the weary taste of it out o' my mouth. Read me a story chapter; read about the New Heavens, and the New Earth; and 'appen I'll forget this.' Margaret read in her soft low voice. Though Bessy's eyes were shut, she was listening, for tears gathered heavy on her eyelashes. At last she slept, with many starts, and muttered pleadings. Margaret covered her up, and left her, uneasily aware that she might be wanted at home; and yet it seemed cruel to leave the dying girl. Mrs. Hale was in the drawing-room on her daughter's return. It was one of her better days, and she was full of praises of the water-bed. It was like the feather-beds of her youth at Sir John Beresford's. 'Margaret,' she said, 'are the beds today comfortable? Don't you toss about, and try in vain to find an easy position, and waken in the morning as tired as when you went to bed?' Margaret laughed. 'To tell the truth, mamma, I've never thought about my bed at all. If I lie down anywhere, I go to sleep directly. But then, you know, I never tried Sir John Beresford's beds. I never was at Oxenham.' 'Were not you? Oh, no! to be sure. It was poor darling Fred I took with me to your Aunt Shaw's wedding. But poor baby Fred was taken ill at Oxenham, with his teething, and Dixon had charge of him; and it made her so fond of him that she was proud when he would turn away from everyone and cling to her. Poor Fred! Everybody loved him. He was born with the gift of winning hearts. It makes me think very badly of Captain Reid when I know that he disliked my own dear boy. It proves he had a bad heart. Ah! Your poor father has left the room, Margaret. He can't bear to hear Fred spoken of.' 'I love to hear about him, mamma. Tell me what he was like as a baby.' 'Why, Margaret, you must not be hurt, but he was much prettier than you were. I remember, when I first saw you in Dixon's arms, I said, "Dear, what an ugly little thing!" And she said, "It's not every child that's like Master Fred, bless him!" How well I remember it. I could have had Fred in my arms every minute of the day, and his cot was by my bed; and now - I don't know where my boy is, and sometimes I think I shall never see him again.' Margaret sat down by her mother, and softly took her hand, caressing and kissing it. Mrs. Hale cried without restraint. At last she sat up, and said with tearful earnestness, 'Margaret, if I can get better, it must be through seeing Frederick once more.' She paused to gather strength; as she went on, her voice was choked and quavering. 'And, Margaret, if I am to die - I must see my child first. I cannot think how it may be managed; but, Margaret, bring him to me so that I may bless him. Only for five minutes. There could be no danger in five minutes. Oh, Margaret, let me see him before I die!' We do not look for reason or logic in the passionate entreaties of the dying; if they ask us for the future happiness of our lives, we lay it at their feet. But this wish of Mrs. Hale's was so natural, so just, that Margaret felt as if she ought to overlook any danger, and pledge to do everything in her power to fulfil it. The large, pleading eyes were fixed upon her wistfully, and the poor white lips quivered like a child's. Margaret gently rose up and faced her frail mother with calm steadiness. 'Mamma, I will write tonight, and tell Frederick what you say. I am sure that he will come directly to us.' 'You will write tonight? Oh, Margaret! the post goes at five - I have so few hours left. Don't lose a single post.' 'But, mamma, papa is gone out.' 'What of it? Do you mean that he would deny me this last wish, Margaret? Why, I should not be ill if he had not taken me away from Helstone, to this unhealthy, smoky place.' 'Oh, mamma!' 'Yes; it is so, indeed. He knows it; he has said so many a time. He would do anything for me; he would not refuse me this last wish. Indeed, Margaret, I cannot pray till I have this one thing. Don't lose time, dear Margaret. Write by this very next post. Then he may be here in twenty-two days! For he is sure to come. In twenty-two days I shall see my boy.' She fell back, and for a short time took no notice of Margaret. 'You are not writing!' she said at last. 'Bring me pens and paper; I will try and write myself.' She sat up, trembling with feverish eagerness. Margaret looked at her sadly. 'Only wait till papa comes in. Let us ask him how best to do it.' 'You promised, Margaret - you said he should come.' 'And so he shall; don't cry, my own dear mother. I'll write here, now - you shall see me write - and it shall go by this very post. If papa thinks fit, he can write again when he comes in; it is only a day's delay. Oh, mamma, don't cry so - it cuts me to the heart.' In truth, Mrs. Hale made no effort to control her tears, but rather called up all the pictures of the happy past, and the sad future - when she might lie a corpse, with her son weeping over her - till she was melted by self-pity into a state of sobbing exhaustion. But at last she was calm, and greedily watched her daughter as she wrote the letter, and sealed it up hurriedly. Margaret took it herself to the post-office. She was coming home when her father overtook her. 'And where have you been, my pretty maid?' asked he. 'To the post-office with a letter; a letter to Frederick. Oh, papa, perhaps I have done wrong: but mamma so longed to see him - she said it would make her well again - and she said that she must see him before she died. Did I do wrong?' Mr. Hale did not reply at first. Then he said: 'I don't know. She ought to see him if she wishes it so much, for I believe it would do her more good than all the doctor's medicine; but the danger to him, I'm afraid, is very great.' 'All these years since the mutiny, papa?' 'Yes; the government must uphold authority in the navy, and avenge any injuries to its officers. Ah! it's no matter to them how far their authorities have tyrannised; they spare no expense, they scour the seas to lay hold of the offenders. The lapse of years does not wash out the memory of the offence. It is a fresh and vivid crime on the Admiralty books till it is blotted out by blood.' 'Oh, papa, what have I done! And yet it seemed so right at the time. I'm sure Frederick himself would run the risk.' 'So he would! Nay, Margaret, I'm glad it is done. I would have hesitated myself, till, perhaps, it might have been too late. Dear Margaret, you have done what is right; and the end is beyond our control.' It was all very well; but her father's words made Margaret shiver. If she had decoyed her brother home to pay for his error by his blood! She saw her father was anxious. She took his arm and walked home pensively and wearily by his side.

North and South

Chapter 25: FREDERICK

"The steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, The sobs of the mourners, deep and low." SHELLEY. At the time arranged the previous day, they set out on their walk to see Nicholas Higgins and his daughter. They both were reminded of their recent loss, by a strange kind of shyness in their new habiliments, and in the fact that it was the first time, for many weeks, that they had deliberately gone out together. They drew very close to each other in unspoken sympathy. Nicholas was sitting by the fire-side in his accustomed corner; but he had not his accustomed pipe. He was leaning his head upon his hand, his arm resting on his knee. He did not get up when he saw them, though Margaret could read the welcome in his eye. "Sit ye down, sit ye down. Fire's welly out," said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself. He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with a black unshaven beard of several days' growth, making his pale face look yet paler, and a jacket which would have been all the better for patching. "We thought we should have a good chance of finding you, just after dinner-time," said Margaret. "We have had our sorrows too, since we saw you," said Mr. Hale. "Ay, ay. Sorrows is more plentiful than dinners just now; I reckon, my dinner hour stretches all o'er the day; yo're pretty sure of finding me." "Are you out of work?" asked Margaret. "Ay," he replied shortly. Then, after a moment's silence, he added, looking up for the first time: "I'm not wanting brass. Dunno yo' think it. Bess, poor lass, had a little stock under her pillow, ready to slip into my hand, last moment, and Mary is fustian-cutting. But I'm out of work a' the same." "We owe Mary some money," said Mr. Hale, before Margaret's sharp pressure on his arm could arrest the words. "If hoo takes it, I'll turn her out o' doors. I'll bide inside these four walls, and she'll bide out. That's a'." "But we owe her many thanks for her kind service," began Mr. Hale again. "I ne'er thanken your daughter theer for her deeds o' love to my poor wench. I ne'er could find th' words. I'se have to begin to try now, if yo' start making an ado about what little Mary could sarve yo'." "Is it because of the strike you're out of work?" asked Margaret gently. "Strike's ended. It's o'er for this time. I'm out o' work because I ne'er asked for it. And I ne'er asked for it, because good words is scarce, and bad words is plentiful." He was in a mood to take a surly pleasure in giving answers that were like riddles. But Margaret saw that he would like to be asked for the explanation. "And good words are--?" "Asking for work. I reckon them's almost the best words that men can say. 'Gi' me work' means 'and I'll do it like a man.' Them's good words." "And bad words are refusing you work when you ask for it." "Ay. Bad words is saying 'Aha, my fine chap! Yo've been true to yo'r order, and I'll be true to mine. Yo' did the best yo' could for them as wanted help; that's yo're way of being true to yo're kind: and I'll be true to mine. Yo've been a poor fool, as knowed no better nor be a true faithful fool. So go and be d--d to yo'. There's no work for yo' here.' Them's bad words. I'm not a fool; and if I was, folk ought to ha' taught me how to be wise after their fashion. I could m'appen ha' learnt, if any one had tried to teach me." "Would it not be worth while," said Mr. Hale, "to ask your old master if he would take you back again? It might be a poor chance, but it would be a chance." He looked up again, with a sharp glance at the questioner; and then tittered a low and bitter laugh. "Measter! if it's no offence, I'll ask yo' a question or two in my turn." "You're quite welcome," said Mr. Hale. "I reckon yo'n some way of earning your bread. Folk seldom lives i' Milton just for pleasure, if they can live anywhere else." "You are quite right. I have some independent property, but my intention in settling in Milton was to become a private tutor." "To teach folk. Well! I reckon they pay yo' for teaching them, dunnot they?" "Yes," replied Mr. Hale, smiling. "I teach in order to get paid." "And them that pays yo', dun they tell yo' whatten to do, or whatten not to do wi' the money they gives you in just payment for your pains--in fair exchange like?" "No; to be sure not!" "They dunnot say, 'Yo' may have a brother, or a friend as dear as a brother, who wants this here brass for a purpose both yo' and he think right; but yo' mun promise not give it to him. Yo' may see a good use, as yo' think, to put yo'r money to; but we don't think it good, and so if yo' spend it a-thatens we'll just leave off dealing with yo'.' They dunnot say that, dun they?" "No: to be sure not!" "Would yo' stand it if they did?" "It would be some very hard pressure that would make me even think of submitting to such dictation." "There's not the pressure on all the broad earth that would make me," said Nicholas Higgins. "Now yo've got it. Yo've hit the bull's eye. Hampers--that's where I worked--makes their men pledge 'emselves they'll not give a penny to help th' Union or keep turn-outs fro' clemming. They may pledge and make pledge," continued he, scornfully; "they nobbut make liars and hypocrites. And that's a less sin, to my mind, to make men's hearts so hard that they'll not do a kindness to them as needs it, or help on the right and just cause, though it goes again the strong hand. But I'll ne'er forswear mysel' for a' the work the king could gi'e me. I'm a member o' the Union; and I think it's the only thing to do the workmen any good. And I've been a turn-out, and known what it was to clem; so if I get a shilling, sixpence shall go to them if they axe it from me. Consequence is, I dunnot see where I'm to get a shilling." "Is that rule about not contributing to the Union in force at all the mills?" asked Margaret. "I cannot say. It's a new regulation at ours; and I reckon they'll find that they cannot stick to it. But it's in force now. By-and-by they'll find out, tyrants makes liars." There was a little pause. Margaret was hesitating whether she should say what was in her mind; she was unwilling to irritate one who was always gloomy and despondent enough. At last out it came. But in her soft tones, and with her reluctant manner, shewing that she was unwilling to say anything unpleasant, it did not seem to annoy Higgins, only to perplex him. "Do you remember poor Boucher saying that the Union was a tyrant? I think he said it was the worse tyrant of all. And I remember, at the time I agreed with him." It was a long while before he spoke. He was resting his head on his two hands, and looking down into the fire, so she could not read the expression on his face. "I'll not deny but what th' Union finds it necessary to force a man into his own good. I'll speak truth. A man leads a dree life who's not i' th' Union. But once i' th' Union, his interests are taken care on better nor he could do it for himsel', or by himsel', for that matter. It's the only way working men can get their rights, by all joining together. More the members, more chance for each one separate man having justice done him. Government takes care o' fools and madmen; and if any man is inclined to do himsel' or his neighbour a hurt, it puts a bit of a check on him, whether he likes it or no. That's all we do 'i th' Union. We can't clap folk into prison; but we can make a man's life so heavy to be borne, that he's obliged to come in, and be wise and helpful in spite of himsel'. Boucher were a fool all along, and ne'er a worse fool than at th' last." "He did you harm?" asked Margaret. "Aye, that did he. We had public opinion on our side, till he and his sort began rioting and breaking laws. It were all o'er wi' the strike then." "Then would it not have been far better to have left him alone, and not forced him to join the Union? He did you no good; and you drove him mad." "Margaret," said her father, in a low and warning tone, for he saw the cloud gathering on Higgins's face. "I like her," said Higgins, suddenly. "Hoo speaks plain out what's in her mind. Hoo doesn't comprehend th' Union for all that. It's a great power: it's our only power. I ha' read a bit o' poetry about a plough going o'er a daisy, as made tears come into my eyes, afore I'd other cause for crying. But the chap ne'er stopped driving the plough, I'se warrant, for all he was pitiful about the daisy. He'd too much mother-wit for that. Th' Union's the plough, making ready the land for harvest-time. Such as Boucher--'twould be settin' him up too much to liken him to a daisy; he's liker a weed lounging over the ground--mun just made up their mind to be put out o' the way. I'm sore vexed wi' him just now. So m'appen, I dunnot speak him fair. I could go o'er him wi' a plough mysel', wi' a' the pleasure in life." "Why? What has he been doing? Anything fresh?" "Ay, to be sure. He's ne'er out o' mischief, that man. First of a' he must go raging like a mad fool, and kick up yon riot. Then he'd to go into hiding, where he'd a been yet, if Thornton had followed him out as I'd hoped he would ha' done. But Thornton, having got his own purpose, didn't care to go on wi' the prosecution for the riot. So Boucher slunk back again to his house. He ne'er showed himsel' abroad for a day or two. He had that grace. And then, where think ye that he went? Why, to Hampers'. Damn him! He went wi' his mealy-mouthed face, that turns me sick to look at, a-asking for work, though he knowed well enough the new rule, o' pledging themselves to give nought to th' Unions; nought to help the starving turn-out! Why he'd a clemmed to death, if th' Union had na helped him in his pinch. There he went, ossing to promise aught, and pledge himsel' to aught--to tell a' he know'd on our proceedings, the good-for-nothing Judas! But I'll say this for Hamper, and thank him for it at my dying day, he drove Boucher away, and would na listen to him--ne'er a word--though folk standing by, says the traitor cried like a babby!" "Oh! how shocking! how pitiful!" exclaimed Margaret. "Higgins, I don't know you to-day. Don't you see how you've made Boucher what he is, by driving him into the Union against his will--without his heart going with it. You have made him what he is!" Made him what he is! What was he? Gathering, gathering along the narrow street, came a hollow, measured sound; now forcing itself on their attention. Many voices were hushed and low: many steps were heard, not moving onwards, at least not with any rapidity or steadiness of motion, but as if circling round one spot. Yes, there was one distinct, slow tramp of feet, which made itself a clear path through the air, and reached their ears; the measured laboured walk of men carrying a heavy burden. They were all drawn towards the house-door by some irresistible impulse; impelled thither--not by a poor curiosity, but as if by some solemn blast. Six men walked in the middle of the road, three of them being policemen. They carried a door, taken off its hinges, upon their shoulders, on which lay some dead human creature; and from each side of the door there were constant droppings. All the street turned out to see, and, seeing, to accompany the procession, each one questioning the bearers, who answered almost reluctantly at last, so often had they told the tale. "We found him i' th' brook in the field beyond there." "Th' brook!--why there's not water enough to drown him!" "He was a determined chap. He lay with his face downwards. He was sick enough o' living, choose what cause he had for it." Higgins crept up to Margaret's side, and said in a weak piping kind of voice: "It's not John Boucher? He had na spunk enough. Sure! It's not John Boucher! Why, they are a' looking this way! Listen! I've a singing in my head, and I cannot hear." They put the door down carefully upon the stones, and all might see the poor drowned wretch--his glassy eyes, one half-open, staring right upwards to the sky. Owing to the position in which he had been found lying, his face was swollen and discoloured; besides, his skin was stained by the water in the brook, which had been used for dyeing purposes. The fore part of his head was bald; but the hair grew thin and long behind, and every separate lock was a conduit for water. Through all these disfigurements, Margaret recognised John Boucher. It seemed to her so sacrilegious to be peering into that poor distorted, agonised face, that, by a flash of instinct, she went forwards and softly covered the dead man's countenance with her handkerchief. The eyes that saw her do this followed her, as she turned away from her pious office, and were thus led to the place where Nicholas Higgins stood, like one rooted to the spot. The men spoke together, and then one of them came up to Higgins, who would have fain shrunk back into his house. "Higgins, thou knowed him! Thou mun go tell the wife. Do it gently, man, but do it quick, for we canna leave him here long." "I canna go," said Higgins. "Dunnot ask me. I canna face her." "Thou knows her best," said the man. "We'n done a deal in bringing him here--thou take thy share." "I canna do it," said Higgins. "I'm welly felled wi' seeing him. We wasn't friends; and now he's dead." "Well, if thou wunnot thou wunnot. Some one mun though. It's a dree task; but it's a chance, every minute, as she doesn't hear on it in some rougher way nor a person going to make her let on by degrees, as it were." "Papa, do you go," said Margaret, in a low voice. "If I could--if I had time to think of what I had better say; but all at once----" Margaret saw that her father was indeed unable. He was trembling from head to foot. "I will go," said she. "Bless yo' miss, it will be a kind act; for she's been but a sickly sort o' body, I hear, and few hereabouts know much on her." Margaret knocked at the closed door; but there was such a noise, as of many little ill-ordered children, that she could hear no reply; indeed, she doubted if she was heard, and as every moment of delay made her recoil from her task more and more, she opened the door and went in, shutting it after her, and even, unseen by the woman, fastening the bolt. Mrs. Boucher was sitting in a rocking-chair, on the other side of the ill-redd-up fireplace; it looked as if the house had been untouched for days by any effort at cleanliness. Margaret said something, she hardly knew what, her throat and mouth were so dry, and the children's noise completely prevented her from being heard. She tried again. "How are you, Mrs. Boucher? But very poorly, I'm afraid." "I've chance o' being well," said she querulously. "I'm left alone to manage these childer, and nought for to give 'em for to keep 'em quiet. John should na ha' left me, and me so poorly." "How long is it since he went away?" "Four days sin'. No one would give him work here, and he'd to go on tramp toward Greenfield. But he might ha' been back afore this, or sent me some word if he'd getten work. He might----" "Oh, don't blame him," said Margaret. "He felt it deeply, I'm sure----" "Willto' hold thy din, and let me hear the lady speak!" addressing herself, in no very gentle voice, to a little urchin of about a year old. She apologetically continued to Margaret, "He's always mithering me for 'daddy' and 'butty'; and I ha' no butties to give him, and daddy's away, and forgotten us a', I think. He's his father's darling, he is," said she, with a sudden turn of mood, and, dragging the child up to her knee, she began kissing it fondly. Margaret laid her hand on the woman's arm to arrest her attention. Their eyes met. "Poor little fellow!" said Margaret, slowly; "he _was_ his father's darling." "He _is_ his father's darling," said the woman, rising hastily, and standing face to face with Margaret. Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then Mrs. Boucher began in a low growling tone, gathering in wildness as she went on: "He _is_ his father's darling, I say. Poor folk can love their childer as well as rich. Why dunno yo' speak? Why dun yo' stare at me wi' your great pitiful eyes? Where's John?" Weak as she was, she shook Margaret to force out an answer. "Oh, my God!" said she, understanding the meaning of that tearful look. She sank back into the chair. Margaret took up the child and put him into her arms. "He loved him," said she. "Ay," said the woman, shaking her head, "he loved us a'. We had some one to love us once. It's a long time ago; but when he were in life and with us he did love us, he did. He loved this babby mappen the best on us; but he loved me and I loved him, though I was calling him five minutes agone. Are yo' sure he's dead?" said she, trying to get up. "If it's only that he's ill and like to die, they may bring him round yet. I'm but an ailing creature mysel'--I've been ailing this long time." "But he is dead--he is drowned!" "Folk are brought round after they're dead-drowned. Whatten was I thinking of, to sit still when I should be stirring mysel'? Here, whisth thee, child--whisth thee! tak' this, tak' aught to play wi', but dunnot cry while my heart's breaking! Oh, where is my strength gone to? Oh John--husband!" Margaret saved her from falling by catching her in her arms. She sate down in the rocking chair, and held the woman upon her knees, her head lying on Margaret's shoulder. The other children, clustered together in affright, began to understand the mystery of the scene; but the ideas came slowly, for their brains were dull and languid of perception. They set up such a cry of despair as they guessed the truth, that Margaret knew not how to bear it. Johnny's cry was loudest of them all, though he knew not why he cried, poor little fellow. The mother quivered as she lay in Margaret's arms. Margaret heard a noise at the door. "Open it. Open it quick," said she to the eldest child. "It's bolted; make no noise--be very still. Oh, papa, let them go upstairs very softly and carefully, and perhaps she will not hear them. She has fainted--that's all." "It's as well for her, poor creature," said a woman following in the wake of the bearers of the dead. "But yo're not fit to hold her. Stay, I'll run fetch a pillow, and we'll let her down easy on the floor." This helpful neighbour was a great relief to Margaret; she was evidently a stranger to the house, a new-comer in the district, indeed; but she was so kind and thoughtful that Margaret felt she was no longer needed; and that it would be better, perhaps, to set an example of clearing the house, which was filled with idle, if sympathising gazers. She looked round for Nicholas Higgins. He was not there. So she spoke to the woman who had taken the lead in placing Mrs. Boucher on the floor. "Can you give all these people a hint that they had better leave in quietness? So that when she comes round, she could only find one or two that she knows about her. Papa, will you speak to the men, and get them to go away. She cannot breathe, poor thing, with this crowd about her." Margaret was kneeling down by Mrs. Boucher and bathing her face with vinegar; but in a few minutes she was surprised at the gush of fresh air. She looked round, and saw a smile pass between her father and the woman. "What is it?" asked she. "Only our good friend here," replied her father, "hit on a capital expedient for clearing the place." "I did 'em begone, and each take a child with 'em, and to mind that they were orphans, and their mother a widow. It was who could do most, and the childer are sure of a bellyful to-day, and of kindness too. Does hoo know how he died?" "No," said Margaret; "I could not tell her all at once." "Hoo mun be told because of th' Inquest. See! Hoo's coming round; shall you or I do it? or mappen your father would be best?" "No; you, you," said Margaret. They awaited her perfect recovery in silence. Then the neighbour woman sat down on the floor, and took Mrs. Boucher's head and shoulders on her lap. "Neighbour," said she, "your man is dead. Guess yo' how he died?" "He were drowned," said Mrs. Boucher, feebly, beginning to cry for the first time, at this rough probing of her sorrows. "He were found drowned. He were coming home very hopeless o' aught on earth. He thought God could na be harder than men; mappen not so hard; mappen as tender as a mother; mappen tenderer. I'm not saying he did right, and I'm not saying he did wrong. All I say is, may neither me nor mine ever have his sore heart, or we may do like things." "He has left me alone wi' a' these children!" moaned the widow, less distressed at the manner of the death than Margaret expected; but it was of a piece with her helpless character to feel his loss as principally affecting herself and her children. "Not alone," said Mr. Hale, solemnly. "Who is with you? Who will take up your cause?" The widow opened her eyes wide, and looked at the new speaker, of whose presence she had not been aware till then. "Who has promised to be a father to the fatherless?" continued he. "But I've getten six children, sir, and the eldest not eight years of age. I'm not meaning for to doubt His power, sir,--only it needs a deal o' trust"; and she began to cry afresh. "Hoo'll be better able to talk to-morrow, sir," said the neighbour. "Best comfort now would be the feel of a child at her heart. I'm sorry they took the babby." "I'll go for it," said Margaret. And in a few minutes she returned, carrying Johnnie, his face all smeared with eating, and his hands loaded with treasures in the shape of shells, and bits of crystal, and the head of a plaster figure. She placed him on his mother's arms. "There!" said the woman, "now you go. They'll cry together, and comfort together, better nor any one but a child can do. I'll stop with her as long as I'm needed, and if you come to-morrow, you' can have a deal o' wise talk with her, that she's not up to to-day." As Margaret and her father went slowly up the street, she paused at Higgins's closed door. "Shall we go in?" asked her father. "I was thinking of him too." They knocked. There was no answer, so they tried the door. It was bolted, but they thought they heard him moving within. "Nicholas!" said Margaret. There was no answer, and they might have gone away, believing the house to be empty, if there had not been some accidental fall, as of a book, within. "Nicholas!" said Margaret again. "It is only us. Won't you let us come in?" "No," said he. "I spoke as plain as I could, 'bout using words, when I bolted th' door. Let me be, this day." Mr. Hale would have urged their desire, but Margaret placed her finger on his lips. "I don't wonder at it," said she. "I myself long to be alone. It seems the only thing to do one good after a day like this."

At the time arranged, they set out on their walk to see Nicholas Higgins and his daughter. They both felt a strange kind of shyness in their mourning clothes, and drew close to each other in unspoken sympathy. Nicholas was sitting by the fire-side in his accustomed corner, leaning his head upon his hand, his arm resting on his knee. He did not get up when he saw them. 'Sit ye down, sit ye down. Fire's nearly out,' said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself. He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with several days' black growth of beard making his pale face look yet paler, and a well-worn jacket. 'We thought we should have a good chance of finding you just after dinner-time,' said Margaret. 'We have had our sorrow too, since we saw you,' said Mr. Hale. 'Ay, ay. Sorrows is more plentiful than dinners just now; and my dinner hour stretches all day long; yo're pretty sure of finding me.' 'Are you out of work?' asked Margaret. 'Ay,' he replied shortly. Then, after a moment's silence, he added, looking up for the first time: 'I'm not wanting brass. Bess, poor lass, had a little stock under her pillow ready to give me, and Mary is fustian-cutting.' 'We owe Mary some money,' said Mr. Hale. 'If hoo takes it, I'll turn her out o' doors.' 'But we owe her many thanks for her kind service,' began Mr. Hale again. 'I ne'er thanked your daughter there for her deeds o' love to my poor wench. I ne'er could find th' words.' 'Is it because of the strike you're out of work?' asked Margaret gently. 'Strike's ended. I'm out o' work because I ne'er asked for it. And I ne'er asked for it, because good words is scarce, and bad words is plentiful.' He was in a mood to take a surly pleasure in giving answers that were like riddles. But Margaret saw that he would like to be asked for the explanation. 'And good words are-?' 'Asking for work. "Gi' me work" means "and I'll do it like a man." Them's good words. And bad words is saying "Aha, my fine chap! Yo've been true to your order, and I'll be true to mine. Yo've been a poor faithful fool, so go and be d__d to yo'. There's no work for yo' here." Them's bad words. I'm not a fool; and if I was, folk ought to ha' taught me how to be wise. I could ha' learnt, if anyone had tried to teach me.' 'Would it not be worth while,' said Mr. Hale, 'to ask your old master if he would take you back again?' Higgins uttered a low and bitter laugh. 'Measter! if it's no offence, I'll ask yo' a question or two in my turn.' 'You're quite welcome,' said Mr. Hale. 'I reckon yo'n some way of earning your bread.' 'You are quite right. I am a private tutor.' 'So folk pay yo' for teaching them?' 'Yes,' replied Mr. Hale, smiling. 'And them that pays yo', dun they tell yo' what to do wi' the money they give you?' 'No; to be sure not!' 'They dunnot say, "Yo' may have a brother, or a dear friend, who needs this brass; but yo' mun promise not to give it to him, or we'll just leave off dealing with yo'." They dunnot say that?' 'No: to be sure not! I would not submit to that.' 'Now yo've got it,' said Nicholas Higgins. 'Hamper's - where I worked - makes their men pledge they'll not give a penny to help th' Union or keep turnouts fro' clemming. They make nobbut liars and hypocrites. And that's a less sin, to my mind, than making men's hearts so hard that they'll not do a kindness to them as needs it. But I'll ne'er forswear mysel'. I'm a member o' the Union; and I think it's the only thing to do the workman any good. And I've been a turn-out, and known what it were to clem; so if I get a shilling, sixpence shall go to them who needs it. Consequence is, I dunnot see where I'm to get a shilling.' 'Is that rule in force at all the mills?' asked Margaret. 'I cannot say. It's a new regulation at ourn. But by-and-by they'll find out, tyrants makes liars.' There was a little pause. Margaret was hesitating whether to say what was in her mind; she was unwilling to irritate one who was already gloomy enough. At last out it came. But in her soft tones it did not seem to annoy Higgins, only to perplex him. 'Do you remember poor Boucher saying that the Union was a tyrant? I think he said it was the worst tyrant of all.' It was a long while before he spoke. He was looking down into the fire, so she could not read the expression on his face. 'I'll speak truth. A man leads a hard life who's not i' th' Union. But once i' the' Union, his interests are taken care on better nor he could do it for himsel'. It's the only way working men can get their rights, by all joining together. More the members, more chance for each man having justice done him. If any man is inclined to do himsel' or his neighbour a hurt, it puts a check on him. That's all we do i' th' Union. We can't clap folk into prison; but we can make a man's life so heavy that he's obliged to come in, and be wise in spite of himself. Boucher were a fool all along, and ne'er a worse fool than at th' last. We had public opinion on our side, till he and his sort began rioting and breaking laws. It were all o'er wi' the strike then.' 'Then would it not have been better to have left him alone, and not forced him to join the Union? He did you no good; and you drove him mad.' 'Margaret,' said her father, in a low and warning tone. 'I like her,' said Higgins, suddenly. 'Hoo speaks plain out what's in her mind. Hoo doesn't comprehend th' Union for all that. It's our only power. I ha' read a bit o' poetry about a plough going o'er a daisy, as made tears come into my eyes. But the chap ne'er stopped driving the plough, for all he pitied the daisy. He'd too much sense for that. Th' Union's the plough, making ready the land for harvest-time. Such as Boucher - he's no daisy; he's liker a weed lounging over the ground - they must make up their mind to be put out o' the way. I'm sore vexed wi' him just now. I could go o'er him wi' a plough mysel'.' 'Why? What has he been doing?' 'He's ne'er out o' mischief, that man. First he must go raging like a mad fool, and kick up yon riot. Then he'd to go into hiding. And when Thornton didn't follow him nor go on wi' the prosecution, Boucher slunk back again to his house. And then, where think ye that he went? Why, to Hamper's. Damn him! He went wi' his mealy-mouthed face, asking for work, though he knowed well enough the new rule, o' pledging to give nought to th' Unions! Why, he'd a clemmed to death, if th' Union had na helped him. The good-for-nothing Judas! But I'll say this for Hamper, he drove Boucher away, and would na listen to him, though folk says the traitor cried like a babby!' 'Oh! how shocking! how pitiful!' exclaimed Margaret. 'Higgins, I don't know you today. Don't you see how you've made Boucher what he is, by driving him into the Union against his will!' Made him what he is! What was he? Gathering along the narrow street, came a hollow, measured sound, forcing itself on their attention. Many voices were hushed and low: there was a distinct, slow tramp of feet, the laboured walk of men carrying a heavy burden. They were all drawn towards the house-door by some impulse. Six men walked in the middle of the road, three of them policemen. Upon their shoulders they carried a door, taken off its hinges, on which lay some dead human creature; and the door was dripping. All the street turned out to see the procession, questioning the bearers, who answered reluctantly at last. 'We found him i' th' brook in the field beyond there.' 'Th' brook! - why, there's not water enough to drown him!' 'He was a determined chap. He lay with his face downwards. He was sick o' living.' Higgins said in a weak, high voice: 'It's not John Boucher? He had na pluck enough. Sure! It's not John Boucher! I've a singing in my head, and cannot hear.' They put the door down carefully, and all might see the poor drowned wretch - his glassy eyes staring upwards to the sky. His face was swollen and discoloured; his skin was stained by the water in the brook, which had been used for dyeing purposes. Water trickled through his hair. Through all these disfigurements, Margaret recognised John Boucher. It seemed to be so sacrilegious to be peering into that poor distorted face, that she instinctively went forwards and softly covered the dead man's countenance with her handkerchief. Nicholas Higgins stood rooted to the spot. The men spoke together, and then one of them came up to Higgins. 'Higgins, thou knowed him! Thou must go tell the wife. Do it gently, man, but do it quick, for we canna leave him here long.' 'I canna go,' said Higgins. 'Dunnot ask me. I canna face her.' 'Thou knows her best,' said the man. 'I canna do it,' said Higgins. 'I'm felled wi' seeing him.' 'Well, if thou wunnot thou wunnot. Some one must, though. It's a dree task; but it's a chance, every minute, that she'll hear on it some rougher way.' 'Papa, you go,' said Margaret, in a low voice. 'If I had time to think of what to say; but all at once-' Margaret saw that her father was trembling. 'I will go,' said she. 'Bless yo', miss, it will be a kind act; for she's been sickly, I hear, and few hereabouts know her.' Margaret knocked at the closed door; but there was such a noise of many little children, that she could hear no reply; indeed, she doubted if she was heard. Before she could recoil from her task, she opened the door and went in. Mrs. Boucher was sitting in a rocking-chair by the dirty fireplace; it looked as if the house had not been cleaned for days. Margaret said something, she hardly knew what, her throat and mouth were so dry, and the children's noise so great. She tried again. 'How are you, Mrs. Boucher? Very poorly, I'm afraid.' 'I've no chance o' being well,' said she querulously. 'I'm left alone to manage these childer, and no food to keep 'em quiet. John should na ha' left me.' 'How long is it since he went away?' 'Four days. No one would give him work here, and he'd to go on tramp toward Greenfield. But he might ha' sent me some word.' 'Oh, don't blame him,' said Margaret. 'He felt it deeply, I'm sure-' 'Willto' hold thy din, and let me hear the lady speak!' she said, in no gentle voice, to a little urchin of about a year old. She apologised to Margaret. 'He's always mithering me for "daddy" and "butty;" and I ha' no butties to give him, and daddy's forgotten us, I think. He's his father's darling, he is.' With a sudden turn of mood, she began kissing the child fondly. Margaret laid her hand on the woman's arm. Their eyes met. 'Poor little fellow!' said Margaret, slowly; 'he was his father's darling.' 'He is his father's darling,' said the woman, rising hastily to face her. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Mrs. Boucher began in a low tone, gathering in wildness: 'He is his father's darling, I say. Poor folk can love their childer as well as rich. Why dunno yo' speak? Why dun yo' stare at me? Where's John? Oh, my God!' She sank back into the chair. Margaret lifted the child and put him into her arms. 'He loved him,' said she. 'Ay,' said the woman, shaking her head, 'he loved us a'. We had someone to love us once. It's a long time ago; but he did love us, he did. He loved this babby the best; but he loved me and I loved him, though I was calling him five minutes ago. Are yo' sure he's dead?' said she, trying to get up. 'He is dead - drowned!' 'Folk are brought round after they're dead-drowned. Here, whisth thee, child - whisth thee! Dunnot cry while my heart's breaking! Oh, where is my strength gone to? Oh, John - husband!' Margaret saved her from falling by catching her in her arms. She sat down and held the woman, her head lying on Margaret's shoulder. The other children, clustered together in affright, began to slowly understand the mystery of the scene; for their brains were dull and languid. Then they set up such a cry of despair that Margaret knew not how to bear it. Johnnie's cry was loudest of them all, though he knew not why he cried, poor little fellow. As she held the quivering mother, Margaret heard a noise at the door. 'Open it quick,' said she to the eldest child. 'Make no noise.' Seeing her father with the other men, she told him, 'Oh, papa, let them go upstairs very softly, and perhaps she will not hear them. She has fainted.' 'It's as well for her, poor creature,' said a woman following the bearers of the dead. 'Stay, I'll run fetch a pillow and we'll let her down easy on the floor.' This helpful neighbour was a great relief to Margaret; she was a new-comer in the district, but so kind and thoughtful that Margaret felt she was no longer needed; and that it would be better, perhaps, to leave and set an example of clearing the house, which was filled with idle, if sympathising gazers. She looked round for Nicholas Higgins. He was not there. So she spoke to the woman who had helped in placing Mrs. Boucher on the floor. 'Can you give these people a hint that they had better leave quietly? When she comes round, she should only find one or two that she knows. Papa, will you ask the men to go away? She cannot breathe, poor thing, with this crowd about her.' Margaret was kneeling down by Mrs. Boucher and bathing her face with vinegar; but in a few minutes she felt a gust of fresh air. She looked round, and saw a smile pass between her father and the woman. 'What is it?' asked she. 'Our good friend here,' replied her father, 'hit on a capital expedient for clearing the place.' 'I bid 'em begone, and each take a child with 'em, and to mind that they were fatherless, and their mother a widow. The childer are sure of a bellyful today, and of kindness too. Does hoo know how he died?' 'No,' said Margaret; 'I could not tell her all.' 'Hoo must be told. See! Hoo's coming round; shall you or I do it? Or your father?' 'No; you,' said Margaret. As Mrs. Boucher recovered, the neighbour woman sat down on the floor, and took Mrs. Boucher's head and shoulders on her lap. 'Neighbour,' said she, 'your man is dead. Guess yo' how he died?' 'He were drowned,' said Mrs. Boucher, feebly, beginning to cry for the first time. 'He were found drowned. He were coming home very hopeless o' aught on earth. He thought God could na be harder than men; happen as tender as a mother, or tenderer. I'm not saying he did right, and I'm not saying he did wrong. All I say is, may neither me nor mine ever have his sore heart.' 'He has left me alone wi' a' these children!' moaned the widow, less distressed at the manner of the death than Margaret expected. 'Not alone,' said Mr. Hale, solemnly. 'Who is with you? Who has promised to be a father to the fatherless?' 'But I've getten six children, sir, and the eldest not eight years of age. I'm not meaning for to doubt His power, sir - only it needs a deal o' trust;' and she began to cry afresh. 'Hoo'll be better able to talk tomorrow, sir,' said the neighbour. 'Best comfort now would be the feel of a child at her heart. I'm sorry they took the babby.' 'I'll go for it,' said Margaret. And in a few minutes she returned, carrying Johnnie, his face all smeared with eating, and his hands loaded with treasures in the shape of shells, and the head of a plaster figure. She placed him in his mother's arms. 'There!' said the woman, 'now you go. They'll cry together, and comfort together. I'll stop with her as long as I'm needed, and if yo' come tomorrow, yo' can talk with her.' As Margaret and her father went slowly up the street, she paused at Higgins's closed door. 'Shall we go in?' asked her father. They knocked. There was no answer, so they tried the door. It was bolted, but they thought they heard him moving within. 'Nicholas!' said Margaret. 'Nicholas! It is only us. Won't you let us in?' 'No,' said he. 'Let me be, this day.' Mr. Hale would have protested, but Margaret placed her finger on his lips. 'I don't wonder at it,' said she. 'I myself long to be alone, after a day like this.'

North and South

Chapter 36: UNION NOT ALWAYS STRENGTH

"Nay, I have done; you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, That thus so clearly I myself am free." DRAYTON. Margaret shut herself up in her own room, after she had quitted Mrs. Thornton. She began to walk backwards and forwards, in her old habitual way of showing agitation; but, then, remembering that in that slightly-built house every step was heard from one room to another, she sate down until she heard Mrs. Thornton go safely out of the house. She forced herself to recollect all the conversation that had passed between them; speech by speech, she compelled her memory to go through with it. At the end, she rose up, and said to herself, in a melancholy tone: "At any rate, her words do not touch me; they fall off from me; for I am innocent of all the motives she attributes to me. But still, it is hard to think that any one--any woman--can believe all this of another so easily. It is hard and sad. Where I have done wrong, she does not accuse me--she does not know. He never told her: I might have known he would not!" She lifted up her head, as if she took pride in any delicacy of feeling which Mr. Thornton had shown. Then, as a new thought came across her, she pressed her hands tightly together: "He, too, must take poor Frederick for some lover." (She blushed as the word passed through her mind.) "I see it now. It is not merely that he knows of my falsehood, but he believes that some one else cares for me; and that I---- Oh dear!--oh dear! What shall I do? What do I mean? Why do I care what he thinks, beyond the mere loss of his good opinion as regards my telling the truth or not? I cannot tell. But I am very miserable! Oh, how unhappy this last year has been! I have passed out of childhood into old age. I have had no youth--no womanhood; the hopes of womanhood have closed for me--for I shall never marry; and I anticipate cares and sorrows just as if I were an old woman, and with the same tearful spirit. I am weary of this continual call upon me for strength. I could bear up for papa; because that is a natural, pious duty. And I think I could bear up against--at any rate, I could have the energy to resent, Mrs. Thornton's unjust, impertinent suspicions. But it is hard to feel how completely he must misunderstand me. What has happened to make me so morbid to-day? I do not know. I only know I cannot help it. I must give way sometimes. No, I will not though," said she, springing to her feet. "I will not--I _will_ not think of myself and my own position. I won't examine into my own feelings. It would be of no use now. Some time, if I live to be an old woman, I may sit over the fire, and looking into the embers, see the life that might have been." All this time she was hastily putting on her things to go out, only stopping from time to time to wipe her eyes, with an impatience of gesture at the tears that would come again, in spite of all her bravery. "I dare say there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late. And how proudly and impertinently I spoke to him that day! But I did not know then. It has come upon me little by little, and I don't know where it began. Now I won't give way. I shall find it difficult to behave in the same way to him, with this miserable consciousness upon me; but I will be very calm and very quiet, and say very little. But, to be sure, I may not see him; he keeps out of our way evidently. That would be worse than all. And yet no wonder that he avoids me, believing what he must about me." She went out, going rapidly towards the country, and trying to drown reflection by swiftness of motion. As she stood on the door-step, at her return, her father came up: "Good girl!" said he. "You've been to Mrs. Boucher's. I was just meaning to go there, if I had time, before dinner." "No, papa; I have not," said Margaret, reddening. "I never thought about her. But I will go directly after dinner; I will go while you are taking your nap." Accordingly Margaret went. Mrs. Boucher was very ill; really ill--not merely ailing. The kind and sensible neighbour, who had come in the other day, seemed to have taken charge of everything. Some of the children were gone to the neighbours. Mary Higgins had come for the three youngest at dinner-time; and since then Nicholas had gone for the doctor. He had not come as yet; Mrs. Boucher was dying; and there was nothing to do but wait. Margaret thought that she should like to hear his opinion, and that she could not do better than go and see the Higginses in the meantime. She might then possibly hear whether Nicholas had been able to make his application to Mr. Thornton. She found Nicholas busily engaged in making a penny spin on the dresser, for the amusement of three little children, who were clinging to him in a fearless manner. He, as well as they, was smiling at a good long spin; and Margaret thought, that the happy look of interest in his occupation was a good sign. When the penny stopped spinning, "lile Johnnie" began to cry. "Come to me," said Margaret, taking him off the dresser, and holding him in her arms; she held her watch to his ear, while she asked Nicholas if he had seen Mr. Thornton. The look on his face changed instantly. "Ay!" said he. "I've seen and heerd too much on him." "He refused you, then?" said Margaret, sorrowfully. "To be sure. I knew he'd do it all along. It's no good expecting marcy at the hands o' them measters. Yo'r a stranger and a foreigner, and aren't likely to know their ways; but I knowed it." "I am sorry I asked you. Was he angry? He did not speak to you as Hamper did, did he?" "He weren't o'er-civil!" said Nicholas, spinning the penny again, as much for his own amusement as for that of the children. "Never yo' fret, I'm only where I was. I'll go on tramp to-morrow. I gave him as good as I got. I telled him, I'd not that good opinion on him that I'd ha' come a second time of mysel'; but yo'd advised me for to come, and I were beholden to yo'." "You told him I sent you?" "I dunno, if I ca'd yo' by your name. I dunnot think I did. I said a woman who knew no better had advised me for to come and see if there was a soft place in his heart." "And he--?" asked Margaret. "Said I were to tell yo' to mind yo'r own business.--That's the longest spin yet, my lads.--And them's civil words to what he used to me. But ne'er mind. We're but where we was; and I'll break stones on the road afore I let these little uns clem." Margaret put the struggling Johnnie out of her arms, back into his former place on the dresser. "I am sorry I asked you to go to Mr. Thornton's. I am disappointed in him." There was a slight noise behind her. Both she and Nicholas turned round at the same moment, and there stood Mr. Thornton, with a look of displeased surprise upon his face. Obeying her swift impulse, Margaret passed out before him, saying not a word, only bowing low to hide the sudden paleness that she felt had come over her face. He bent equally low in return, and then closed the door after her. As she hurried to Mrs. Boucher's, she heard the clang, and it seemed to fill up the measure of her mortification. He too was annoyed to find her there. He had tenderness in his heart--"a soft place," as Nicholas Higgins called it; but he had some pride in concealing it; he kept it very sacred and safe, and was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission. But if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he was equally desirous that all men should recognise his justice; and he felt that he had been unjust in giving so scornful a hearing to any one who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours, to speak to him. That the man had spoken saucily to him when he had the opportunity, was nothing to Mr. Thornton. He rather liked him for it; and he was conscious of his own irritability of temper at the time, which probably made them both quits. It was the five hours of waiting that struck Mr. Thornton. He had not five hours to spare, himself; but one hour--two hours, of his hard penetrating intellectual, as well as bodily labour, did he give up to going about collecting evidence as to the truth of Higgins's story, the nature of his character, the tenor of his life. He tried not to be, but was convinced that all that Higgins had said was true. And then the conviction went in, as if by some spell, and touched the latent tenderness of his heart; the patience of the man, the simple generosity of the motive (for he had learnt about the quarrel between Boucher and Higgins), made him forget entirely the mere reasonings of justice, and overleap them by a diviner instinct. He came to tell Higgins he would give him work; and he was more annoyed to find Margaret there than by hearing her last words; for then he understood that she was the woman who had urged Higgins to come to him; and he dreaded the admission of any thought of her, as a motive to what he was doing solely because it was right. "So that was the lady you spoke of as a woman?" said he indignantly to Higgins. "You might have told me who she was." "And then, maybe, yo'd have spoken of her more civil than yo' did; yo'd getten a mother who might ha' kept yo'r tongue in check when yo' were talking o' women being at the root of all the plagues." "Of course you told that to Miss Hale?" "In coorse I did. Leastways, I reckon I did. I telled her she weren't to meddle again in aught that concerned yo'." "Whose children are those--yours?" Mr. Thornton had a pretty good notion whose they were, from what he had heard; but he felt awkward in turning the conversation round from this unpromising beginning. "They're not mine, and they are mine." "They are the children you spoke of to me this morning?" "When yo' said," replied Higgins, turning round, with ill-smothered fierceness, "that my story might be true or might not, but it were a very unlikely one. Measter, I've not forgotten." Mr. Thornton was silent for a moment; then he said: "No more have I. I remember what I said. I spoke to you about those children in a way I had no business to. I did not believe you. I could not have taken care of another man's children myself, if he had acted towards me as I hear Boucher did towards you. But I know now you spoke truth. I beg your pardon." Higgins did not turn round, or immediately respond to this. But when he did speak, it was in a softened tone, although the words were gruff enough. "Yo've no business to go prying into what happened between Boucher and me. He's dead, and I'm sorry. That's enough." "So it is. Will you take work with me? That's what I came to ask." Higgins's obstinacy wavered, recovered strength, and stood firm. He would not speak. Mr. Thornton would not ask again. Higgins's eye fell on the children. "Yo've called me impudent, and a liar, and a mischief-maker, and yo' might ha' said wi' some truth, as I were now and then given to drink. An', I ha' called you a tyrant, an' an oud bull dog, and a hard, cruel master; that's where it stands. But for th' childer, Measter, do yo' think we can e'er get on together?" "Well!" said Mr. Thornton, half-laughing, "it was not my proposal that we should go together. But there's one comfort on your own showing. We neither of us can think much worse of the other than we do now." "That's true," said Higgins, reflectively. "I've been thinking ever sin' I saw you, what a marcy it were yo' did na take me on, for that I ne'er saw a man whom I could less abide. But that's maybe been a hasty judgment; and work's work to such as me. So, measter, I'll come; and what's more, I thank yo'; and that's a deal fro' me," said he, more frankly, suddenly turning round and facing Mr. Thornton fully for the first time. "And this is a deal from me," said Mr. Thornton, giving Higgins's hand a good grip. "Now mind you come sharp to your time," continued he, resuming the master. "I'll have no laggards at my mill. What fines we have, we keep pretty sharply. And the first time I catch you making mischief, off you go. So now you know where you are." "Yo' spoke of my wisdom this morning. I reckon I may bring it wi' me; or would yo' rayther have me 'bout my brains?" "'Bout your brains if you use them for meddling with my business; with your brains if you can keep to your own." "I shall need a deal o' brains to settle where my business ends and yo'rs begins." "Your business has not begun yet, and mine stands still for me. So good afternoon." Just before Mr. Thornton came up to Mrs. Boucher's door, Margaret came out of it. She did not see him; and he followed her for several yards, admiring her light and easy walk, and her tall and graceful figure. But, suddenly, this simple emotion of pleasure was tainted, poisoned by jealousy. He wished to overtake her, and speak to her, to see how she would receive him, now she must know he was aware of some other attachment. He wished too, but of this wish he was rather ashamed, that she should know that he had justified her wisdom in sending Higgins to him to ask for work, and had repented him of his morning's decision. He came up to her. She started. "Allow me to say, Miss Hale, that you were rather premature in expressing your disappointment. I have taken Higgins on." "I am glad of it," said she coldly. "He tells me, he repeated to you, what I said this morning about--," Mr. Thornton hesitated. Margaret took it up: "About women not meddling. You had a perfect right to express your opinion, which was a very correct one, I have no doubt. But," she went on a little more eagerly, "Higgins did not quite tell you the exact truth." The word "truth," reminded her of her own untruth, and she stopped short, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. Mr. Thornton at first was puzzled to account for her silence; and then he remembered the lie she had told, and all that was foregone. "The exact truth!" said he. "Very few people do speak the exact truth. I have given up hoping for it. Miss Hale, have you no explanation to give me? You must perceive what I cannot but think." Margaret was silent. She was wondering whether an explanation of any kind would be consistent with her loyalty to Frederick. "Nay" said he, "I will ask no farther. I may be putting temptation in your way. At present, believe me, your secret is safe with me. But you run great risks, allow me to say, in being so indiscreet. I am only speaking as a friend of your father's: if I had any other thought or hope, of course that is at an end. I am quite disinterested." "I am aware of that," said Margaret, forcing herself to speak in an indifferent, careless way. "I am aware of what I must appear to you, but the secret is another person's, and I cannot explain it without doing him harm." "I have not the slightest wish to pry into the gentleman's secrets," he said, with growing anger. "My own interest in you is--simply that of a friend. You may not believe me, Miss Hale, but it is--in spite of the persecution I'm afraid I threatened you with at one time--but that is all given up; all passed away. You believe me, Miss Hale?" "Yes," said Margaret, quietly and sadly. "Then, really, I don't see any reason for us to go on walking together. I thought, perhaps, you might have had something to say, but I see we are nothing to each other. If you're quite convinced, that any foolish passion on my part is entirely over, I wish you good afternoon." He walked off very hastily. "What can he mean?" thought Margaret,--"what could he mean by speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me, when I know he does not; he cannot. His mother will have said all those cruel things about me to him. But I won't care for him. I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good opinion--the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell me that I am nothing to him. Come! poor little heart! be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate." Her father was almost startled by her merriment this morning. She talked incessantly, and forced her natural humour to an unusual pitch; and if there was a tinge of bitterness in much of what she said; if her accounts of the old Harley Street set were a little sarcastic, her father could not bear to check her, as he would have done at another time--for he was glad to see her shake off her cares. In the middle of the evening, she was called down to speak to Mary Higgins; and when she came back, Mr. Hale imagined that he saw traces of tears on her cheeks. But that could not be, for she brought good news--that Higgins had got work at Mr. Thornton's mill. Her spirits were damped, at any rate, and she found it very difficult to go on talking at all, much more in the wild way that she had done. For some days her spirits varied strangely; and her father was beginning to be anxious about her, when news arrived from one or two quarters that promised some change and variety for her. Mr. Hale received a letter from Mr. Bell, in which that gentleman volunteered a visit to them; and Mr. Hale imagined that the promised society of his old Oxford friend would give as agreeable a turn to Margaret's ideas as it did to his own. Margaret tried to take an interest in what pleased her father; but she was too languid to care about any Mr. Bell, even though he were twenty times her godfather. She was more roused by a letter from Edith, full of sympathy about her aunt's death; full of details about herself, her husband, and child; and at the end saying, that as the climate did not suit the baby, and as Mrs. Shaw was talking of returning to England, she thought it probable that Captain Lennox might sell out, and that they might all go and live again in the old Harley Street house; which, however, would seem very incomplete without Margaret. Margaret yearned after that old house, and the placid tranquility of that well-ordered, monotonous life. She had found it occasionally tiresome while it lasted; but since then she had been buffeted about, and felt so exhausted by this recent struggle with herself, that she thought that even stagnation would be a rest and a refreshment. So she began to look towards a long visit to the Lennoxes, on their return to England, as to a point--no, not of hope--but of leisure, in which she could regain her power and command over herself. At present it seemed to her as if all subjects tended towards Mr. Thornton; as if she could not forget him with all her endeavours. If she went to see the Higginses, she heard of him there; her father had resumed their readings together, and quoted his opinions perpetually; even Mr. Bell's visit brought his tenant's name upon the tapis; for he wrote word, that he believed he must be occupied some great part of his time with Mr. Thornton, as a new lease was in preparation, and the terms of it must be agreed upon.

After leaving Mrs. Thornton, Margaret shut herself up in her room. She began to walk backwards and forwards, but then, remembering that in that house every step was heard from one room to another, she sat down and forced herself to recollect the conversation. She said to herself: 'Her words do not touch me; for I am innocent of the motives she attributes to me. But still, it is hard to think that any woman can believe all this of another so easily. It is hard and sad. Where I have done wrong, she does not accuse me. He never told her: I might have known he would not!' She lifted up her head, as if she took pride in Mr. Thornton's delicacy of feeling. Then, at a new thought, she pressed her hands tightly together. 'He, too, must take poor Frederick for some lover. I see it now. It is not merely that he knows of my falsehood, but he believes that I - Oh dear! Oh dear! What shall I do? Why do I care what he thinks? I cannot tell. But I am very miserable! Oh, how unhappy this last year has been! I have passed out of childhood into old age. The hopes of womanhood have closed for me - I shall never marry. I feel as worn-down and fearful as an old woman; I am weary of this continual call upon me for strength. I could bear up for papa; and I think I could bear up against Mrs. Thornton's unjust suspicions. But it is hard to feel how completely he must misunderstand me. Why am I so morbid today? I do not know. I only know I cannot help it. I must give way sometimes. No, I will not, though,' said she, springing to her feet. 'I will not think of myself. I won't examine my own feelings. It would be of no use. If I live to be an old woman, then I may sit over the fire, and looking into the embers, see the life that might have been.' All this time, she was hastily putting on her things to go out, only stopping to wipe her eyes impatiently. 'I dare say, there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late. And how proudly I spoke to him that day! But I did not know then. It has come upon me little by little, and I don't know where it began. I shall find it difficult to behave in the same way to him; but I will be very calm, and say little. But, to be sure, I may not see him; he keeps out of our way. No wonder, believing what he must about me.' She went out, going rapidly towards the country, and trying to drown reflection by walking swiftly. On her return, her father met her on the door-step. 'Good girl!' said he. 'You've been to Mrs. Boucher's. I was just meaning to go there.' 'No, papa; I have not,' said Margaret, reddening. 'I never thought about her. But I will go directly after dinner.' Accordingly she went. Mrs. Boucher was very ill. The kind and sensible neighbour, who had come in the other day, seemed to have taken charge of everything. Some of the children were gone to the neighbours. Mary Higgins had come for the three youngest at dinner-time; and Nicholas had gone for the doctor. Mrs. Boucher was dying; and there was nothing to do but to wait. Margaret thought that she had better go and visit the Higginses in the meantime. She might hear whether Nicholas had been able to see Mr. Thornton. She found Nicholas busy amusing the three little children, by spinning pennies. He, and they, were smiling at a good long spin; and Margaret thought that was a good sign. When the penny stopped spinning, little Johnnie began to cry. 'Come to me,' said Margaret, holding him in her arms and putting her watch to his ear, while she asked Nicholas if he had seen Mr. Thornton. The look on his face changed instantly. 'Ay!' said he. 'I've seen and heerd too much on him.' 'He refused you, then?' said Margaret, sorrowfully. 'To be sure. I knew he would. It's no good expecting marcy at the hands o' them measters.' 'I am sorry I asked you. Was he angry?' 'He weren't o'er-civil!' said Nicholas, spinning the penny again. 'Never yo' fret, I'm only where I was. I'll go on tramp tomorrow. I gave him as good as I got. I telled him, I'd only come because yo'd advised me to, and I were beholden to yo'.' 'You told him I sent you?' 'I dunno' if I said your name. I dunnot think I did. I said, a woman who knew no better had advised me for to come and see if there was a soft place in his heart.' 'And he-?' 'Said I were to tell yo' to mind your own business. That's the longest spin yet, my lads. - But ne'er mind. We're but where we was; and I'll break stones on th' road afore I let these little uns clem.' 'I am sorry I asked you to go to Mr. Thornton's,' said Margaret. 'I am disappointed in him.' There was a slight noise behind her. They both turned, and there stood Mr. Thornton, with a look of displeased surprise upon his face. Swiftly Margaret went out past him, saying not a word, only bowing low to hide her face. He bent equally low in return, and then closed the door after her. He was annoyed to find her there. He had tenderness in his heart; but he kept it very sacred and safe. However, if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he equally wished that men should recognise his justice; and he felt that he had been unjust in giving so scornful a hearing to anyone who had waited patiently for five hours to speak to him. That the man had then spoken saucily was nothing to Mr. Thornton. He rather liked him for it; and he was conscious of his own irritability, which probably made them quits. It was the five hours of waiting that struck Mr. Thornton. He spent two hours himself going about collecting evidence of the truth of Higgins's story and the nature of his character. He tried not to be, but was convinced that all that Higgins had said was true. And then the conviction touched the latent tenderness of his heart. The man's patience and generosity made him forget entirely the mere reasonings of justice. He came to tell Higgins he would give him work; and he was annoyed to find Margaret there because then he understood that she was the woman who had urged Higgins to come to him; and he was doing this not because of her, but solely because it was right. 'So that was the lady you spoke of?' said he indignantly to Higgins. 'You might have told me who she was.' 'And then, maybe, yo'd ha' spoken of her more civil than yo' did when yo' were talking o' women being at the root o' all plagues.' 'Of course you told that to Miss Hale?' 'In coorse I did. Leastways, I telled her she weren't to meddle again in aught that concerned yo'.' 'Whose children are those - yours?' 'They're not mine, and they are mine.' 'They are the children you spoke of this morning?' 'When yo' said,' replied Higgins fiercely, 'that my story might be true or might not, but it were a very unlikely one.' Mr. Thornton was silent for a moment. Then he said: 'I spoke to you about those children in a way I had no business to do. I did not believe you. I could not have taken care of another man's children myself, if he had acted towards me as I hear Boucher did towards you. But I know now that you spoke truth. I beg your pardon.' Higgins did not immediately respond to this. But when he did speak, it was in a softened tone, although the words were gruff. 'Yo've no business to go prying into what happened between Boucher and me. He's dead, and I'm sorry. That's enough.' 'So it is. Will you take work with me? That's what I came to ask.' Higgins wavered: and then his eye fell on the children. 'Yo've called me impudent, and a liar, and a mischief-maker, and happen wi' some truth, as I were now and then given to drink. An' I ha' called you a tyrant, an' an oud bull-dog, and a hard, cruel master; that's where it stands. But for th' childer, Measter, do yo' think we can get on together?' 'Well!' said Mr. Thornton, half-laughing, 'we neither of us can think much worse of the other than we do now.' 'That's true,' said Higgins, reflectively. 'So, measter, I'll come; and what's more, I thank yo'; and that's a deal fro' me.' 'And this is a deal from me,' said Mr. Thornton, gripping his hand. 'Now mind you come sharp to your time. I'll have no laggards at my mill. And the first time I catch you making mischief, off you go. So now you know where you are.' 'Would yo' rayther have me wi'out my brains?' 'Without your brains if you use them for meddling with my business; with your brains if you can keep them for your own.' 'I shall need a deal o' brains to settle where my business ends and yours begins.' 'Your business has not begun yet. So good afternoon.' Just before Mr. Thornton came up to Mrs. Boucher's door, Margaret came out of it. She did not see him; and he followed her for several yards, admiring her light and graceful walk. But, suddenly, this simple emotion of pleasure was poisoned by jealousy. He wished to overtake her, and speak to her, to see how she would receive him, now she must know he was aware of some other attachment. He wished too, but of this wish he was rather ashamed, that she should know that he had repented of his morning's decision about Higgins. He came up to her. 'Allow me to say, Miss Hale, that you were premature in your disappointment. I have taken Higgins on.' 'I am glad of it,' said she, coldly. 'He tells me he repeated to you, what I said about-' Mr. Thornton hesitated. 'About women not meddling. You had a perfect right to express your opinion, which was a very correct one, I have no doubt. But,' Margaret went on more eagerly, 'Higgins did not quite tell you the exact truth.' The word 'truth' reminded her of her own untruth, and she stopped short, feeling uncomfortable. Mr. Thornton was puzzled; and then he remembered the lie she had told. 'The exact truth!' said he. 'Very few people do speak the exact truth. I have given up hoping for it. Miss Hale, have you no explanation to give me? You must perceive what I have to think.' Margaret was silent, wondering whether an explanation would be consistent with loyalty to Frederick. 'Nay,' said he, 'I will ask no farther. At present, believe me, your secret is safe with me. But you run great risks, allow me to say, in being so indiscreet. I am now only speaking as a friend of your father's: if I had any other thought or hope, of course that is at an end.' 'I am aware of that,' said Margaret, forcing herself to speak in an indifferent way. 'I am aware of what I must appear to you, but the secret is another person's, and I cannot explain it without doing him harm.' 'I have not the slightest wish to pry into the gentleman's secrets,' he said, with growing anger. 'My own interest in you is simply that of a friend. You may not believe me, Miss Hale, after the persecution I'm afraid I threatened you with at one time - but that is all passed away. You believe me, Miss Hale?' 'Yes,' said Margaret, quietly and sadly. 'Then I don't see any occasion for us to go on walking together. I thought perhaps you might have had something to say, but I see we are nothing to each other. I wish you good afternoon.' He walked off very hastily. 'What can he mean?' thought Margaret, 'what could he mean by speaking so, when I know he does not care for me; he cannot. His mother will have said cruel things about me to him. But I won't care for him. I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might regain his good opinion - the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell me that I am nothing to him. Come, poor little heart! be cheery and brave.' Her father was almost startled by her merriment that afternoon. She talked incessantly, and forced her natural humour to an unusual pitch; and even if there was a tinge of bitterness in much of what she said, he was glad to see her shake off her cares. For some days her spirits varied strangely; and her father was beginning to be anxious about her, when news arrived that promised some variety for her. Mr. Hale received a letter from Mr. Bell, who proposed to visit them; and Mr. Hale imagined this would be as agreeable to Margaret as to himself. Margaret tried to take an interest; but she was too languid to care about any Mr. Bell, even though he were twenty times her godfather. She was more roused by a letter from Edith, full of sympathy about her aunt's death, and saying that as Mrs. Shaw was talking of returning to England, she thought Captain Lennox might sell out of the army, and that they might all go and live again in the old Harley Street house; which, however, would seem very incomplete without Margaret. Margaret yearned after that old house, and the placid tranquillity of that old well-ordered, monotonous life. She had been so buffeted about, and felt so exhausted by this recent struggle with herself, that even stagnation would be a rest and a refreshment. So she began to look forward to a long visit to the Lennoxes, on their return, as a place where she could regain her command over herself. At present it seemed as if she could not forget Mr. Thornton. If she went to see the Higginses, she heard of him there; her father had resumed their readings together, and quoted his opinions perpetually; even Mr. Bell wrote that he believed he would be occupied with Mr. Thornton, as a new lease was in preparation, and the terms of it must be agreed upon.

North and South

Chapter 39: MAKING FRIENDS

"Let China's earth, enriched with coloured stains, Pencil'd with gold, and streaked with azure veins, The grateful flavour of the Indian leaf, Or Mocha's sunburnt berry glad receive." MRS. BARBOULD. The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter Mr. Hale came upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour. He went up to different objects in the room, as if examining them, but Margaret saw that it was merely a nervous trick--a way of putting off something he wished, yet feared to say. Out it came at last-- "My dear! I've asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea to-night." Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late. But she roused up into querulousness at this speech of her husband's. "Mr. Thornton!--and to-night! What in the world does the man want to come here for? And Dixon is washing my muslins and laces, and there is no soft water with these horrid east winds, which I suppose we shall have all the year round in Milton. "The wind is veering round, my dear," said Mr. Hale, looking out at the smoke, which drifted right from the east, only he did not yet understand the points of the compass, and rather arranged them ad libitum according to circumstances. "Don't tell me!" said Mrs. Hale, shuddering up, and wrapping her shawl about her still more closely. "But, east or west wind, I suppose this man comes." "Oh mamma, that shows you never saw Mr. Thornton. He looks like a person who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with--enemies, winds, or circumstances. The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him. But I'll go and help Dixon. I'm getting to be a famous clear-starcher. And he won't want any amusement beyond talking to Papa. Papa, I am really longing to see the Pythias to your Damon. You know I never saw him but once, and then we were so puzzled to know what to say to each other that we did not get on particularly well." "I don't know that you would ever like him, or think him agreeable, Margaret. He is not a lady's man." Margaret wreathed her throat in a scornful curve. "I don't particularly admire ladies' men, papa. But Mr. Thornton comes here as your friend--as one who has appreciated you"-- "The only person in Milton," said Mrs. Hale. "So we will give him a welcome, and some cocoa-nut cakes. Dixon will be flattered if we ask her to make some; and I will undertake to iron your caps, mamma." Many a time that morning did Margaret wish Mr. Thornton far enough away. She had planned other employments for herself: a letter to Edith, a good piece of Dante, a visit to the Higginses. But, instead, she ironed away, listening to Dixon's complaints, and only hoping that by an excess of sympathy she might prevent her from carrying the recital of her sorrows to Mrs. Hale. Every now and then, Margaret had to remind herself of her father's regard for Mr. Thornton, to subdue the irritation of weariness that was stealing over her, and bringing on one of the bad headaches to which she had lately become liable. She could hardly speak when she sat down at last, and told her mother that she was no longer Peggy the laundry-maid, but Margaret Hale the lady. She meant this speech for a little joke, and was vexed enough with her busy tongue when she found her mother taking it seriously. "Yes! if any one had told me, when I was Miss Beresford, and one of the belles of the country, that a child of mine would have to stand half a day, in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, that we might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman, and that this tradesman should be the only"-- "Oh, mamma!" said Margaret, lifting herself up, "don't punish me for so careless a speech. I don't mind ironing, or any kind of work for you and papa. I am myself a born and bred lady through it all, even though it comes to scouring a floor, or washing dishes. I am tired now, just for a little while; but in half an hour I shall be ready to do the same over again. And as to Mr. Thornton's being in trade, why he can't help that now, poor fellow. I don't suppose his education would fit him for much else," Margaret lifted herself slowly up, and went to her own room; for just now she could not bear much more. In Mr. Thornton's house, at this very same time, a similar, yet different scene was going on. A large-boned lady, long past middle age, sat at work in a grim handsomely-furnished dining-room. Her features, like her frame, were strong and massive, rather than heavy. Her face moved slowly from one decided expression to another equally decided. There was no great variety in her countenance; but those who looked at it once, generally looked at it again; even the passers by in the street, half-turned their heads to gaze an instant longer at the firm, severe, dignified woman, who never gave way in street-courtesy, or paused in her straight-onward course to the clearly defined end which she proposed to herself. She was handsomely dressed in stout black silk, of which not a thread was worn or discoloured. She was mending a large, long table-cloth of the finest texture, holding it up against the light occasionally to discover thin places, which required her delicate care. There was not a book about in the room, with the exception of Matthew Henry's Bible commentaries, six volumes of which lay in the centre of the massive side-board, flanked by a tea-urn on one side, and a lamp on the other. In some remote apartment, there was exercise upon the piano going on. Someone was practising up a morceau de salon, playing it very rapidly, every third note, on an average, being either indistinct, or wholly missed out, and the loud chords at the end being half of them false, but not the less satisfactory to the performer. Mrs. Thornton heard a step, like her own in its decisive character, pass the dining-room door. "John! Is that you?" Her son opened the door, and showed himself. "What has brought you home so early? I thought you were going to tea with that friend of Mr. Bell's; that Mr. Hale?" "So I am, mother. I am come home to dress!" "Dress! humph! When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing once in a day. Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an old parson?" "Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies." "Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never mentioned them." "No! mother, because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss Hale for half an hour." "Take care you don't get caught by a penniless girl, John." "I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But I must not have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to me. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I believe that any one has ever given themselves that useless trouble." Mrs. Thornton did not choose to yield the point to her son; or else she had, in general, pride enough for her sex. "Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Milton girls have too much spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true, rich husbands are reckoned prizes." Mr. Thornton's brow contracted, and he came a step forward into the room. "Mother" (with a short scornful laugh), "you will make me confess. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy, mother." "No! I am not easy nor content either. What business had she, a renegade clergyman's daughter, to turn up her nose at you! I would dress for none of them--a saucy set! if I were you." As he was leaving the room he said:-- "Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned. He is not saucy. As for Mrs. Hale, I will tell you what she is like to-night, if you care to hear." He shut the door, and was gone. "Despise my son! treat him as her vassal, indeed! Humph! I should like to know where she could find such another! Boy and man, he's the noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew. I don't care if I am his mother; I can see what's what, and not be blind. I know what Fanny is; and I know what John is. Despise him! I hate her!"

The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter, Mr. Hale came upstairs into the little drawing-room. He began to examine different objects there, but Margaret saw that it was merely a nervous way of putting off something he wished, yet feared to say. Out it came at last- 'My dear! I've asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea tonight.' Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late. But now she roused up querulously. 'Mr. Thornton! tonight! What in the world does the man want to come here for? And Dixon is washing my muslins and laces, and there is no soft water with these horrid east winds, which I suppose we shall have all year in Milton.' 'The wind is veering round, my dear,' said Mr. Hale, looking out at the smoke rather vaguely. 'Don't tell me!' said Mrs. Hale, shuddering, and wrapping her shawl tightly about her. 'But, east or west wind, I suppose this man comes.' 'Oh, mamma, Mr. Thornton looks like a person who would enjoy battling with everything - winds included. The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him. I'll go and help Dixon. And he won't want any amusement beyond talking to papa. You know, Papa, I have only seen him once, and then we were so puzzled to know what to say to each other that we did not get on particularly well.' 'He is not a lady's man.' Margaret looked scornful. 'I don't particularly admire ladies' men, papa. But Mr. Thornton comes here as your friend, so we will give him a welcome, and some cocoa-nut cakes. Dixon will be flattered if we ask her to make some; and I will iron your caps, mamma.' Margaret had planned other employments for herself: a letter to Edith, some Dante, a visit to the Higginses. But, instead, she ironed away, listening to Dixon's complaints, and hoping that her sympathy might prevent Dixon from carrying the recital of her sorrows to Mrs. Hale. Margaret had to remind herself of her father's regard for Mr. Thornton, to subdue the weariness that was stealing over her, and bringing on one of the bad headaches to which she had lately become liable. She could hardly speak when she sat down at last, and told her mother that she was no longer Peggy the laundry-maid, but Margaret Hale the lady. She meant this speech for a little joke, and was vexed with herself when she found her mother taking it seriously. 'Yes! if anyone had told me, when I was Miss Beresford, that a child of mine would have to stand in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, so that we might prepare to receive a tradesman-' 'Oh, mamma!' said Margaret, 'I don't mind ironing, or any kind of work, for you and papa. I am a born and bred lady through it all. I am just tired now; but in half an hour I shall be ready to do the same over again. And as to Mr. Thornton's being in trade, why, he can't help that, poor fellow. I don't suppose his education would fit him for much else.' She rose slowly and went to her own room; for just now she could not bear much more. In Mr. Thornton's house, at this very same time, a similar scene was going on. A large-boned lady, long past middle age, sat at work in a grim handsomely-furnished dining-room. Her features were strong and massive, and held a decided expression. She was a firm, severe, dignified woman, handsomely dressed in black silk. She was mending a large table-cloth, holding it up against the light occasionally. There was not a book in the room, except six volumes of Bible Commentaries, which lay on the sideboard, flanked by a tea-urn and a lamp. In some remote room, someone was practising the piano very rapidly and rather carelessly. Mrs. Thornton heard a decisive step pass the dining-room door. 'John! Is that you?' Her son opened the door. 'What has brought you home so early? I thought you were going to tea with that Mr. Hale.' 'So I am, mother; I am come home to dress!' 'Dress! humph! Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an old parson?' 'Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.' 'Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never mentioned them.' 'No! because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss Hale for half an hour.' 'Take care you don't get caught by a penniless girl, John.' 'I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But I must not have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to me. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I believe that any has given themselves that useless trouble.' 'Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Milton girls have too much spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true, rich husbands are reckoned prizes.' Mr. Thornton's brow contracted. 'Mother,' (with a short scornful laugh), 'I confess that the only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt. She was as aloof as a queen. Be easy, mother.' 'No! I am not easy. What business had she, a renegade clergyman's daughter, to turn up her nose at you! I would dress up for none of them, if I were you.' 'Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned. As for Mrs. Hale, I will tell you what she is like tonight, if you care to hear.' He shut the door and was gone. 'Despise my son! Humph! I should like to know where she could find such another! He's the noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew. I don't care if I am his mother; I can see what's what. I know what Fanny is; and I know what John is. Despise him! I hate her!'

North and South

Chapter 9: DRESSING FOR TEA

"Well--I suppose we must." FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. Mr. Thornton had had some difficulty in working up his mother to the desired point of civility. She did not often make calls; and when she did, it was in heavy state that she went through her duties. Her son had given her a carriage; but she refused to let him keep horses for it; they were hired for the solemn occasions, when she paid morning or evening visits. She had had horses for three days, not a fortnight before, and had comfortably "killed off" all her acquaintances, who might now put themselves to trouble and expense in their turn. Yet Crampton was too far off for her to walk; and she had repeatedly questioned her son as to whether his wish that she should call on the Hales was strong enough to bear the expense of cab-hire. She would have been thankful if it had not; for, as she said, "she saw no use in making up friendships and intimacies with all the teachers and masters in Milton; why, he would be wanting her to call on Fanny's dancing-master's wife, the next thing!" "And so I would, mother, if Mr. Mason and his wife were friendless in a strange place, like the Hales." "Oh! you need not speak so hastily. I am going to-morrow. I only wanted you exactly to understand about it." "If you are going to-morrow, I shall order horses." "Nonsense, John. One would think you were made of money." "Not quite, yet. But about the horses I'm determined. The last time you were out in a cab, you came home with a headache from the jolting." "I never complained of it, I'm sure." "No! my mother is not given to complaints," said he, a little proudly. "But so much the more I have to watch over you. Now, as for Fanny there, a little hardship would do her good." "She is not made of the same stuff as you are, John. She could not bear it." Mrs. Thornton was silent after this; for her last words bore relation to a subject which mortified her. She had an unconscious contempt for a weak character; and Fanny was weak in the very points in which her mother and brother were strong. Mrs. Thornton was not a woman much given to reasoning; her quick judgment and firm resolution served her in good stead of any long arguments and discussions with herself; she felt instinctively that nothing could strengthen Fanny to endure hardships patiently, or face difficulties bravely; and though she winced as she made this acknowledgment to herself about her daughter, it only gave her a kind of pitying tenderness of manner towards her; much of the same description of demeanour with which mothers are wont to treat their weak and sickly children. A stranger, a careless observer might have considered that Mrs. Thornton's manner to her children betokened far more love to Fanny than to John. But such a one would have been deeply mistaken. The very daringness with which mother and son spoke out unpalatable truths, the one to the other, showed a reliance on the firm centre of each other's souls, which the uneasy tenderness of Mrs. Thornton's manner to her daughter, the shame with which she thought to hide the poverty of her child in all the grand qualities which she herself possessed unconsciously, and which she set so high a value upon in others--this shame, I say, betrayed the want of a secure resting-place for her affection. She never called her son by any name but John; "love," and "dear," and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny. But her heart gave thanks for him day and night; and she walked proudly among women for his sake. "Fanny dear! I shall have horses to the carriage to-day, to go and call on these Hales. Should not you go and see nurse? It's in the same direction, and she's always so glad to see you. You could go on there while I am at Mrs. Hale's." "Oh! mamma, it's such a long way, and I am so tired." "With what?" asked Mrs. Thornton, her brow slightly contracting. "I don't know--the weather, I think. It is so relaxing. Couldn't you bring nurse here, mamma? The carriage could fetch her, and she could spend the rest of the day here, which I know she would like." Mrs. Thornton did not speak; but she laid her work on the table, and seemed to think. "It will be a long way for her to walk back at night!" she remarked, at last. "Oh, but I will send her home in a cab. I never thought of her walking." At this point, Mr. Thornton came in, just before going to the mill. "Mother! I need hardly say, that if there is any little thing that could serve Mrs. Hale as an invalid, you will offer it, I'm sure." "If I can find it out, I will. But I have never been ill myself, so I am not much up to invalids' fancies." "Well! here is Fanny then, who is seldom without an ailment. She will be able to suggest something, perhaps--won't you, Fan?" "I have not always an ailment," said Fanny, pettishly; "and I am not going with mamma. I have a headache to-day, and I shan't go out." Mr. Thornton looked annoyed. His mother's eyes were bent on her work, at which she was now stitching away busily. "Fanny! I wish you to go," said he, authoritatively. "It will do you good, instead of harm. You will oblige me by going, without my saying anything more about it." He went abruptly out of the room after saying this. If he had stayed a minute longer, Fanny would have cried at his tone of command, even when he used the words, "You will oblige me." As it was, she grumbled. "John always speaks as if I fancied I was ill, and I am sure I never do fancy any such thing. Who are these Hales that he makes such a fuss about?" "Fanny, don't speak so of your brother. He has good reasons of some kind or other, or he would not wish us to go. Make haste and put your things on." But the little altercation between her son and her daughter did not incline Mrs. Thornton more favourably towards "these Hales." Her jealous heart repeated her daughter's question, "Who are they, that he is so anxious we should pay them all this attention?" It came up like a burden to a song, long after Fanny had forgotten all about it in the pleasant excitement of seeing the effect of a new bonnet in the looking-glass. Mrs. Thornton was shy. It was only of late years that she had had leisure enough in her life to go into society; and as society she did not enjoy it. As dinner-giving, and as criticising other people's dinners, she took satisfaction in it. But this going to make acquaintance with strangers was a very different thing. She was ill at ease, and looked more than usually stern and forbidding as she entered the Hales' little drawing-room. Margaret was busy embroidering a small piece of cambric for some little article of dress for Edith's expected baby--"Flimsy, useless work," as Mrs. Thornton observed to herself. She liked Mrs. Hale's double knitting far better; that was sensible of its kind. The room altogether was full of knick-knacks, which must take a long time to dust; and time to people of limited income was money. She made all these reflections as she was talking in her stately way to Mrs. Hale, and uttering all the stereotyped commonplaces that most people can find to say with their senses blindfolded. Mrs. Hale was making rather more exertion in her answers, captivated by some real old lace which Mrs. Thornton wore; "lace," as she afterwards observed to Dixon, "of that old English point which has not been made for this seventy years, and which cannot be bought. It must have been an heir-loom, and shows that she had ancestors." So the owner of the ancestral lace became worthy of something more than the languid exertion to be agreeable to a visitor, by which Mrs. Hale's efforts at conversation would have been otherwise bounded. And presently, Margaret, racking her brain to talk to Fanny, heard her mother and Mrs. Thornton plunge into the interminable subject of servants. "I suppose you are not musical," said Fanny, "as I see no piano." "I am fond of hearing good music; I cannot play well myself; and papa and mamma don't care much about it; so we sold our old piano when we came here." "I wonder how you can exist without one. It almost seems to me a necessary of life." "Fifteen shillings a week, and three saved out of them!" thought Margaret to herself. "But she must have been very young. She probably has forgotten her own personal experience. But she must know of those days." Margaret's manner had an extra tinge of coldness in it when she next spoke. "You have good concerts here, I believe." "Oh, yes! Delicious! Too crowded, that is the worst. The directors admit so indiscriminately. But one is sure to hear the newest music there. I always have a large order to give to Johnson's, the day after a concert." "Do you like new music simply for its newness, then?" "Oh; one knows it is the fashion in London, or else the singers would not bring it down here. You have been in London, of course." "Yes," said Margaret, "I have lived there for several years." "Oh! London and the Alhambra are the two places I long to see!" "London and the Alhambra!" "Yes! ever since I read the Tales of the Alhambra. Don't you know them?" "I don't think I do. But surely, it is a very easy journey to London." "Yes; but somehow," said Fanny, lowering her voice, "mamma has never been to London herself, and can't understand my longing. She is very proud of Milton; dirty, smoky place as I feel it to be. I believe she admires it the more for those very qualities." "If it has been Mrs. Thornton's home for some years, I can well understand her loving it," said Margaret, in her clear, bell-like voice. "What are you saying about me, Miss Hale? May I inquire?" Margaret had not the words ready for an answer to this question, which took her a little by surprise, so Miss Thornton replied: "Oh, mamma! we are only trying to account for your being so fond of Milton." "Thank you," said Mrs. Thornton. "I do not feel that my very natural liking for the place where I was born and brought up,--and which has since been my residence for some years, requires any accounting for." Margaret was vexed. As Fanny had put it, it did seem as if they had been impertinently discussing Mrs. Thornton's feelings; but she also rose up against that lady's manner of showing that she was offended. Mrs. Thornton went on after a moment's pause: "Do you know anything of Milton, Miss Hale? Have you seen any of our factories? our magnificent warehouses?" "No!" said Margaret. "I have not seen anything of that description as yet." Then she felt that, by concealing her utter indifference to all such places, she was hardly speaking with truth; so she went on: "I dare say, papa would have taken me before now if I had cared. But I really do not find much pleasure in going over manufactories." "They are very curious places," said Mrs. Hale, "but there is so much noise and dirt always. I remember once going in a lilac silk to see candles made, and my gown was utterly ruined." "Very probably," said Mrs. Thornton, in a short displeased manner. "I merely thought, that as strangers newly come to reside in a town which has risen to eminence in the country, from the character and progress of its peculiar business, you might have cared to visit some of the places where it is carried on; places unique in the kingdom, I am informed. If Miss Hale changes her mind and condescends to be curious as to the manufactures of Milton, I can only say I shall be glad to procure her admission to print-works, or reed-making, or the more simple operations of spinning carried on in my son's mill. Every improvement of machinery is, I believe, to be seen there, in its highest perfection." "I am so glad you don't like mills and manufactories, and all those kind of things," said Fanny, in a half-whisper, as she rose to accompany her mother, who was taking leave of Mrs. Hale with rustling dignity. "I think I should like to know all about them, if I were you," replied Margaret quietly. "Fanny!" said her mother, as they drove away, "we will be civil to these Hales: but don't form one of your hasty friendships with the daughter. She will do you no good, I see. The mother looks very ill, and seems a nice, quiet kind of person." "I don't want to form any friendship with Miss Hale, mamma," said Fanny, pouting. "I thought I was doing my duty by talking to her, and trying to amuse her." "Well! at any rate John must be satisfied now."

Mr. Thornton had had some difficulty in persuading his mother to visit. She did not often make calls; and when she did, it was with reluctance. Her son had given her a carriage, but she refused to keep horses; they were hired for solemn occasions. Crampton was too far off for her to walk, and she asked her son whether the visit was worth the expense of cab-hire. As she said, 'she saw no use in making friendships with all the teachers in Milton.' 'The Hales are friendless in a strange place, Mother.' 'Oh! you need not speak so hastily. I am going tomorrow.' 'Then I shall order horses.' 'Nonsense, John. One would think you were made of money.' 'The last time you were out in a cab, you came home with a headache from the jolting.' 'I never complained of it, I'm sure.' 'No. You are not given to complaints,' said he, a little proudly. 'But I have to watch over you. Now as for Fanny there, a little hardship would do her good.' 'She is not made of the same stuff as you are, John.' Mrs. Thornton fell silent. She had an unconscious contempt for a weak character; and her daughter Fanny was weak in the very points in which her mother and brother were strong. Mrs. Thornton was not a woman much given to reasoning; her quick judgment and firm resolution served her instead of any long arguments with herself; she felt instinctively that nothing could strengthen Fanny to endure hardships patiently or bravely. Though she winced as she acknowledged this, it gave her a kind of pitying tenderness towards Fanny, as if she were a sickly child. A stranger might have considered that Mrs. Thornton showed far more love to Fanny than to John. But this view would be mistaken. The very daringness with which mother and son spoke out unpalatable truths to each other, showed a reliance on the firm centre of each other's souls. Mrs. Thornton's uneasy tenderness to her daughter went side-by-side with shame; she thought to hide her child's poverty in all the grand qualities which she herself possessed, but this shame betrayed the want of a secure resting-place for her affection. She never called her son by any name but John; 'love' and 'dear' were reserved for Fanny. But her heart gave thanks for him day and night; and she was proud of him. 'Fanny, dear, I shall take the carriage today, to go and call on these Hales. Should not you go and see nurse? It's in the same direction, and she's always so glad to see you. You could go on there while I am at Mrs. Hale's.' 'Oh! mamma, it's such a long way, and I am so tired.' 'With what?' asked Mrs. Thornton, her brow contracting. 'I don't know - the weather, I think. Couldn't you bring nurse here, mamma? The carriage could fetch her, and she could spend the day here, which I know she would like.' Mrs. Thornton laid her work on the table, and seemed to think. 'It will be a long way for her to walk back at night!' she remarked, at last. 'Oh, I will send her home in a cab.' At this point, Mr. Thornton came in, on his way to the mill. 'Mother! If there is any little thing that could help Mrs. Hale, as an invalid, you will offer it, I'm sure.' 'If I can, I will. But I have never been ill myself, so I am not much up to invalids' fancies.' 'Well! here is Fanny, who is seldom without an ailment. She will be able to suggest something - won't you, Fan?' 'I have not always an ailment,' said Fanny, pettishly; 'and I am not going with mamma. I have a headache today, and I shan't go out.' Mr. Thornton looked annoyed. His mother's eyes were bent on her needlework. 'Fanny! I wish you to go,' said he, authoritatively. 'It will do you good. You will oblige me by going, without my saying anything more about it.' He went abruptly out of the room. 'John always speaks as if I fancied I was ill,' grumbled Fanny, 'and I am sure I never fancy any such thing. Who are these Hales that he makes such a fuss about?' 'Fanny, don't speak so of your brother. Make haste and put your things on.' But the little altercation did not make Mrs. Thornton think favourably of 'these Hales.' Her jealous heart repeated her daughter's question, 'Who are they, that we should pay them all this attention?' Mrs. Thornton was shy. She did not enjoy going into society. She took satisfaction in dinner-giving, and criticising other people's dinners; but going to visit strangers was a very different thing. She was ill at ease, and looked more than usually stern and forbidding as she entered the Hales' little drawing-room. Margaret was busy embroidering a small article of dress for Edith's expected baby - 'Flimsy, useless work,' as Mrs. Thornton observed to herself. She liked Mrs. Hale's double knitting far better; that was sensible of its kind. The room was full of knick-knacks, which must take a long time to dust. She made these reflections as she was talking in her stately way to Mrs. Hale, and uttering all the commonplaces that most people can say blindfolded. Mrs. Hale was making more effort to answer, captivated by some old lace which Mrs. Thornton wore, and which, as she afterwards observed to Dixon, 'had not been made for seventy years, and cannot be bought. It must have been an heirloom.' So the owner of the ancestral lace became worthy of greater efforts at conversation. Margaret, racking her brain to talk to Fanny, heard her mother and Mrs. Thornton plunge into the interminable subject of servants. 'I suppose you are not musical,' said Fanny, 'as I see no piano.' 'I am fond of hearing good music; but I cannot play well myself, and we sold our old piano when we came here.' 'I wonder how you can exist without one. It almost seems to me a necessary of life.' 'Fifteen shillings a week, and three saved out of them!' thought Margaret. 'But she must have been very young. She has probably forgotten those days. Yet she must know of them.' Margaret's manner had an extra tinge of coldness when she spoke. 'You have good concerts here, I believe.' 'Oh, yes! Delicious! Too crowded, that is the worst. But one is sure to hear the newest music. I always have a large order to give to Johnson's, the day after a concert.' 'Do you like new music simply for its newness, then?' 'Oh; one knows it is the fashion in London. You have been in London, of course.' 'Yes,' said Margaret; 'I lived there for several years.' 'Oh! London and the Alhambra are the two places I long to see!' 'London and the Alhambra!' 'Yes! ever since I read the Tales of the Alhambra. Don't you know them?' 'I don't think I do. But surely, it is a very easy journey to London.' 'Yes; but somehow,' said Fanny, lowering her voice, 'mamma has never been to London, and can't understand my longing. She is very proud of Milton, dirty and smoky as it is. I believe she admires it for those very qualities.' 'If it has been Mrs. Thornton's home for some years, I can understand her loving it,' said Margaret, in her clear voice. 'What are you saying about me, Miss Hale? May I inquire?' Miss Thornton replied: 'Oh, mamma! we are only trying to account for your being so fond of Milton.' 'Thank you,' said Mrs. Thornton. 'I do not feel that my very natural liking for the place where I was born and brought up requires any accounting for.' Margaret was vexed. Fanny made it sound as if they had been impertinently discussing Mrs. Thornton's feelings; but she also resented that lady's manner. Mrs. Thornton went on: 'Do you know anything of Milton, Miss Hale? Have you seen any of our factories? our magnificent warehouses?' 'No! Not yet,' said Margaret. Trying to be honest, she went on: 'I dare say, papa would have taken me before now if I had cared. But I really do not find much pleasure in going over factories.' 'They are very curious places,' said Mrs. Hale, 'but there is so much noise and dirt always.' 'Very probably,' said Mrs. Thornton, in a short, displeased manner. 'I merely thought, that as strangers come to reside in a newly eminent town, you might have cared to visit some of the places where its business is carried on; places unique in the kingdom. If Miss Hale changes her mind and condescends to be curious about the manufactures of Milton, I shall be glad to procure her admission to print-works, or reed-making, or the spinning carried on in my son's mill. Every improvement of machinery is, I believe, to be seen there in its highest perfection.' 'I am so glad you don't like mills and factories,' said Fanny, in a half-whisper, as she rose to accompany her mother, who was taking leave of Mrs. Hale with rustling dignity. 'I think I should like to know all about them, if I were you,' replied Margaret quietly. 'Fanny!' said her mother, as they drove away, 'we will be civil to these Hales: but don't form one of your hasty friendships with the daughter. She will do you no good. The mother seems a nice, quiet kind of person.' 'I don't want to form any friendship with Miss Hale, mamma,' said Fanny, pouting. 'I thought I was doing my duty by talking to her.' 'Well! at any rate, John must be satisfied now.'

North and South

Chapter 12: MORNING CALLS

"As angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep." HENRY VAUGHAN. Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have all its anticipated pleasure described beforehand. But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children, inasmuch as they have neither of them any sense of proportion in events, and seem each to believe that the walls and curtains which shut in their world, and shut out everything else, must of necessity be larger than anything hidden beyond. Besides Mrs. Hale had had her vanities as a girl; had perhaps unduly felt their mortification when she became a poor clergyman's wife;--they had been smothered and kept down; but they were not extinct; and she liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed for a party, and discussed what she should wear, with an unsettled anxiety that amused Margaret, who had been more accustomed to society in her one year in Harley Street than her mother in five and twenty years of Helstone. "Then you think you shall wear your white silk. Are you sure it will fit? It's nearly a year since Edith was married!" "Oh, yes, mamma! Mrs. Murray made it, and it's sure to be right; it may be a straw's breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according to my having grown fat or thin. But I don't think I've altered in the least." "Hadn't you better let Dixon see it? It may have gone yellow with lying by." "If you like, mamma. But if the worst comes to the worst, I've a very nice pink gauze which Aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three months before Edith was married. That can't have gone yellow." "No! but it may have faded." "Well! then I've a green silk. I feel more as if it was the embarrassment of riches." "I wish I knew what you ought to wear," said Mrs. Hale, nervously. Margaret's manner changed instantly. "Shall I go and put them on one after another, mamma, and then you could see which you liked best?" "But--yes! perhaps that will be best." So off Margaret went. She was very much inclined to play some pranks when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat backwards from her mother as if she were the queen; but when she found that these freaks of hers were regarded as interruptions to the serious business, and as such annoyed her mother, she became grave and sedate. What had possessed the world (her world) to fidget so about her dress, she could not understand; but that very afternoon, on naming her engagement to Bessy Higgins (apropos of the servant that Mrs. Thornton had promised to enquire about), Bessy quite roused up at the intelligence. "Dear! and are you going to dine at Thornton's at Marlborough Mills?" "Yes, Bessy. Why are you so surprised?" "Oh, I dunno. But they visit wi' a' th' first folk in Milton." "And you don't think we're quite the first folk in Milton, eh, Bessy?" Bessy's cheeks flushed a little at her thought being thus easily read. "Well," said she, "yo' see, they thinken a deal o' money here; and I reckon yo've not getten much." "No," said Margaret, "that's very true. But we are educated people, and have lived amongst educated people. Is there anything so wonderful, in our being asked out to dinner by a man who owns himself inferior to my father by coming to him to be instructed? I don't mean to blame Mr. Thornton. Few drapers' assistants, as he was once, could have made themselves what he is." "But can yo' give dinners back, in yo're small house? Thornton's house is three times as big." "Well, I think we could manage to give Mr. Thornton a dinner back, as you call it. Perhaps not in such a large room, nor with so many people. But I don't think we've thought about it at all in that way." "I never thought yo'd be dining with Thorntons," repeated Bessy. "Why, the mayor hissel' dines there; and the members of Parliament and all." "I think, I could support the honour of meeting the mayor of Milton." "But them ladies dress so grand!" said Bessy, with an anxious look at Margaret's print gown, which her Milton eyes appraised at sevenpence a yard. Margaret's face dimpled up into a merry laugh. "Thank you, Bessy, for thinking so kindly about my looking nice among all the smart people. But I've plenty of grand gowns,--a week ago, I should have said they were far too grand for anything I should ever want here. But as I'm to dine at Mr. Thornton's, and perhaps to meet the mayor, I shall put on my very best gown, you may be sure." "What win yo' wear?" asked Bessy, somewhat relieved. "White silk," said Margaret. "A gown I had for a cousin's wedding, a year ago." "That'll do!" said Bessy, falling back in her chair. "I should be loth to have yo' looked down upon." "Oh! I'll be fine enough, if that will save me from being looked down upon in Milton." "I wish I could see you dressed up," said Bessy. "I reckon, yo're not what folk would ca' pretty; yo've not red and white enough for that. But dun yo' know, I ha' dreamt of yo', long afore ever I seed yo'." "Nonsense, Bessy!" "Ay, but I did. Yo'r very face,--looking wi' yo'r clear steadfast eyes out o' th' darkness, wi' yo'r hair blown off from yo'r brow, and going out like rays round yo'r forehead, which was just as smooth and straight as it is now,--and yo' always came to give me strength, which I seemed to gather out o' yo'r deep comforting eyes,--and yo' was drest in shining raiment--just as yo'r going to be drest. So, yo' see, it was yo'!" "Nay, Bessy," said Margaret, gently, "it was but a dream." "And why might na I dream a dream in my affliction as well as others? Did not many a one i' the Bible? Ay, and see visions too! Why, even my father thinks a deal o' dreams! I tell yo' again, I saw yo' as plainly, coming swiftly towards me, wi' yo'r hair blown back wi' the very swiftness o' the motion, just like the way it grows, a little standing off like; and the white shining dress on yo've getten to wear. Let me come and see yo' in it. I want to see yo' and touch yo' as in very deed yo' were in my dream." "My dear Bessy, it is quite a fancy of yours." "Fancy or no fancy,--yo've come, as I knew yo' would, when I saw yo'r movement in my dream,--and when yo're here about me, I reckon I feel easier in my mind, and comforted, just as a fire comforts one on a dree day. Yo' said it were on th' twenty-first; please God, I'll come and see yo'." "Oh Bessy! you may come and welcome; but don't talk so--it really makes me sorry. It does indeed." "Then I'll keep it to mysel', if I bite my tongue out. Not but what it's true for all that." Margaret was silent. At last she said, "Let us talk about it sometimes, if you think it true. But not now. Tell me, has your father turned out?" "Ay!" said Bessy heavily--in a manner very different from that she had spoken in but a minute or two before. "He and many another,--all Hamper's men,--and many a one besides. Th' women are as bad as th' men, in their savageness, this time. Food is high,--and they mun have food for their childer, I reckon. Suppose Thorntons sent 'em their dinner out,--th' same money, spent on potatoes and meal, would keep many a crying baby quiet, and hush up its mother's heart for a bit!" "Don't speak so!" said Margaret. "You'll make me feel wicked and guilty in going to this dinner." "No!" said Bessy. "Some's pre-elected to sumptuous feasts, and purple and fine linen,--may be yo're one on 'em. Others toil and moil all their lives long--and the very dogs are not pitiful in our days, as they were in the days of Lazarus. But if yo' ask me to cool yo're tongue wi' th' tip of my finger, I'll come across the great gulf to yo' just for th' thought o' what yo've been to me here." "Bessy; you're very feverish! I can tell it in the touch of your hand, as well us in what you're saying. It won't be division enough, in that awful day, that some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have been rich,--we shall not be judged by that poor accident, but by our faithful following of Christ." Margaret got up, and found some water; and soaking her pocket-handkerchief in it, she laid the cool wetness on Bessy's forehead, and began to chafe the stone-cold feet. Bessy shut her eyes, and allowed herself to be soothed. At last she said, "Yo'd ha' been deaved out o' yo'r five wits, as well as me, if yo'd had one body after another coming in to ask for father, and staying to tell me each one their tale. Some spoke o' deadly hatred, and made my blood run cold wi' the terrible things they said o' th' masters,--but more, being women, kept plaining, plaining (wi' the tears running down their cheeks, and never wiped away, nor heeded), of the price o' meat, and how their childer could na sleep at nights for th' hunger." "And do they think the strike will mend this?" asked Margaret. "They say so," replied Bessy. "They do say trade has been good for long, and the masters has made no end o' money; how much father doesn't know, but, in course, th' Union does; and, as it is natural, they wanted their share o' th' profits, now that food is getting dear; and th' Union says they'll not be doing their duty if they don't make th' masters give 'em their share. But masters has getten th' upper hand somehow; and I'm feared they'll keep it now and evermore. It's like th' great battle o' Armageddon, the way they keep on, grinning and fighting at each other, till even while they fight, they are picked off into the pit." Just then, Nicholas Higgins came in. He caught his daughter's last words. "Ay! and I'll fight on too; and I'll got it this time. It'll not take long for to make 'em give in, for they've getten a pretty lot of orders, all under contract; and they'll soon find out they'd better give us our five per cent. than lose the profit they'll gain; let alone the fine for not fulfilling the contract. Aha my masters! I know who'll win." Margaret fancied from his manner that he must have been drinking, not so much from what he said, as from the excited way in which he spoke; and she was rather confirmed in this idea by the evident anxiety Bessie showed to hasten her departure. Bessy said to her,-- "The twenty-first--that's Thursday week. I may come and see yo' dressed for Thornton's, I reckon. What time is yo'r dinner?" Before Margaret could answer, Higgins broke out,-- "Thornton's! Ar' t' going to dine at Thornton's? Ask him to give yo' a bumper to the success of his orders. By th' twenty-first, I reckon, he'll be pottered in his brains how to get 'em done in time. Tell him, there's seven hundred 'll come marching into Marlborough Mills, the morning after he gives the five per cent., and will help him through his contract in no time. You'll have 'em all there. My master, Hamper. He's one o' th' oud-fashioned sort. Ne'er meets a man bout an oath or a curse; I should think he were going to die if he spoke me civil; but arter all, his bark's waur than his bite, and yo' may tell him one o' his turn-outs said so, if yo' like. Eh! but yo'll have a lot of prize mill-owners at Thornton's! I should like to get speech o' them, when they're a bit inclined to sit still after dinner, and could na run for the life on 'em. I'd tell 'em my mind. I'd speak up again th' hard way they're driving on us!" "Good-bye!" said Margaret, hastily. "Good-bye, Bessy! I shall look to see you on the twenty-first, if you're well enough." The medicines and treatment which Dr. Donaldson had ordered for Mrs. Hale, did her so much good at first that not only she herself, but Margaret, began to hope that he might have been mistaken, and that she could recover permanently. As for Mr. Hale, although he had never had an idea of the serious nature of their apprehensions, he triumphed over their fears with an evident relief, which proved how much his glimpse into the nature of them had affected him. Only Dixon croaked for ever into Margaret's ear. However, Margaret defied the raven, and would hope. They needed this gleam of brightness in-doors, for out-of-doors, even to their uninstructed eyes, there was a gloomy brooding appearance of discontent. Mr. Hale had his own acquaintances among the working men, and was depressed with their earnestly-told tales of suffering and long-endurance. They would have scorned to speak of what they had to bear to any one who might, from his position, have understood it without their words. But here was this man, from a distant county, who was perplexed by the workings of a system into the midst of which he was thrown, and each was eager to make him a judge, and to bring witness of his own causes for irritation. Then Mr. Hale brought all his budget of grievances, and laid it before Mr. Thornton, for him, with his experience as a master, to arrange them, and explain their origin; which he always did, on sound economical principles; showing that, as trade was conducted, there must always be a waxing and waning of commercial prosperity; and that in the waning a certain number of masters, as well as of men, must go down into ruin, and be no more seen among the ranks of the happy and prosperous. He spoke as if this consequence were so entirely logical, that neither employers nor employed had any right to complain if it became their fate: the employer to turn aside from the race he could no longer run, with a bitter sense of incompetency and failure--wounded in the struggle--trampled down by his fellows in their haste to get rich--slighted where he was once honoured--humbly asking for, instead of bestowing, employment with a lordly hand. Of course, speaking so of the fate that, as a master, might be his own in the fluctuations of commerce, he was not likely to have more sympathy with that of the workmen, who were passed by in the swift merciless improvement or alteration; who would fain lie down and quietly die out of the world that needed them not, but felt as they could never rest in their graves for the clinging cries of the beloved and helpless they would leave behind; who envied the power of the wild bird, that can feed her young with her very heart's blood. Margaret's whole soul rose up against him while he reasoned in this way--as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing. She could hardly thank him for the individual kindness, which brought him that very evening to offer her--for the delicacy which made him understand that he must offer her privately--every convenience for illness that his own wealth or his mother's foresight had caused them to accumulate in their household, and which, as he learnt from Dr. Donaldson, Mrs. Hale might possibly require. His presence, after the way he had spoken--his bringing before her the doom, which she was vainly trying to persuade herself might yet be averted from her mother--all conspired to set Margaret's teeth on edge, as she looked at him, and listened to him. What business had he to be the only person, except Dr. Donaldson and Dixon, admitted to the awful secret, which she held shut up in the most dark and sacred recess of her heart--not daring to look at it, unless she invoked heavenly strength to bear the sight--that, some day soon, she should cry aloud for her mother, and no answer would come out of the blank, dumb darkness? Yet he knew all. She saw it in his pitying eyes. She heard it in his grave and tremulous voice. How reconcile those eyes, that voice, with the hard, reasoning, dry, merciless way in which he laid down axioms of trade, and serenely followed them out to their full consequences? The discord jarred upon her inexpressibly. The more because of the gathering woe of which she heard from Bessy. To be sure, Nicholas Higgins, the father, spoke differently. He had been appointed a committee-man, and said that he knew secrets of which the exoteric knew nothing. He said this more expressly and particularly, on the very day before Mrs. Thornton's dinner-party. When Margaret, going in to speak to Bessy, found him arguing the point with Boucher, the neighbour of whom she had frequently heard mention, as by turns exciting Higgins's compassion, as an unskilful workman with a large family depending upon him for support, and at other times enraging his more energetic and sanguine neighbour by his want of what the latter called spirit. It was very evident that Higgins was in a passion when Margaret entered. Boucher stood, with both hands on the rather high mantelpiece, swaying himself a little on the support which his arms, thus placed, gave him, and looking wildly into the fire, with a kind of despair that irritated Higgins, even while it went to his heart. Bessy was rocking herself violently backwards and forwards, as was her wont (Margaret knew by this time) when she was agitated. Her sister Mary was tying on her bonnet (in great clumsy bows, as suited her great clumsy fingers), to go to her fustian-cutting, blubbering out loud the while, and evidently longing to be away from a scene that distressed her. Margaret came in upon this scene. She stood for a moment at the door--then, her finger on her lips, she stole to a seat on the squab near Bessy. Nicholas saw her come in, and greeted her with a gruff, but not unfriendly nod. Mary hurried out of the house, catching gladly at the open door, and crying aloud when she got away from her father's presence. It was only John Boucher that took no notice whatever who came in and who went out. "It's no use, Higgins. Hoo cannot live long a' this'n. Hoo's just sinking away--not for want o' meat hersel'--but because hoo cannot stand th' sight o' the little ones clemming. Ay, clemming! Five shilling a week may do well enough for thee, wi' but two mouths to fill, and one on 'em a wench who can well earn her own meat. But it's clemming to us. An' I tell thee plain--if hoo dies, as I'm 'feard hoo will afore we've getten th' five per cent., I'll fling the money back i' th' master's face, and say, 'Be domned to yo'; be domned to th' whole cruel world o' yo'; that could na leave me th' best wife that ever bore childer to a man. An' look thee lad, I'll hate thee, and th' whole pack o' th' Union. Ay, an' chase yo' through heaven wi' my hatred,--I will, lad! I will,--if yo're leading me astray i' this matter. Thou saidst, Nicholas, on Wednesday sennight--and it's now Tuesday i' th' second week--that afore a fortnight we'd ha' the masters coming a-begging to us to take back our work, at our own wage--and time's nearly up,--and there's our lile Jack lying a-bed, too weak to cry, but just every now and then sobbing up his heart for want o' food,--our lile Jack, I tell thee, lad! Hoo's never looked up sin' he were born, and hoo loves him as if he were her very life,--as he is,--for I reckon he'll ha' cost me that precious price,--our lile Jack, who wakened me each morn wi' putting his sweet little lips to my great rough fou' face, a-seeking a smooth place to kiss,--an' he lies clemming." Here the deep sobs choked the poor man and Nicholas looked up, with eyes brimful of tears, to Margaret, before he could gain courage to speak. "Hou'd up, man. Thy lile Jack shall na' clem. I ha' gotten brass, and we'll go buy the chap a sup o' milk an' a good four-pounder this very minute. What's mine's thine, sure enough, i' thou'st i' want. Only, dunnot lose heart, man!" continued he, as he fumbled in a tea-pot for what money he had. "I lay yo my heart and soul we'll win for a' this: it's but bearing on one more week, and yo' just see th' way th' masters 'll come round, praying on us to come back to our mills. An' the Union--that's to say, I--will take care yo've enough for th' childer and th' missus. So dunnot turn faint-heart, and go to th' tyrants a-seeking work." The man turned round at these words,--turned round a face so white, and gaunt, and tear-furrowed, and hopeless, that its very calm forced Margaret to weep. "Yo' know well, that a worser tyrant than e'er th' masters were says, 'Clem to death, and see 'em a' clem to death, ere yo' dare go again th' Union.' Yo' know it well, Nicholas, for a' yo're one on e'm. Yo' may be kind hearts, each separate; but once banded together, yo've no more pity for a man than a wild hunger-maddened wolf." Nicholas had his hand on the lock of the door--he stopped and turned round on Boucher, close following: "So help me God! man alive--if I think not I'm doing best for thee, and for all on us. If I'm going wrong when I think I'm going right, it's their sin, who ha' left me where I am, in my ignorance. I ha' thought till my brains ached,--Beli' me, John, I have. An' I say again, there's no help for us but having faith i' th' Union. They'll win the day, see if they dunnot!" Not one word had Margaret or Bessy spoken. They had hardly uttered the sighing, that the eyes of each called to the other to bring up from the depths of her heart. At last Bessy said, "I never thought to hear father call on God again. But yo' heard him say, 'So help me God!'" "Yes!" said Margaret. "Let me bring you what money I can spare,--let me bring you a little food for that poor man's children. Don't let them know it comes from any one but your father. It will be but little." Bessy lay back without taking any notice of what Margaret said. She did not cry--she only quivered up her breath. "My heart's drained dry o' tears," she said. "Boucher's been in these days past, a telling me of his fears and his troubles. He's but a weak kind of chap, I know, but he's a man for a' that; and tho' I've been angry, many a time afore now, wi' him an' his wife, as knew no more nor him how to manage, yet yo' see, all folks isn't wise, yet God lets 'em live--ay, an' gives 'em some one to love, and be loved by, just as good as Solomon. An' if sorrow comes to them they love, it hurts 'em as sore as e'er it did Solomon. I can't make it out. Perhaps it's as well such a one as Boucher has th' Union to see after him. But I'd just like for to see th' men as make th' Union, and put 'em one by one face to face wi' Boucher. I reckon, if they heard him, the'd tell him (if I cotched 'em one by one), he might go back and get what he could for his work, even if it weren't so much as they ordered." Margaret sat utterly silent. How was she ever to go away into comfort and forget that man's voice, with the tone of unutterable agony, telling more by far than his words of what he had to suffer? She took out her purse; she had not much in it of what she could call her own, but what she had she put into Bessy's hands without speaking. "Thank yo'. There's many on 'em gets no more, and is not so bad off,--leastways does not show it as he does. But father won't let 'em want, now he knows. Yo' see, Boucher's been pulled down wi' his childer,--and her being so cranky, and a' they could pawn has gone this last twelvemonth. Yo're not to think we'd ha' letten 'em clem, for all we're a bit pressed oursel'; if neighbours doesn't see after neighbours, I dunno who will." Bessy seemed almost afraid lest Margaret should think they had not the will, and, to a certain degree, the power of helping one whom she evidently regarded as having a claim upon them. "Besides," she went on, "father is sure and positive the masters must give in within these next few days,--that they canna hould on much longer. But I thank yo' all the same,--I thank yo' for mysel', as much as for Boucher, for it jus makes my heart warm to yo' more and more." Bessy seemed much quieter to-day, but fearfully languid and exhausted. As she finished speaking, she looked so faint and weary that Margaret became alarmed. "It's nout," said Bessy. "It's not death yet. I had a fearfu' night wi' dreams--or somewhat like dreams, for I were wide awake--and I'm all in a swounding daze to-day,--only yon poor chap made me alive again. No! it's not death yet, but death is not far off. Ay. Cover me up, and I'll may be sleep, if th' cough will let me. Good night--good afternoon, m'appen I should say--but th' light is dim an' misty to-day."

Mrs. Hale was curiously interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with the simplicity of a child. But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children, who think their own world is so much greater than anything beyond. Besides, Mrs. Hale liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed for a party, and discussed what she should wear with an anxiety that amused Margaret, who had become more accustomed to society in Harley Street than her mother had in five and twenty years of Helstone. 'Are you sure your white silk will fit? It's nearly a year since Edith was married!' 'Oh yes, mamma! I don't think I've altered in the least.' 'Hadn't you better let Dixon see it? It may have gone yellow.' 'If you like, mamma. But if the worst comes to the worst, I've a very nice pink gauze which aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three months before Edith was married. That can't have gone yellow.' 'No! but it may have faded.' 'Well! then I've a green silk.' 'I wish I knew what you ought to wear,' said Mrs. Hale nervously. 'Shall I go and put them on, mamma, and then you could see which you liked most?' 'Yes! perhaps that will be best.' So off Margaret went. When dressed up, she was inclined to play the fool; but finding that her pranks annoyed her mother, she became grave and sedate. What had possessed the world to fidget so about her dress, she could not understand. That very afternoon, on her mentioning the matter to Bessy Higgins, Bessy quite roused up at the news. 'Are you going to dine at Thornton's at Marlborough Mills?' 'Yes, Bessy. Why are you so surprised?' 'Oh, I dunno. But they visit wi' all th' first folk in Milton.' 'And you don't think we're quite the first folk in Milton, eh, Bessy?' Bessy's cheeks flushed a little. 'Well, they thinken a deal o' money here, and I reckon yo've not getten much.' 'No,' said Margaret, 'that's very true. But we are educated people. Is there anything so strange in our being asked out to dinner by a man who comes to my father to learn? I don't mean to blame Mr. Thornton. Few drapers' assistants, as he was once, could have made themselves what he is.' 'But can yo' give dinners back, in your small house?' 'Well, I think we could manage to give Mr. Thornton a dinner back. Perhaps not in such a large room, nor with so many people.' 'I never thought yo'd be dining with Thorntons,' repeated Bessy. 'Why, the mayor hissel' dines there. And them ladies dress so grand!' She gave an anxious look at Margaret's print gown, which her Milton eyes appraised at sevenpence a yard. Margaret's face dimpled up into a merry laugh. 'Thank you, Bessy, for your concern! But I've plenty of grand gowns. I shall put on my very best gown, you may be sure.' 'What will yo' wear?' asked Bessy, somewhat relieved. 'White silk,' said Margaret. 'A gown I had for a cousin's wedding. I'll be fine enough.' 'I wish I could see you dressed up,' said Bessy. 'I reckon, you're not what folk would call pretty. But yo' know, I ha' dreamt of yo', long afore ever I seed yo'.' 'Nonsense, Bessy!' 'Ay, but I did. Your very face - looking wi' your clear steadfast eyes out o' th' darkness, wi' your hair blown off from your brow, and going out like rays round your forehead - and yo' always came to give me strength, which I seemed to gather out o' your deep comforting eyes - and yo' were drest in shining raiment - just as you're going to be drest. So, yo' see, it was yo'!' 'Nay, Bessy,' said Margaret, gently, 'it was but a dream.' 'Did not many a one i' the Bible dream, and see visions too? Why, even father thinks a deal o' dreams! I tell yo' again, I saw yo' coming swiftly towards me, wi' your hair blown back, and the white shining dress on. Let me come and see yo' in it, and touch yo' as yo' were in my dream.' 'My dear Bessy, it is quite a fancy of yours.' 'Fancy or no fancy - yo've come, as I knew yo' would, when I saw yo' in my dream - and when yo're here I feel easier in my mind, and comforted, just as a fire comforts one on a dree day. Please God, if I'm spared, I'll come and see yo'.' 'Oh Bessy! you may come and welcome; but don't talk so - it really makes me sorry.' 'Then I'll keep it to mysel'. But it's true for all that.' Margaret was silent. At last she said, 'Let us talk about it sometime, if you think it true. But not now. Tell me, has your father turned out on strike?' 'Ay!' said Bessy, more heavily. 'He and many another. Th' women are as bad as th' men, in their savageness. Food is dear, and they must have food for their childer. Suppose Thorntons sent 'em their dinner out - th' same money, spent on potatoes and flour, would keep many a crying babby quiet, and hush up its mother's heart for a bit!' 'Don't speak so!' said Margaret. 'You'll make me feel wicked and guilty in going to this dinner.' 'No!' said Bessy. 'Some's pre-elected to sumptuous feasts, like you. Others toil and moil all their lives - and the very dogs are not pitiful in our days, as they were in the days of Lazarus. But if yo' ask, I'll come across the great gulf to yo' just for th' thought o' what yo've been to me here.' 'Bessy! you're very feverish! On that judgement day, it won't matter that some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have been rich - we shall not be judged by that, but by our faithful following of Christ.' Margaret got up, and soaking her handkerchief in water, she laid it on Bessy's forehead. Bessy shut her eyes, and allowed herself to be soothed. At last she said, 'Yo'd ha' been deaved out o' your five wits, as well as me, if yo'd heard father's friends telling their tales. Some spoke o' deadly hatred, and made my blood run cold wi' the terrible things they said o' th' masters - but the women kept plaining, plaining (wi' the tears running down their cheeks) of the price o' meat, and how their childer could na sleep at nights for th' hunger.' 'And do they think the strike will mend this?' asked Margaret. 'They say so,' replied Bessy. 'They do say trade has been good for long, and the masters has made no end o' money; and, as is natural, they want their share o' th' profits, now that food is getting dear; and th' Union says they should make the masters give 'em their share. But masters has getten th' upper hand somehow. It's like th' great battle o' Armageddon, the way they keep on, grinning and fighting at each other, till even while they fight, they are picked off into the pit.' Just then, Nicholas Higgins came in. He caught his daughter's last words. 'Ay! and I'll fight on too. It'll not take long to make 'em give in, for they've getten a pretty lot of orders; and they'll soon find out they'd better give us our five per cent than lose their profit. Aha, my masters! I know who'll win.' Margaret fancied from his excited manner that he must have been drinking; and she was confirmed in this idea by Bessy's anxiety for her to depart. Bessy said: 'I may come and see yo' dressed for Thornton's on th' twenty-first. What time is your dinner?' Higgins broke out, 'Thornton's! Ar't' going to dine at Thornton's? Ask him to drink to the success of his orders. By th' twenty-first he'll be pottered in his brains how to get 'em done in time. Tell him, as soon as he gives the five per cent, there's seven hundred men'll come marching into Marlborough Mills, and will help him through his contract. Eh! yo'll have a lot of prize mill-owners at Thornton's! I should like to talk to 'em, after dinner when they could na run. I'd tell 'em my mind about th' hard way they're driving on us!' 'Good-bye!' said Margaret hastily. 'Good-bye, Bessy! I shall see you on the twenty-first.' The medicines which Dr. Donaldson had ordered for Mrs. Hale did her so much good at first that not only she herself, but Margaret, began to hope that he might have been mistaken, and that she could recover permanently. As for Mr. Hale, he triumphed over their fears with relief. Only Dixon croaked like the raven. However, Margaret had hope. They needed this gleam of brightness indoors, for out-of-doors there was a gloomy, brooding discontent. Mr. Hale had acquaintances among the working men, and was depressed with their tales of suffering. Mr. Hale laid these grievances before Mr. Thornton, for him to explain their origin; which he did, on sound economical principles, showing that in trade there must always be a waxing and waning of commercial prosperity; and that in the waning a certain number of masters, as well as of men, must go down into ruin. He spoke as if this consequence were so entirely logical, that no one had any right to complain if it became their fate. He had no sympathy for the masters who might get trampled down, nor for the workmen who would fain lie down and die, but felt as if they could never rest in their graves for the cries of the beloved and helpless they would leave behind. Margaret's whole soul rose up against him while he reasoned in this way - as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing. She could hardly thank him for the kindness and delicacy which had brought him that evening to offer her every convenience for illness which Mrs. Hale might require. His presence, his speech - his bringing before her the doom which she was trying to persuade herself might yet be averted from her mother - all set Margaret's teeth on edge. What business had he to be admitted to the awful secret? She held it shut up in the most dark and sacred recess of her heart - not daring to look at it - the secret that, some day soon, she should cry aloud for her mother, and no answer would come out of the darkness. Yet he knew all. She saw it in his pitying eyes. She heard it in his grave voice. How reconcile those eyes, that voice, with the hard, dry, merciless way in which he laid down axioms of trade, and their consequences? The discord jarred upon her - the more because of the gathering woe of which she heard from Bessy. To be sure, Nicholas Higgins spoke differently. He had been appointed a committee-man, and said that he knew secrets. He said this expressly on the day before Mrs. Thornton's dinner-party, when Margaret, going to see Bessy, found him arguing with Boucher, the neighbour whom she had frequently heard him mention as an unskilful workman with a large family. Higgins was in a passion when Margaret entered. Boucher stood swaying a little and looking wildly into the fire, with a despair that irritated Higgins, even while it went to his heart. Bessy was rocking herself violently backwards and forwards, as was her wont (Margaret knew by this time) when she was agitated. Her sister Mary was clumsily tying on her bonnet to go to her work of fustian-cutting, blubbering out loud, and evidently longing to be away from a scene that distressed her. Margaret stood for a moment at the door - then she stole to a seat near Bessy. Nicholas saw her, and greeted her with a gruff, but not unfriendly nod. Mary hurried out of the house, crying. John Boucher took no notice of who came in and who went out. 'It's no use, Higgins. Hoo cannot live long. Hoo's just sinking away - not for want o' meat hersel' - but because hoo cannot stand th' sight o' the little ones clemming. Ay, clemming! Five shilling a week may do well enough for thee, wi' only two mouths to fill. But it's clemming to us. An' I tell thee plain - if hoo dies afore we've getten th' five per cent, I'll fling th' money back i' th' master's face, and say, "Be domned to yo'; that could na leave me th' best wife that ever bore childer to a man!" An' look thee, lad, I'll hate thee, and th' Union - I will, lad! if yo're leading me astray. Thou saidst, Nicholas, near two weeks ago, that afore a fortnight we'd ha' the masters begging us to come back, at our own wage. Time's nearly up - and there's our Jack lying a-bed, too weak to cry - I tell thee, lad! Hoo loves him as if he were her very life - our lile Jack, who wakened me each morn wi' putting his sweet little lips to kiss my great rough face - an' he lies clemming.' Here deep sobs choked the poor man, and Nicholas looked up, with eyes brimful of tears. 'Hold up, man. Thy lile Jack shall na' clem. I have brass, and we'll go buy the chap a sup o' milk an' a loaf this very minute. What's mine is thine. Only, dunnot lose heart, man!' continued he, fumbling in a tea-pot for money. 'Just one more week, and yo'll see how th' masters'll come round, praying us to come back to our mills. An' th' Union - that's to say, I will take care yo've enough for th' childer and th' missus.' The man turned a face so white, and gaunt, and tear-furrowed, and hopeless, that its very calm forced Margaret to weep. 'Yo' know well that the Union's a worser tyrant than th' masters. It says "Clem to death, before yo' dare go against th' Union." Yo' know it well, Nicholas. Yo' may be kind hearts separately; but banded together, yo've no more pity than a wolf.' 'So help me God!' said Nicholas, 'I think I'm doing best for thee. If I'm going wrong when I think I'm going right, it's their sin, who ha' left me in ignorance. I ha' thought till my brains ached. An' I say again, there's no help for us but having faith i' th' Union. They'll win the day, see if they dunnot!' They both went out. Not one word had Margaret or Bessy spoken. At last Bessy said, 'I never thought to hear father call on God again. But yo' heard him say, "So help me God!"' 'Yes,' said Margaret. 'Let me bring you what money I can spare, and some food for that poor man's children. Don't let them know it comes from anyone but your father.' Bessy lay back, her breath quivering. 'My heart's drained dry o' tears,' she said. 'Boucher's been a telling me of his fears and troubles. He's but a weak chap, I know, but he's a man for a' that; and tho' I've been angry many a time wi' him an' his wife, as knew no more than him how to manage - yet, yo' see, all folks isn't wise, yet God lets 'em live - ay, an' gives 'em some one to love, and be loved by, just as good as Solomon. An' if sorrow comes to them they love, it hurts 'em as sore as it did Solomon. Perhaps it's as well Boucher has th' Union to see after him. But I'd just like for to see th' Union men face to face wi' Boucher. I reckon they'd tell him he might go back to work.' Margaret sat silent. How was she to go away into comfort and forget that man's agonised voice? She took out her purse; what little money she had, she put into Bessy's hand. 'Thank yo'. There's many on 'em gets no more, and is not so bad off. Yo' see, Boucher's been pulled down wi' his childer - and her being so cranky, and all they could pawn has gone. You're not to think we'd let 'em clem; if neighbours doesn't see after neighbours, I dunno who will.' Bessy seemed almost afraid lest Margaret should think they had not the will and the power of helping Boucher. 'Besides,' she went on, 'father is sure the masters must give in soon - they canna hould on much longer. But I thank yo' all the same; it just makes my heart warm to yo' more and more.' As she finished speaking, Bessy looked so faint and exhausted that Margaret became alarmed. 'It's nout,' said Bessy. 'It's not death yet. I had a fearfu' night wi' dreams - or somewhat like dreams, for I were wide awake - and I'm all in a daze today, only yon poor chap made me alive again. No! it's not death yet, but death is not far off. I'll maybe sleep, if th' cough will let me. Good night.'

North and South

Chapter 19: ANGEL VISITS

"Which when his mother saw, she in her mind Was troubled sore, he wist well what to ween." SPENSER. Margaret had not been gone five minutes when Mr. Thornton came in, his face all a-glow. "I could not come sooner: the superintendent would---- Where is she?" He looked round the dining-room, and then almost fiercely at his mother, who was quietly re-arranging the disturbed furniture, and did not instantly reply. "Where is Miss Hale?" asked he again. "Gone home," said she, rather shortly. "Gone home!" "Yes. She was a great deal better. Indeed, I don't believe it was so very much of a hurt; only some people faint at the least thing." "I am sorry she has gone home," said he, walking uneasily about. "She could not have been fit for it." "She said she was; and Mr. Lowe said she was. I went for him myself." "Thank you, mother." He stopped, and partly held out his hand to give her a grateful shake. But she did not notice the movement. "What have you done with your Irish people?" "Sent to the Dragon, for a good meal for them, poor wretches. And then, luckily, I caught Father Grady, and I've asked him in to speak to them, and dissuade them from going off in a body. How did Miss Hale go home? I'm sure she could not walk." "She had a cab. Everything was done properly, even to the paying. Let us talk of something else. She has caused disturbance enough." "I don't know where I should have been but for her." "Are you become so helpless as to have to be defended by a girl?" asked Mrs. Thornton scornfully. He reddened. "Not many girls would have taken the blows on herself which were meant for me;--meant with right down goodwill, too." "A girl in love will do a good deal," replied Mrs. Thornton, shortly. "Mother!" He made a step forwards; stood still; heaved with passion. She was a little startled at the evident force he used to keep himself calm. She was not sure of the nature of the emotions she had provoked. It was only their violence that was clear. Was it anger? His eyes glowed, his figure was dilated, his breath came thick and fast. It was a mixture of joy, of anger, of pride, of glad surprise, of panting doubt; but she could not read it. Still it made her uneasy,--as the presence of all strong feeling, of which the cause is not fully understood or sympathised in, always has this effect. She went to the side-board, opened a drawer, and took out a duster, which she kept there for any occasional purpose. She had seen a drop of eau de Cologne on the polished arm of the sofa, and instinctively sought to wipe it off. But she kept her back turned to her son much longer than was necessary; and when she spoke, her voice seemed unusual and constrained. "You have taken some steps about the rioters, I suppose? You don't apprehend anymore violence, do you? Where were the police? Never at hand when they're wanted!" "On the contrary, I saw three or four of them, when the gates gave way, struggling and beating about in fine fashion; and more came running up just when the yard was clearing. I might have given some of the fellows in charge then, if I had had my wits about me. But there will be no difficulty, plenty of people can identify them." "But won't they come back to-night?" "I'm going to see about a sufficient guard for the premises. I have appointed to meet Captain Hanbury in half an hour at the station." "You must have some tea first." "Tea! Yes, I suppose I must. It's half-past six, and I may be out for some time. Don't sit up for me, mother." "You expect me to go to bed before I have seen you safe, do you?" "Well, perhaps not." He hesitated for a moment. "But if I've time, I shall go round by Crampton, after I've arranged with the police and seen Hamper and Clarkson." Their eyes met; they looked at each other intently for a minute. Then she asked: "Why are you going round by Crampton?" "To ask after Miss Hale." "I will send. Williams must take the water-bed she came to ask for. He shall inquire how she is." "I must go myself." "Not merely to ask how Miss Hale is?" "No, not merely for that. I want to thank her for the way in which she stood between me and the mob." "What made you go down at all? It was putting your head into the lion's mouth!" He glanced sharply at her; saw that she did not know what had passed between him and Margaret in the drawing-room: and replied by another question: "Shall you be afraid to be left without me, until I can get some of the police; or had we better send Williams for them now, and they could be here by the time we have done tea? There's no time to be lost. I must be off in a quarter of an hour." Mrs. Thornton left the room. Her servants wondered at her directions, usually so sharply-cut and decided, now confused and uncertain. Mr. Thornton remained in the dining-room, trying to think of the business he had to do at the police-office, and in reality thinking of Margaret. Everything seemed dim and vague beyond--behind--besides the touch of her arms round his neck--the soft clinging which made the dark colour come and go in his cheek as he thought of it. The tea would have been very silent, but for Fanny's perpetual description of her own feelings; how she had been alarmed--and then thought they were gone--and then felt sick and faint and trembling in every limb. "There, that's enough," said her brother, rising from the table. "The reality was enough for me." He was going to leave the room, when his mother stopped him with her hand upon his arm. "You will come back here before you go to the Hales'," said she, in a low, anxious voice. "I know what I know," said Fanny to herself. "Why? Will it be too late to disturb them?" "John, come back to me for this one evening. It will be late for Mrs. Hale. But that is not it. To-morrow, you will---- Come back to-night, John!" She had seldom pleaded with her son at all--she was too proud for that; but she had never pleaded in vain. "I will return straight here after I have done my business. You will be sure to enquire after them?--after her?" Mrs. Thornton was by no means a talkative companion to Fanny, nor yet a good listener while her son was absent. But on his return, her eyes and ears were keen to see and to listen to all the details which he could give, as to the steps he had taken to secure himself, and those whom he chose to employ, from any repetition of the day's outrages. He clearly saw his object. Punishment and suffering, were the natural consequences to those who had taken part in the riot. All that was necessary, in order that property should be protected, and that the will of the proprietor might cut to his end, clean and sharp as a sword. "Mother! You know what I have got to say to Miss Hale, to-morrow?" The question came upon her suddenly, during a pause in which she, at least, had forgotten Margaret. She looked up at him. "Yes! I do. You can hardly do otherwise." "Do otherwise! I don't understand you." "I mean that, after allowing her feelings so to overcome her, I consider you bound in honour--" "Bound in honour," said he scornfully. "I'm afraid honour has nothing to do with it. 'Her feelings overcome her!' What feelings do you mean?" "Nay, John, there is no need to be angry. Did she not rush down and cling to you to save you from danger?" "She did!" said he. "But, mother," continued he, stopping short in his walk right in front of her. "I dare not hope. I never was faint-hearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me." "Don't be foolish, John. Such a creature! Why, she might be a duke's daughter, to hear you speak. And what proof more would you have, I wonder, of her caring for you? I can believe she has had a struggle with her aristocratic way of viewing things; but I like her the better for seeing clearly at last. It is a good deal for me to say," said Mrs. Thornton, smiling slowly, while the tears stood in her eyes; "for after to-night, I stand second. It was to have you to myself, all to myself, a few hours longer, that I begged you not to go till to-morrow." "Dearest mother!" (Still love is selfish, and in an instant he reverted to his own hopes and fears in a way that drew the cold creeping shadow over Mrs. Thornton's heart.) "But I know she does not care for me. I shall put myself at her feet--I must. If it were but one chance in a thousand--or a million--I should do it." "Don't fear!" said his mother, crushing down her own personal mortification at the little notice he had taken of the rare ebullition of her maternal feelings--of the pang of jealousy that betrayed the intensity of her disregarded love. "Don't be afraid," she said, coldly. "As far as love may go she may be worthy of you. It must have taken a good deal to overcome her pride. Don't be afraid, John," said she, kissing him, as she wished him good-night. And she went slowly and majestically out of the room. But when she got into her own, she locked the door, and sate down to cry unwonted tears. * * * * * Margaret entered the room (where her father and mother still sat, holding low conversation together), looking very pale and white. She came close up to them before she could trust herself to speak. "Mrs. Thornton will send the water-bed, mamma." "Dear, how tired you look! Is it very hot, Margaret?" "Very hot, and the streets are rather rough with the strike." Margaret's colour came back vivid and bright as ever; but it faded away instantly. "Here has been a message from Bessy Higgins, asking you to go to her," said Mrs. Hale. "But I'm sure you look too tired." "Yes!" said Margaret. "I am tired, I cannot go." She was very silent and trembling while she made tea. She was thankful to see her father so much occupied with her mother as not to notice her looks. Even after her mother went to bed, he was not content to be absent from her, but undertook to read her to sleep. Margaret was alone. "Now I will think of it--now I will remember it all. I could not before--I dared not." She sat still in her chair, her hands clasped on her knees, her lips compressed, her eyes fixed as one who sees a vision. She drew a deep breath. "I, who hate scenes--I, who have despised people for showing emotion--who have thought them wanting in self-control--I went down and must needs throw myself into the mele, like a romantic fool! Did I do any good? They would have gone away without me, I dare say." But this was overleaping the rational conclusion,--as in an instant her well-poised judgment felt. "No, perhaps they would not. I did some good. But what possessed me to defend that man as if he were a helpless child! Ah!" said she, clenching her hands together, "it is no wonder those people thought I was in love with him, after disgracing myself in that way. I in love--and with him too!" Her pale cheeks suddenly became one flame of fire; and she covered her face with her hands. When she took them away, her palms were wet with scalding tears. "Oh how low I am fallen that they should say that of me! I could not have been so brave for any one else, just because he was so utterly indifferent to me--if, indeed, I do not positively dislike him. It made me the more anxious that there should be fair play on each side; and I could see what fair play was. It was not fair," said she vehemently, "that he should stand there--sheltered, awaiting the soldiers, who might catch those poor maddened creatures as in a trap--without an effort on his part, to bring them to reason. And it was worse than unfair for them to set on him as they threatened. I would do it again, let who will say what they like of me. If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action that might otherwise have been committed, I did a woman's work. Let them insult my maiden pride as they will--I walk pure before God!" She looked up, and a noble peace seemed to descend and calm her face, till it was "stiller than chiselled marble." Dixon came in: "If you please, Miss Margaret, here's the water-bed from Mrs. Thornton's. It's too late for to-night, I'm afraid, for missus is nearly asleep: but it will do nicely for to-morrow." "Very," said Margaret. "You must send our best thanks." Dixon left the room for a moment. "If you please, Miss Margaret, he says he's to ask particular how you are. I think he must mean missus; but he says his last words were, to ask how Miss Hale was." "Me!" said Margaret, drawing herself up. "I am quite well. Tell him I am perfectly well." But her complexion was as deadly white as her handkerchief; and her head ached intensely. Mr. Hale now came in. He had left his sleeping wife; and wanted, as Margaret saw, to be amused and interested by something that she was to tell him. With sweet patience did she bear her pain, without a word of complaint; and rummaged up numberless small subjects for conversation--all except the riot, and that she never named once. It turned her sick to think of it. "Good-night, Margaret. I have every chance of a good night myself, and you are looking very pale with your watching. I shall call Dixon if your mother needs anything. Do you go to bed and sleep like a top; for I'm sure you need it, poor child!" "Good-night, papa!" She let her colour go--the false smile fade away--the eyes grow dull with heavy pain. She released her strong will from its laborious task. Till morning she might feel ill and weary. She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity. She could not be alone, prostrate, powerless as she was,--a cloud of faces looked up at her, giving her no idea of fierce vivid anger, or of personal danger, but a deep sense of shame that she should thus be the object of universal regard--a sense of shame so acute that it seemed as if she would fain have burrowed into the earth to hide herself, and yet she could not escape out of that unwinking glare of many eyes.

Margaret had not been gone five minutes when Mr. Thornton came in, his face a-glow. 'I could not come sooner: the superintendent would - where is she?' He looked round the dining-room, and then almost fiercely at his mother. 'Where is Miss Hale? 'Gone home,' said she, rather shortly. 'Gone home!' 'Yes. She was a great deal better. Indeed, I don't believe it was much of a hurt; only some people faint at the least thing.' 'I am sorry she is gone home,' said he, uneasily. 'She could not have been fit for it.' 'She said she was; and Mr. Lowe said she was. I went for him myself.' 'Thank you, mother.' 'What have you done with your Irish people?' 'Sent to the Dragon for a good meal for them, poor wretches. And I've asked Father Grady in to speak to them, and dissuade them from going off. How did Miss Hale go home? I'm sure she could not walk.' 'She had a cab. Let us talk of something else. She has caused disturbance enough.' 'I don't know where I should have been but for her.' 'Are you become so helpless as to have to be defended by a girl?' asked Mrs. Thornton, scornfully. He reddened. 'Not many girls would have taken the blows on herself which were meant for me.' 'A girl in love will do a good deal,' replied Mrs. Thornton. 'Mother!' He made a step forwards; stood still; heaved with passion. She was a little startled at the evident force he used to keep himself calm. She was not sure of the nature of the emotions she had provoked. Anger? His eyes glowed, his breath came thick and fast. It was a mixture of joy, anger, pride, of glad surprise, of panting doubt; but she could not read it. Still it made her uneasy. She went to the sideboard, keeping her back turned to her son much longer than was necessary; and when she spoke, her voice seemed unusual and constrained. 'You have taken some steps about the rioters, I suppose? Where were the police? Never at hand when they're wanted!' 'On the contrary, I saw three or four of them, when the gates gave way, beating about in fine fashion; and more came running up just when the yard was clearing.' 'But won't the rioters come back tonight?' 'I'm going to see about a guard for the premises. I am to meet Captain Hanbury in half an hour.' 'You must have some tea first.' 'Tea! Yes, I suppose I must. I may be out for some time. Don't sit up for me, mother.' 'You expect me to go to bed before I have seen you safe, do you?' 'Well, perhaps not.' He hesitated for a moment. 'But if I've time, I shall go round by Crampton, after I've arranged with the police and seen Hamper and Clarkson.' Their eyes met. Then she asked: 'Why are you going round by Crampton?' 'To ask after Miss Hale.' 'I will send a servant. Williams must take the water-bed she came to ask for. He shall inquire how she is.' 'I must go myself. I want to thank her for the way in which she stood between me and the mob.' 'What made you go down at all? It was putting your head into the lion's mouth!' He glanced sharply at her; saw that she did not know what had passed between him and Margaret in the drawing-room; and replied with another question: 'Shall you be afraid to be left without me until the police arrive, or had we better send Williams for them now? There's no time to be lost. I must be off in a quarter of an hour.' Mrs. Thornton left the room. Her servants wondered at her directions, usually so sharply-cut and decided, now confused and uncertain. Mr. Thornton remained in the dining-room, thinking of Margaret. Everything seemed dim and vague beyond the touch of her arms round his neck - the soft clinging which made the dark colour come and go in his cheek as he thought of it. The tea would have been very silent, but for Fanny's perpetual description of her own feelings; how she had been alarmed - and thought they were gone - and then felt sick and faint and trembling. 'That's enough,' said her brother, rising from the table. 'The reality was enough for me.' He was going to leave the room, when his mother stopped him. 'You will come back here before you go to the Hales',' said she, in a low voice. 'I know what I know,' said Fanny to herself. 'Why?' 'John, come back to me this evening. It will be late for Mrs. Hale. But that is not it. Come back tonight, John!' She had seldom pleaded with her son at all; she was too proud. 'I will return straight here after I have done my business,' said he. 'You will be sure to inquire after them? - after her?' Mrs. Thornton was by no means a talkative companion to Fanny that day, nor a good listener. But on her son's return, she was keen to hear him list the steps he had taken to secure himself from any repetition of the day's outrages. He clearly saw his object. Punishment and suffering were the natural consequences to the rioters. That was necessary, in order that property should be protected, and that the will of the proprietor might cut as clean and sharp as a sword. 'Mother! You know what I have got to say to Miss Hale, tomorrow?' She looked up at him. 'Yes, I do. You can hardly do otherwise.' 'Do otherwise! I don't understand you.' 'I mean that, after allowing her feelings so to overcome her, I consider you bound in honour-' 'Bound in honour,' said he, scornfully. 'I'm afraid honour has nothing to do with it. "Her feelings overcome her!" What feelings do you mean?' 'John, there is no need to be angry. Did she not rush down, and cling to you to save you from danger?' 'She did! But, mother,' continued he, stopping in front of her, 'I dare not hope. I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.' 'Don't be foolish, John. Why, she might be a duke's daughter, to hear you speak. And what proof more would you have of her caring for you? I can believe she felt herself too aristocratic for you; but I like her the better for seeing clearly at last. It is a good deal for me to say,' said Mrs. Thornton, smiling slowly, with tears in her eyes; 'for after tonight, I stand second with you. It was to have you to myself for a few hours longer, that I begged you not to go till tomorrow!' 'Dearest mother! But I know she does not care for me. I shall put myself at her feet - I must. If it were but one chance in a thousand - or a million - I should do it.' 'Don't fear!' said his mother, crushing down her mortification at the little notice he had taken of her rare outburst of maternal feeling. 'Don't be afraid,' she said, coldly. 'As far as love goes she may be worthy of you. It must have taken a good deal to overcome her pride.' Kissing him, she wished him good-night, and went slowly and majestically out of the room. But once in her own room, she locked the door, and sat down to cry unwonted tears. Margaret, on arriving home, had entered looking very pale and white. She came close up to her parents before she could trust herself to speak. 'Mrs. Thornton will send the water-bed, mamma.' 'Dear, how tired you look! Is it very hot, Margaret?' 'Very hot, and the streets are rather rough with the strike.' 'There has been a message from Bessy Higgins, asking you to go to her,' said Mrs. Hale. 'But I'm sure you look too tired.' 'Yes!' said Margaret. 'I am tired, I cannot go.' She was very silent and trembling while she made tea. She was thankful to see her father so much occupied with her mother as not to notice her looks. When her mother went to bed, he undertook to read her to sleep. Margaret was alone. 'Now I will think of it - now I will remember it all. I could not before - I dared not.' She sat still in her chair, her hands clasped on her knees, her eyes fixed as one who sees a vision. She drew a deep breath. 'I, who hate scenes - who have despised people for showing emotion - who have thought them wanting in self-control - I must needs throw myself into the melee, like a romantic fool! Did I do any good? They would have gone away without me, I dare say.' But this was over-leaping the rational conclusion, as in an instant her well-poised judgement felt. 'No, perhaps they would not. I did some good. But what possessed me to defend that man as if he were a helpless child! Ah!' said she, clenching her hands together, 'it is no wonder those people thought I was in love with him, after disgracing myself in that way. I, in love - and with him too!' Her pale cheeks suddenly became one flame of fire; and she covered her face with her hands. When she took them away, her palms were wet with tears. 'Oh, how low I am fallen that they should say that of me! I could be so brave for him, just because he was so utterly indifferent to me - if, indeed, I do not positively dislike him. It made me anxious that there should be fair play on each side; and it was not fair,' said she, vehemently, 'that he should stand there awaiting the soldiers, who might catch those poor maddened creatures as in a trap - without any effort on his part to bring them to reason. And it was worse than unfair for them to attack him. I would do it again. If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action, I did a woman's work. Let them insult me as they will - I walk pure before God!' She looked up, and a noble peace seemed to calm her face. Dixon came in. 'If you please, Miss Margaret, here's the water-bed from Mrs. Thornton's. It's too late for tonight, I'm afraid, for missus is nearly asleep: but it will do nicely for tomorrow.' 'You must send our best thanks.' 'If you please, Miss Margaret, he says he's to ask particular how you are. I think he must mean missus; but he says to ask how Miss Hale was.' 'Me!' said Margaret, drawing herself up. 'Tell him I am perfectly well.' But her complexion was as white as her handkerchief; and her head ached intensely. Mr. Hale now came in. He had left his sleeping wife; and wanted, as Margaret saw, to be amused. With sweet patience she bore her pain, without a word of complaint, and rummaged up numberless small subjects for conversation - all except the riot, for it turned her sick to think of it. 'Good-night, Margaret. You are looking very pale. Do go to bed and sleep like a top; for I'm sure you need it, poor child!' 'Good-night, papa.' She let the forced smile fade away, releasing her strong will from its laborious task. She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even one finger, would have been beyond her power. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity. A cloud of faces looked up at her, giving her a deep sense of shame - a sense so acute that she would fain have burrowed into the earth to hide herself, and yet she could not escape that unwinking glare of many eyes.

North and South

Chapter 23: MISTAKES

"That doubt and trouble, fear and pain, And anguish, all, are shadows vain, That death itself shall not remain; That weary deserts we may tread, A dreary labyrinth may thread. Thro' dark ways underground be led; Yet, if we will one Guide obey, The dreariest path, the darkest way Shall issue out in heavenly day; And we, on divers shores now cast, Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, All in our Father's house at last!" R. C. TRENCH. Margaret flew up stairs as soon as their visitors were gone, and put on her bonnet and shawl, to run and inquire how Betsy Higgins was, and sit with her as long as she could before dinner. As she went along the crowded narrow streets, she felt how much of interest they had gained by the simple fact of her having learnt to care for a dweller in them. Mary Higgins, the slatternly younger sister, had endeavoured as well as she could to tidy up the house for the expected visit. There had been rough-stoning done in the middle of the floor, while the flags under the chairs and table and round the walls retained their dark unwashed appearance. Although the day was hot, there burnt a large fire in the grate, making the whole place feel like an oven; Margaret did not understand that the lavishness of coals was a sign of hospitable welcome to her on Mary's part, and thought that perhaps the oppressive heat was necessary for Bessy. Bessy herself lay on a squab, or short sofa, placed under the window. She was very much more feeble than on the previous day, and tired with raising herself at every step to look out and see if it was Margaret coming. And now that Margaret was there, and had taken a chair by her, Bessy lay back silent, and content to look at Margaret's face, and touch her articles of dress, with a childish admiration of their fineness of texture. "I never knew why folk in the Bible cared for soft raiment afore. But it must be nice to go dressed as yo' do. It's different fro' common. Most fine folk tire my eyes out wi' their colours; but some how yours rest me. Where did ye get this frock?" "In London," said Margaret, much amused. "London! Have yo' been in London?" "Yes! I lived there for some years. But my home was in a forest; in the country." "Tell me about it," said Bessy. "I like to hear speak of the country, and trees, and such like things." She leant back, and shut her eyes, and crossed her hands over her breast, lying at perfect rest, as if to receive all the ideas Margaret could suggest. Margaret had never spoken of Helstone since she left it, except just naming the place incidentally. She saw it in dreams more vivid than life, and as she fell away to slumber at nights her memory wandered in all its pleasant places. But her heart was opened to this girl: "Oh, Bessy, I loved the home we have left so dearly! I wish you could see it. I cannot tell you half its beauty. There are great trees standing all about it, with their branches stretching long and level, and making a deep shade of rest even at noonday. And yet, though every leaf may seem still, there is a continual rushing sound of movement all around--not close at hand. Then sometimes the turf is as soft and fine as velvet; and sometimes quite lush with the perpetual moisture of a little, hidden, tinkling brook near at hand. And then in other parts there are billowy ferns--whole stretches of fern; some in the green shadow; some with long streaks of golden sunlight lying on them--just like the sea." "I have never seen the sea," murmured Bessy. "But go on." "Then here and there, there are wide commons, high up as if above the very tops of the trees--" "I am glad of that. I felt smothered like down below. When I have gone for an out, I've always wanted to get high up and see far away, and take a deep breath o' fulness in that air. I get smothered enough in Milton, and I think the sound yo' speak of among the trees, going on for ever and ever, would send me dazed; it's that made my head ache so in the mill. Now on these commons, I reckon, there is but little noise?" "No," said Margaret; "nothing but here and there a lark high in the air. Sometimes I used to hear a farmer speaking sharp and loud to his servants; but it was so far away that it only reminded me pleasantly that other people were hard at work in some distant place, while I just sat on the heather and did nothing." "I used to think once that if I could have a day of doing nothing, to rest me--a day in some quiet place like that yo' speak on--it would maybe set me up. But now I've had many days o' idleness, and I'm just as weary 'o them as I was o' my work. Sometimes I'm so tired out I think I cannot enjoy heaven without a piece of rest first. I'm rather afeard o' going straight there without getting a good sleep in the grave to set me up." "Don't be afraid, Bessy," said Margaret, laying her hand on the girl's hand; "God can give you more perfect rest than even idleness on earth, or the dead sleep of the grave can do." Bessy moved uneasily; then she said: "I wish father would not speak to me as he does. He means well, as I telled yo' yesterday, and tell yo' again and again. But yo' see, though I don't believe him a bit by day, yet by night--when I'm in a fever, half asleep and half awake--it comes back upon me--oh! so bad! And I think, if this should be th' end of all, and if all I've been born for is just to work my heart and my life away, and to sicken i' this dree place, wi' them mill-noises in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them to stop, and let me have a little piece o' quiet--and wi' the fluff filling my lungs, until I thirst to death for one long deep breath o' the clear air yo' speak on--and my mother gone, and I never able to tell her again how I loved her, and o' all my troubles--I think if this life is th' end, and there's no God to wipe away all tears from all eyes--yo' wench, yo'!" said she, sitting up, and clutching violently, almost fiercely, at Margaret's hand, "I could go mad, and kill yo, I could." She fell back completely worn out with her passion. Margaret knelt down by her. "Bessy--we have a Father in Heaven." "I know it! I know it," moaned she, turning her head uneasily from side to side. "I'm very wicked. I've spoken very wickedly. Oh! don't be frightened by me and never come again. I would not harm a hair of your head. And," opening her eyes, and looking earnestly at Margaret, "I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do o' what's to come. I read the book o' Revelations until I know it off by heart, and I never doubt when I'm waking, and in my senses, of all the glory I'm to come to." "Don't let us talk of what fancies come into your head when you are feverish. I would rather hear something about what you used to do when you were well." "I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been rightly strong sin' somewhere about that time. I began to work in a carding-room soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs, and poisoned me." "Fluff?" said Margaret, inquiringly. "Fluff," repeated Bessy. "Little bits, as fly off fro' the cotton, when they're carding it, and fill the air till it looks all fine white dust. They say it winds rounds the lungs, and tightens them up. Anyhow, there's many a one as works in a carding-room, that falls into a waste, coughing and spitting blood, because they're just poisoned by the fluff." "But can't it be helped?" asked Margaret. "I dunno. Some folk have a great wheel at one end o' their carding-rooms to make a draught, and carry off th' dust; but that wheel costs a deal of money--five or six hundred pounds, maybe, and brings in no profit; so it's but a few of th' masters as will put 'em up; and I've heard tell o' men who didn't like working in places where there was a wheel, because they said as how it made 'em hungry, at after they'd been long used to swallowing fluff, to go without it, and that their wages ought to be raised if they were to work in such places. So between masters and men th' wheels fall through. I know I wish there'd been a wheel in our place, though." "Did not your father know about it?" asked Margaret. "Yes! And he was sorry. But our factory were a good one on the whole; and a steady likely set o' people; and father was afeard of letting me go to a strange place, for though yo' would na think it now, many a one then used to call me a gradely lass enough. And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and soft, and Mary's schooling were to be kept up, mother said, and father he were always liking to buy books, and go to lectures o' one kind and another--all which took money--so I just worked on till I shall ne'er get the whirr out o' my ears, or the fluff out o' my throat i' this world. That's all." "How old are you?" asked Margaret. "Nineteen, come July." "And I too am nineteen." She thought more sorrowfully than Bessy did, of the contrast between them. She could not speak for a moment or two for the emotion she was trying to keep down. "About Mary," said Bessy. "I wanted to ask yo' to be a friend to her. She's seventeen, but she's th' last on us. And I don't want her to go to th' mill, and yet I dunno what she's fit for." "She could not do"--Margaret glanced unconsciously at the uncleaned corners of the room--"She could hardly undertake a servant's place, could she? We have an old faithful servant, almost a friend, who wants help, but who is very particular; and it would not be right to plague her with giving her any assistance that would really be an annoyance and an irritation." "No, I see. I reckon yo're right. Our Mary's a good wench; but who has she had to teach her what to do about a house? No mother, and me at the mill till I was good for nothing but scolding her for doing badly what I didn't know how to do a bit. But I wish she could ha' lived wi' yo', for all that." "But even though she may not be exactly fitted to come and live with us as a servant--and I don't know about that--I will always try to be a friend to her for your sake, Bessy. And now I must go. I will come again as soon as I can; but if it should not be to-morrow, or the next day, or even a week or a fortnight hence, don't think I've forgotten you. I may be busy." "I'll know yo' won't forget me again. I'll not mistrust yo' no more. But remember, in a week or a fortnight I may be dead and buried!" "I'll come again as soon as I can, Bessy," said Margaret, squeezing her hand tight. "But you'll let me know if you get worse." "Ay, that will I," said Bessy, returning the pressure. From that day forwards Mrs. Hale became more and more of a suffering invalid. It was now drawing near to the anniversary of Edith's marriage, and looking back upon the year's accumulated heap of troubles, Margaret wondered how they had been borne. If she could have anticipated them, how she would have shrunk away and hid herself from the coming time! And yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very endurable--small, keen, bright little spots of positive enjoyment having come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows. A year ago, or when she first went to Helstone, and first became silently conscious of the querulousness in her mother's temper, she would have groaned bitterly over the idea of a long illness to be borne in a strange, desolate, noisy, busy place, with diminished comforts on every side of the home life. But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a new kind of patience had sprung up in her mother's mind. She was gentle and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief. Mr. Hale was in exactly that stage of apprehension which, in men of his stamp, takes the shape of wilful blindness. He was more irritated than Margaret had ever known him at his daughter's expressed anxiety. "Indeed, Margaret, you are growing fanciful! God knows I should be the first to take the alarm if your mother were really ill; we always saw when she had her headaches at Helstone, even without her telling us. She looks quite pale and white when she is ill; and now she has a bright healthy colour in her cheeks, just as she used to have when I first knew her." "But papa," said Margaret, with hesitation, "do you know I think that is the flush of pain." "Nonsense, Margaret. I tell you, you are too fanciful. You are the person not well, I think. Send for the doctor to-morrow for yourself; and then, if it will make your mind easier, he can see your mother." "Thank you, dear papa. It will make me happier, indeed." And she went up to him to kiss him. But he pushed her away--gently enough, but still as if she had suggested unpleasant ideas, which he should be glad to get rid of as readily as he could of her presence. He walked uneasily up and down the room. "Poor Maria!" said he, half soliloquising, "I wish one could do right without sacrificing others. I shall hate this town, and myself too, if she----. Pray, Margaret, does your mother often talk to you of the old places: of Helstone, I mean." "No, papa," said Margaret, sadly. "Then, you see, she can't be fretting after them, eh? It has always been a comfort to me to think that your mother was so simple and open that I knew every little grievance she had. She never would conceal anything seriously affecting her health from me: would she, eh, Margaret? I am quite sure she would not. So don't let me hear of these foolish morbid ideas. Come, give me a kiss, and run off to bed." But she heard him pacing about (racooning, as she and Edith used to call it) long after her slow and languid undressing was finished--long after as she began to listen as she lay in bed.

Margaret flew upstairs as soon as the visitors were gone, and put on her bonnet and shawl, to go and sit with Bessy Higgins before dinner. As she went along the crowded narrow streets, she felt how much more interesting they seemed now that she cared for a dweller in them. Mary Higgins, the slatternly younger sister, had tried to tidy up the house for the expected visit. The middle of the floor had been scoured, while the flagstones under the chairs and table remained unwashed. Although the day was hot, a large fire burnt in the grate, making the place feel like an oven. Margaret did not understand that the lavishness of coals was a sign of welcome to her, and thought that perhaps the heat was necessary for Bessy. Bessy herself lay on a sofa under the window. She was very much more feeble than on the previous day, and tired with getting up to look for Margaret coming. Now that Margaret was there, and had taken a chair by her, Bessy lay back silent, content to look at Margaret's face, and touch her dress with childish admiration. 'I never knew why folk in the Bible cared for soft raiment before. But it must be nice to go dressed as yo' do. Most fine folk tire my eyes out wi' their colours; but somehow yours rest me. Where did yo' get this frock?' 'In London,' said Margaret, much amused. 'London! Have yo' been in London?' 'Yes! I lived there for some years. But my home was in a forest; in the country.' 'Tell me about it,' said Bessy. 'I like to hear speak of the country and trees.' She leant back, and shut her eyes. Margaret had barely spoken of Helstone since she left it, although she saw it in vivid dreams at night, when her memory wandered in its pleasant places. But her heart was opened to this girl. 'Oh, Bessy, I loved my home! I wish you could see it. I cannot tell you half its beauty. There are great trees standing all about, with their branches stretching long and level, and making a deep shade of rest even at noonday. And though every leaf may seem still, there is a continual rushing sound of movement. Then sometimes the turf is as soft and fine as velvet; and sometimes quite lush with the moisture of a little, hidden, tinkling brook. In other parts there are stretches of billowy ferns, some in the green shadow, some with long streaks of golden sunlight lying on them - just like the sea.' 'I have never seen the sea,' murmured Bessy. 'But go on.' 'Then, here and there, there are wide commons, high up as if above the very tops of the trees-' 'I'm glad of that. I felt smothered like down below. When I have gone for an outing, I've always wanted to get high up and see far away. I get smothered enough in Milton, and I think the sound of the trees would send me dazed; it's that made my head ache so in the mill. Now on these commons I reckon there is little noise?' 'No,' said Margaret; 'nothing but larks high in the air. Sometimes I used to hear a farmer speaking sharp and loud; but so far away that it only reminded me pleasantly that other people were hard at work in some distant place, while I sat on the heather and did nothing.' 'I used to think once that if I could have a day of doing nothing, to rest me, it would maybe set me up. But now I've had many days o' idleness, and I'm just as weary o' them as I was o' my work. Sometimes I'm so tired I think I cannot enjoy heaven without a piece of rest first. I'm rather afeard o' going straight there without getting a good sleep in the grave to set me up.' 'Don't be afraid, Bessy,' said Margaret, laying her hand on the girl's; 'God can give you more perfect rest than any other.' Bessy moved uneasily; then she said: 'I wish father would not speak as he does. He means well. But yo' see, though I don't believe him by day, yet by night - when I'm in a fever, half-asleep - it comes back upon me - oh! so bad! And I think, if this should be th' end of everything, and if all I've been born for is just to work my heart and my life away i' this dreary place, wi' them mill-noises in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them to stop and let me have a little quiet - and wi' the fluff filling my lungs, until I long for one deep breath o' clear air - and my mother gone, and I never able to tell her again how I loved her - I think if this life is th' end, and that there's no God to wipe away all tears from all eyes-' She sat up, clutching violently at Margaret's hand. 'I could go mad, and kill yo', I could.' She fell back, worn out with her passion. Margaret knelt down by her. 'Bessy - we have a Father in Heaven.' 'I know it!' moaned she. 'I've spoken very wickedly. Oh! don't be frightened by me and never come again. I wouldn't harm a hair of your head. And I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do what's to come. I know the book o' Revelations off by heart, and I never doubt, when I'm in my senses, of all the glory I'm to come to.' 'Don't let us talk about when you are feverish. I would rather hear something about what you used to do when you were well.' 'I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been rightly strong since then. I began to work in a carding-room soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs and poisoned me.' 'Fluff?' said Margaret. 'Little bits, as fly off fro' the cotton when they're carding it, and fill the air with fine white dust. They say it winds round the lungs. There's many a one as works in a carding-room, that falls into a waste, coughing and spitting blood, because they're poisoned by the fluff.' 'But can't it be helped?' asked Margaret. 'I dunno. Some folk have a great wheel at one end o' their carding-rooms to make a draught, and carry off th' dust; but that wheel costs a deal o' money - five or six hundred pound, maybe, and brings in no profit; so only a few of th' masters will put 'em up. And I've heard o' men who didn't like working where there was a wheel, because they said it made 'em hungry, after they'd been long used to swallowing fluff, to go without it, and that their wage ought to be raised if they were to work in such places. So between masters and men th' wheels fall through. I wish there'd been a wheel in our place, though.' 'Did your father know about it?' asked Margaret. 'Yes! And he were sorry. But our factory were a good one on the whole; and a steady set o' people; and father was afeard of letting me go to a strange place. And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and weak, and Mary's schooling were to be kept up, mother said, and father he were always liking to buy books and go to lectures - all which took money - so I just worked on. That's all.' 'How old are you?' 'Nineteen, come July.' 'I too am nineteen.' Margaret thought sorrowfully of the contrast between them, and could not speak for a moment or two. 'About Mary,' said Bessy. 'I wanted to ask yo' to be a friend to her. She's seventeen, and I don't want her to go to th' mill, and yet I dunno what she's fit for.' Margaret glanced at the uncleaned corners of the room. 'She could hardly fill a servant's place, could she? We have an old faithful servant who wants help, but who is very particular; and it would not be right to plague her with giving her any assistance that would really be an annoyance.' 'No, I see. I reckon yo're right. Our Mary's a good wench; but she's had no one to teach her what to do about a house. But I wish she could ha' lived wi' yo', for all that.' 'Even though she may not be exactly fitted to live with us as a servant, I will always try and be a friend to her, Bessy. And now I must go. I will come again as soon as I can; but if it should not be tomorrow, or the next day, or even a week or a fortnight hence, don't think I've forgotten you. I may be busy.' 'I'll know yo' won't forget me again. I'll not mistrust yo' no more. But remember, in a week or a fortnight I may be dead and buried!' 'I'll come as soon as I can, Bessy,' said Margaret, squeezing her hand tight. 'Let me know if you are worse.' 'Ay, that will I.' From that day forwards Mrs. Hale became more and more of a suffering invalid. It was now drawing near to the anniversary of Edith's marriage; and, looking back upon the year's troubles, Margaret wondered how they had been borne. And yet day by day had, of itself, been very endurable - small, bright spots of enjoyment having come sparkling into the middle of sorrows. When she first went to Helstone, and became conscious of her mother's querulous temper, she would have groaned at the idea of a long illness to be borne in a strange place. But a new patience had sprung up in her mother. She was gentle and quiet in her intense pain, just as much as she had been restless and depressed when there was no real cause for grief. Mr. Hale's apprehension took the shape of wilful blindness. When Margaret expressed her anxiety, he was more irritated than she had ever known him. 'Indeed, Margaret, you are growing fanciful! God knows I should be the first to take alarm if your mother were really ill. But she looks quite pale when she is ill; and now she has a bright healthy colour in her cheeks.' 'But, papa,' said Margaret, with hesitation, 'I think that is the flush of pain.' 'Nonsense, Margaret. You are the person not well, I think. Send for the doctor tomorrow for yourself; and then, if it will make your mind easier, he can see your mother.' 'Thank you, dear papa. It will make me happier, indeed.' And she went up to kiss him. But he pushed her away - gently enough, but still as if she had suggested unpleasant ideas. He walked uneasily up and down the room. 'Poor Maria!' said he, half to himself. 'I wish one could do right without sacrificing others. I shall hate this town, and myself too, if she- Pray, Margaret, does your mother often talk to you of Helstone?' 'No, papa,' said Margaret sadly. 'Then, you see, she can't be fretting after it, eh? Your mother would never conceal anything seriously affecting her health from me: would she, Margaret? So don't let me hear these foolish morbid ideas. Come, give me a kiss, and run off to bed.' But as she lay in bed, she heard him pacing about long afterwards.

North and South

Chapter 13: A SOFT BREEZE IN A SULTRY PLACE

"I have no wrong, where I can claim no right, Naught ta'en me fro, where I have nothing had, Yet of my woe I cannot so be quite; Namely, since that another may be glad With that, that thus in sorrow makes me sad." WYATT. Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell's visit--she had only looked forward to it on her father's account, but when her godfather came, she at once fell into the most natural position of friendship in the world. He said she had no merit in being what she was, a girl so entirely after his own heart: it was an hereditary power which she had, to walk in and take possession of his regard; while she, in reply, gave him much credit for being so fresh and young under his Fellow's cap and gown. "Fresh and young in warmth and kindness, I mean. I'm afraid I must own, that I think your opinions are the oldest and mustiest I have met with this long time." "Hear this daughter of yours, Hale! Her residence in Milton has quite corrupted her. She's a democrat, a red republican, a member of the Peace Society, a socialist--" "Papa, it's all because I'm standing up for the progress of commerce. Mr. Bell would have had it keep still at exchanging wild-beast skins for acorns." "No, no. I'd dig the ground and grow potatoes. And I'd shave the wild-beast skin and make the wool into broadcloth. Don't exaggerate, missy. But I'm tired of this bustle. Everybody rushing over everybody, in their hurry to get rich." "It is not everyone who can sit comfortably in a set of college rooms and let his riches grow without any exertion of his own. No doubt there is many a man here who would be thankful if his property would increase as yours has done, without his taking any trouble about it," said Mr. Hale. "I don't believe they would. It's the bustle and the struggle they like. As for sitting still, and learning from the past, or shaping out the future by faithful work done in a prophetic spirit--Why! Pooh! I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art." "Milton people, I suspect, think Oxford men don't know how to move. It would be a very good thing if they mixed a little more." "It might be good for the Miltoners. Many things might be good for them which would be very disagreeable for other people." "Are you not a Milton man yourself?" asked Margaret. "I should have thought you would have been proud of your town." "I confess, I don't see what there is to be proud of. If you'll only come to Oxford, Margaret, I will show you a place to glory in." "Well!" said Mr. Hale, "Mr. Thornton is coming to drink tea with us to-night, and he is as proud of Milton as you of Oxford. You two must try and make each other a little more liberal-minded." "I don't want to be more liberal-minded, thank you," said Mr. Bell. "Is Mr. Thornton coming to tea, papa!" asked Margaret in a low voice. "Either to tea or soon after. He could not tell. He told us not to wait." Mr. Thornton had determined that he would make no inquiry of his mother as to how far she had put her project into execution of speaking to Margaret about the impropriety of her conduct. He felt pretty sure that, if this interview took place, his mother's account of what passed at it would only annoy and chagrin him, though he would all the time be aware of the colouring which it received by passing through her mind. He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her--while he was jealous of her--while he renounced her--he loved her sorely, in spite of himself. He dreamt of her; he dreamt she came dancing towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightness and gaiety which made him loathe her, even while it allured him. But the impression of this figure of Margaret--with all Margaret's character taken out of it, as completely as if some evil spirit had got possession of her form--was so deeply stamped upon his imagination, that when he wakened he felt hardly able to separate the Una from the Duessa; and the dislike he had to the latter seemed to envelop and disfigure the former. Yet he was too proud to acknowledge his weakness by avoiding the sight of her. He would neither seek an opportunity of being in her company nor avoid it. To convince himself of his power of self-control, he lingered over every piece of business this afternoon; he forced every movement into unnatural slowness and deliberation; and it was consequently past eight o'clock before he reached Mr. Hale's. Then there were business arrangements to be transacted in the study with Mr. Bell; and the latter kept on, sitting over the fire, and talking wearily, long after all business was transacted, and when they might just as well have gone upstairs. But Mr. Thornton would not say a word about moving their quarters; he chafed and chafed, and thought Mr. Bell a most prosy companion; while Mr. Bell returned the compliment in secret, by considering Mr. Thornton about as brusque and curt a fellow as he had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence and manner. At last some slight noise in the room above suggested the desirableness of moving there. They found Margaret with a letter open before her, eagerly discussing its contents with her father. On the entrance of the gentlemen, it was immediately put aside; but Mr. Thornton's eager senses caught some few words of Mr. Hale's to Mr. Bell. "A letter from Henry Lennox. It makes Margaret very hopeful." Mr. Bell nodded. Margaret was red as a rose when Mr. Thornton looked at her. He had the greatest mind in the world to get up and go out of the room that very instant, and never set foot in the house again. "We were thinking," said Mr. Hale, "that you and Mr. Thornton had taken Margaret's advice, and were each trying to convert the other, you were so long in the study." "And you thought there would be nothing left of us but an opinion, like the Kilkenny cat's tail. Pray whose opinion did you think would have the most obstinate vitality?" Mr. Thornton had not a notion what they were talking about, and disdained to inquire. Mr. Hale politely enlightened him. "Mr. Thornton, we were accusing Mr. Bell this morning of a kind of Oxonian medival bigotry against his native town; and we--Margaret, I believe--suggested that it would do him good to associate a little with Milton manufacturers." "I beg your pardon. Margaret thought it would do the Milton manufacturers good to associate a little more with Oxford men. Now wasn't it so, Margaret?" "I believe I thought it would do both good to see a little more of the other,--I did not know it was my idea any more than papa's." "And so you see, Mr. Thornton, we ought to have been improving each other down-stairs, instead of talking over vanished families of Smith's and Harrison's. However, I am willing to do my part now. I wonder when you Milton men intend to live. All your lives seem to be spent in gathering together the materials for life." "By living, I suppose you mean enjoyment." "Yes, enjoyment,--I don't specify of what, because I trust we should both consider mere pleasure as very poor enjoyment." "I would rather have the nature of the enjoyment defined." "Well! enjoyment or leisure--enjoyment of the power and influence which money gives. You are all striving for money. What do you want it for?" Mr. Thornton was silent. Then he said, "I really don't know. But money is not what _I_ strive for." "What then?" "It is a home question. I shall have to lay myself open to such a catechist, and I am not sure that I am prepared to do it." "No!" said Mr. Hale; "don't let us be personal in our catechism. You are neither of you representative men; you are each of you too individual for that." "I am not sure whether to consider that as a compliment or not. I should like to be the representative of Oxford, with its beauty and its learning, and its proud old history. What do you say, Margaret; ought I to be flattered?" "I don't know Oxford. But there is a difference between being the representative of a city and the representative man of its inhabitants." "Very true, Miss Margaret. Now I remember, you were against me this morning, and were quite Miltonian and manufacturing in your preferences." Margaret saw the quick glance of surprise that Mr. Thornton gave her, and she was annoyed at the construction which he might put on this speech of Mr. Bell's. Mr. Bell went on-- "Ah! I wish I could show you our High Street--our Radcliffe Square. I am leaving out our colleges, just as I give Mr. Thornton leave to omit his factories in speaking of the charms of Milton. I have a right to abuse my birth-place. Remember I am a Milton man." Mr. Thornton was annoyed more than he ought to have been at all that Mr. Bell was saying. He was not in a mood for joking. At another time, he could have enjoyed Mr. Bell's half testy condemnation of a town where the life was so at variance with every habit he had formed; but now, he was galled enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to be seriously attacked. "I don't set up Milton as a model of a town." "Not in architecture?" slyly asked Mr. Bell. "No! We've been too busy to attend to mere outward appearances." "Don't say _mere_ outward appearances," said Mr. Hale, gently. "They impress us all, from childhood upward--every day of our life." "Wait a little while," said Mr. Thornton. "Remember we are of a different race from the Greeks, to whom beauty was everything, and to whom Mr. Bell might speak of a life of leisure and serene enjoyment, much of which entered in through their outward senses. I don't mean to despise them, any more than I would ape them. But I belong to Teutonic blood; it is little mingled in this part of England to what it is in others; we retain much of their language; we retain more of their spirit; we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion. Our glory and our beauty arise out of our outward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance, and over greater difficulties still. We are Teutonic up here in Darkshire in another way. We hate to have laws made for us at a distance. We wish people would allow us to right ourselves, instead of continually meddling, with their imperfect legislation. We stand up for self-government, and oppose centralisation." "In short, you would like the Heptarchy back again. Well, at any rate, I revoke what I said this morning--that you Milton people did not reverence the past. You are regular worshippers of Thor." "If we do not reverence the past as you do in Oxford, it is because we want something which can apply to the present more directly. It is fine when the study of the past leads to a prophecy of the future. But to men groping in new circumstances, it would be finer if the words of experience could direct us how to act in what concerns us most intimately and immediately; which is full of difficulties to be encountered; and upon the mode in which they are met and conquered--not merely pushed aside for the time--depends our future. But no! People can speak of Utopia much more easily than of the next day's duty; and yet when that duty is all done by others, who so ready to cry, 'Fie, for shame!'" "And all this time I don't see what you are talking about. Would you Milton men condescend to send up your to-day's difficulty to Oxford? You have not tried us yet." Mr. Thornton laughed outright at this. "I believe I was talking with reference to a good deal that has been troubling us of late; I was thinking of the strikes we have gone through, which are troublesome and injurious things enough, as I am finding to my cost. And yet this last strike, under which I am smarting, has been respectable." "A respectable strike!" said Mr. Bell. "That sounds as if you were far gone in the worship of Thor." Margaret felt, rather than saw, that Mr. Thornton was chagrined by the repeated turning into jest of what he was feeling as very serious. She tried to change the conversation from a subject about which one party cared little, while, to the other, it was deeply, because personally, interesting. She forced herself to say something. "Edith says she finds the printed calicoes in Corfu better and cheaper than in London." "Does she?" said her father, "I think that must be one of Edith's exaggerations. Are you sure of it, Margaret?" "I am sure she says so, papa." "Then I am sure of the fact," said Mr. Bell. "Margaret, I go so far in my idea of your truthfulness, that it shall cover your cousin's character. I don't believe a cousin of yours could exaggerate." "Is Miss Hale so remarkable for truth?" said Mr. Thornton, bitterly. The moment he had done so, he could have bitten his tongue out. What was he? And why should he stab her with her shame in this way? How evil he was to-night: possessed by ill-humour at being detained so long from her; irritated by the mention of some name, because he thought it belonged to a more successful lover; now ill-tempered because he had been unable to cope, with a light heart, against one who was trying, by gay and careless speeches, to make the evening pass pleasantly away,--the kind old friend to all parties, whose manner by this time might be well known to Mr. Thornton, who had been acquainted with him for many years. And then to speak to Margaret as he had done! She did not get up and leave the room, as she had done in former days, when his abruptness or his temper had annoyed her. She sat quite still, after the first momentary glance of grieved surprise, that made her eyes look like some child's who has met with an unexpected rebuff; they slowly dilated into mournful, reproachful sadness; and then they fell, and she bent over her work, and did not speak again. But he could not help looking at her, and he saw a sigh tremble over her body, as if she quivered in some unwonted chill. He felt as the mother would have done, in the midst of "her rocking it, and rating it," had she been called away before her slow confiding smile, implying perfect trust in mother's love, had proved the renewing of its love. He gave short sharp answers; he was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between jest and earnest; anxious only for a look, a word of hers, before which to prostrate himself in penitent humility. But she neither looked nor spoke. Her round taper fingers flew in and out of her sewing, as steadily and swiftly as if that were the business of her life. She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his. He could have struck her before he left, in order that by some strange overt act of rudeness, he might earn the privilege of telling her the remorse that gnawed at his heart. It was well that the long walk in the open air wound up this evening for him. It sobered him back into grave resolution that henceforth he would see as little of her as possible,--since the very sight of that face and form, the very sounds of that voice (like the soft winds of pure melody) had such power to move him from his balance. Well! He had known what love was--a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling! but, through the furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age,--all the richer and more human for having known this great passion. When he had somewhat abruptly left the room, Margaret rose from her seat, and began silently to fold up her work. The long seams were heavy, and had an unusual weight for her languid arms. The round lines in her face took a lengthened, straighter form, and her whole appearance was that of one who had gone through a day of great fatigue. As the three prepared for bed, Mr. Bell muttered a little condemnation of Mr. Thornton. "I never saw a fellow so spoiled by success. He can't bear a word; a jest of any kind. Everything seems to touch on the soreness of his high dignity. Formerly, he was as simple and noble as the open day; you could not offend him, because he had no vanity." "He is not vain now," said Margaret, turning round from the table, and speaking with quiet distinctness. "To-night he has not been like himself. Something must have annoyed him before he came here." Mr. Bell gave her one of his sharp glances from above his spectacles. She stood it quite calmly; but, after she had left the room, he suddenly asked,-- "Hale! did it ever strike you that Thornton and your daughter have what the French call a tendresse for each other?" "Never!" said Mr. Hale, first startled and then flurried by the new idea. "No, I am sure you are wrong, I am almost certain you are mistaken. If there is anything, it is all on Mr. Thornton's side. Poor fellow! I hope and trust he is not thinking of her, for I am sure she would not have him." "Well! I'm a bachelor, and have steered clear of love affairs all my life; so perhaps my opinion is not worth having. Or else I should say there were very pretty symptoms about her!" "Then I am sure you are wrong," said Mr. Hale. "He may care for her, though she really has been almost rude to him at times. But she!--why, Margaret would never think of him, I'm sure. Such a thing has never entered her head." "Entering her heart would do. But I merely threw out a suggestion of what might be. I dare say I was wrong. And whether I was wrong or right, I'm very sleepy; so, having disturbed your night's rest (as I can see) with my untimely fancies, I'll betake myself with an easy mind to my own." But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea; so he lay awake, determining not to think about it. Mr. Bell took his leave the next day, bidding Margaret look to him as one who had a right to help and protect her in all her troubles, of whatever nature they might be. To Mr. Hale he said,-- "That Margaret of yours has gone deep into my heart. Take care of her, for she is a very precious creature,--a great deal too good for Milton--only fit for Oxford, in fact. The town, I mean; not the men. I can't match her yet. When I can, I shall bring my young man to stand side by side with your young woman, just as the genii in the Arabian Nights brought Prince Caralmazan to match with the fairy's Princess Badoura." "I beg you'll do no such thing. Remember the misfortunes that ensued; and besides, I can't spare Margaret." "No; on second thoughts, we'll have her to nurse us ten years hence, when we shall be two cross old invalids. Seriously, Hale! I wish you'd leave Milton; which is a most unsuitable place for you, though it was my recommendation in the first instance. If you would, I'd swallow my shadows of doubts, and take a college living; and you and Margaret should come and live at the parsonage--you to be a sort of lay curate, and take the unwashed off my hands; and she to be our housekeeper--the village Lady Bountiful--by day; and read us to sleep in the evenings. I could be very happy in such a life. What do you think of it?" "Never," said Mr. Hale, decidedly. "My one great change has been made and my price of suffering paid. Here I stay out my life; and here will I be buried, and lost in the crowd." "I don't give up my plan yet. Only I won't bait you with it any more just now. Where's the Pearl. Come, Margaret, give me a farewell kiss; and remember, my dear, where you may find a true friend, as far as his capability goes. You are my child, Margaret. Remember that, and God bless you!" So they fell back into the monotony of the quiet life they would henceforth lead. There was no invalid to hope and fear about; even the Higginses--so long a vivid interest--seemed to have receded from any need of immediate thought. The Boucher children, left motherless orphans, claimed what of Margaret's care she could bestow; and she went pretty often to see Mary Higgins, who had charge of them. The two families were living in one house: the elder children were at humble schools, the younger ones were tended, in Mary's absence at her work, by the kind neighbour whose good sense had struck Margaret at the time of Boucher's death. Of course she was paid for her trouble; and, indeed, in all his little plans and arrangements for these orphan children, Nicholas showed a sober judgment, and regulated method of thinking, which were at variance with his former more eccentric jerks of action. He was so steady at his work, that Margaret did not often see him during these winter months; but when she did, she saw that he winced away from any reference to the father of those children, whom he had so fully and heartily taken under his care. He did not speak easily of Mr. Thornton. "To tell the truth," said he, "he fairly bamboozles me. He's two chaps. One chap I knowed of old as were measter all o'er. T'other chap hasn't an ounce of measter's flesh about him. How them two chaps is bound up in one body, is a craddy for me to find out. I'll not be beat by it, though. Meanwhile he comes here pretty often; that's how I know the chap that's a man, not a measter. And I reckon he's taken aback by me pretty much as I am by him; for he sits and listens and stares, as if I were some strange beast newly caught in some of the zones. But I'm none daunted. It would take a deal to daunt me in my own house, as he sees. And I tell him some of my mind that I reckon he'd ha' been the better of hearing when he were a younger man." "And does he not answer you," asked Mr. Hale. "Well! I'll not say th' advantage is all on his side, for all I take credit for improving him above a bit. Sometimes he says a rough thing or two, which is not agreeable to look at at first, but has a queer smack o' truth in it when yo' come to chew it. He'll be coming to-night, I reckon, about them childer's schooling. He's not satisfied wi' the make of it, and wants for t' examine 'em." "What are they"--began Mr. Hale; but Margaret, touching his arm, showed him her watch. "It is nearly seven," she said. "The evenings are getting longer now. Come, papa." She did not breathe freely till they were some distance from the house. Then, as she became more calm, she wished that she had not been in so great a hurry; for, somehow, they saw Mr. Thornton but very seldom now; and he might have come to see Higgins, and for the old friendship's sake she should like to have seen him to-night. Yes! he came very seldom, even for the dull cold purpose of lessons. Mr. Hale was disappointed in his pupil's lukewarmness about Greek literature, which had but a short time ago so great an interest for him. And now it often happened that a hurried note from Mr. Thornton would arrive, just at the last moment, saying that he was so much engaged that he could not come to read with Mr. Hale that evening. And though other pupils had taken more than his place as to time, no one was like his first scholar in Mr. Hale's heart. He was depressed and sad at this partial cessation of an intercourse which had become dear to him; and he used to sit pondering over the reason that could have occasioned this change. He startled Margaret, one evening as she sate at her work, by suddenly asking: "Margaret! had you ever any reason for thinking that Mr. Thornton cared for you?" He almost blushed as he put this question; but Mr. Bell's scouted idea recurred to him, and the words were out of his mouth before he well knew what he was about. Margaret did not answer immediately; but by the bent drooping of her head, he guessed what her reply would be. "Yes; I believe--oh, papa, I should have told you." And she dropped her work, and hid her face in her hands. "No, dear; don't think that I am impertinently curious. I am sure you would have told me if you had felt that you could return his regard. Did he speak to you about it?" No answer at first; but by-and-by a little gentle reluctant "Yes." "And you refused him?" A long sigh: a more helpless, nerveless attitude, and another "Yes." But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy with some beautiful shame, and, fixing her eyes upon him, said: "Now, papa, I have told you all this, and I cannot tell you more; and then the whole thing is so painful to me; every word and action connected with it is so unspeakably bitter, that I cannot bear to think of it. Oh, papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend, but I could not help it--but oh! I am very sorry." She sate down on the ground, and laid her head on his knees. "I, too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said, some idea of the kind--" "Mr. Bell! Oh did Mr. Bell see it?" "A little; but he took it into his head that you--how shall I say it?--that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton. I knew that could never be. I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination; but I knew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that way. But I am very sorry." They were very quiet and still for some minutes. But, on stroking her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find her face wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old channel. "To-morrow--yes, to-morrow they will be back in Harley Street. Oh, how strange it will be! I wonder what room they will make into the nursery? Aunt Shaw will be happy with the baby. Fancy Edith a mamma! And Captain Lennox--I wonder what he will do with himself now he has sold out!" "I'll tell you what," said her father, anxious to indulge her in this fresh subject of interest, "I think I must spare you for a fortnight just to run up to town and see the travellers. You could learn more by half an hour's conversation with Mr. Henry Lennox about Frederick's chances, than in a dozen of these letters of his; so it would, in fact, be uniting business with pleasure." "No, papa, you cannot spare me, and what's more, I won't be spared." Then after a pause, she added: "I am losing hope sadly about Frederick; he is letting us down gently, but I can see that Mr. Lennox himself has no hope of hunting up the witnesses under years and years of time. No," said she, "that bubble was very pretty, and very dear to our hearts; but it has burst like many another; and we must console ourselves with being glad that Frederick is so happy, and with being a great deal to each other. So don't offend me by talking of being able to spare me, papa, for I assure you you can't." But the idea of a change took root and germinated in Margaret's heart, although not in the way in which her father proposed it at first. She began to consider how desirable something of the kind would be to her father, whose spirits, always feeble, now became too frequently depressed, and whose health, though he never complained, had been seriously affected by his wife's illness and death. There were the regular hours of reading with his pupils, but that all giving and no receiving could no longer be called companionship, as in the old days when Mr. Thornton came to study under him. Margaret was conscious of the want under which he was suffering, unknown to himself; the want of a man's intercourse with men. At Helstone there had been perpetual occasion for an interchange of visits with neighbouring clergymen; and the poor labourers in the fields, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or tending their cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to speak or be spoken to. But in Milton every one was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripened intercourse of thought; what they said was about business, very present and actual; and when the tension of mind relating to their daily affairs was over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning. The workman was not to be found after the day's work was done; he had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beershop, according to his degree of character. Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures at some of the institutions, but he contemplated doing this so much as an effort of duty, and with so little of the genial impulse of love towards his work and its end, that Margaret was sure that it would not be well done until he could look upon it with some kind of zest.

Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell's visit; but when her godfather came, they fell naturally into friendship. He seemed fresh and young under his Fellow's cap and gown, as she told him: 'Fresh and young in warmth and kindness, I mean. I'm afraid I think your opinions are the oldest and mustiest I have met with this long time.' 'Hear this daughter of yours, Hale. Her residence in Milton has quite corrupted her. She's a democrat, a red republican, a socialist-' 'Papa, it's all because I'm standing up for the progress of commerce. Mr. Bell would have us still exchanging wild-beast skins for acorns.' 'No, no. I'd dig the ground and grow potatoes. Don't exaggerate, missy. But I'm tired of this bustle. Everybody rushing to get rich.' 'It is not everyone who can sit comfortably in a set of college rooms, and let his riches grow without any exertion,' said Mr. Hale. 'The men here like the bustle and the struggle. As for sitting still - Why! Pooh! I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art.' 'Milton people, I suspect, think Oxford men don't know how to move. It would be a very good thing if they mixed a little more.' 'Are you not a Milton man yourself?' Margaret asked Mr. Bell. 'I should have thought you would have been proud of your town.' 'I confess, I don't see what there is to be proud of. If you'll only come to Oxford, Margaret, I will show you a place to glory in.' 'Well!' said Mr. Hale, 'Mr. Thornton is coming to see us tonight, and he is as proud of Milton as you of Oxford. You two must try and make each other a little more liberal-minded.' 'I don't want to be more liberal-minded, thank you,' said Mr. Bell. Mr. Thornton had determined not to ask his mother about her interview with Margaret. He felt pretty sure that his mother's account would only annoy him. He shrank from hearing Margaret's name mentioned. While he blamed her - was jealous of her - renounced her - he loved her sorely, in spite of himself. He dreamt of her; he dreamt she came dancing towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightness and gaiety which made him loathe her, even while it allured him. The impression of this figure of Margaret, with all her character taken out of it, was deeply stamped upon his imagination when he wakened. Yet he was too proud to acknowledge his weakness by avoiding the sight of her. He would neither seek to be in her company nor avoid it. To convince himself of his power of self-control, he lingered over every piece of business that afternoon; so it was past eight o'clock before he reached Mr. Hale's. Then there was business to be discussed in the study with Mr. Bell, who kept talking long after it was done, when they might just as well have gone upstairs. Mr. Thornton chafed, and thought Mr. Bell a most prosy companion; while Mr. Bell considered Mr. Thornton as brusque a fellow as he had ever met with. At last they went upstairs, and found Margaret with a letter open before her, eagerly discussing its contents with her father. It was immediately put aside; but Mr. Thornton's keen senses caught some words of Mr. Hale's to Mr. Bell. 'A letter from Henry Lennox. It makes Margaret very hopeful.' Mr. Bell nodded. Margaret was red as a rose when Mr. Thornton looked at her. He had the greatest mind in the world to get up and go out of the room that very instant, and never set foot in the house again. 'We were thinking,' said Mr. Hale, 'that you and Mr. Thornton were each trying to convert the other, you were so long in the study. Mr. Thornton, we were accusing Mr. Bell this morning of bigotry against his native town; and we - Margaret, I believe - suggested that it would do him good to associate with Milton manufacturers.' 'I beg your pardon. Margaret thought it would do the Milton manufacturers good to associate a little more with Oxford men. Now wasn't it so, Margaret?' 'I believe we thought it would do both good to see a little more of the other.' 'So you see, Mr. Thornton, we ought to have been improving each other downstairs. However, I am willing to do my part now. I wonder when you Milton men intend to live. All your lives seem to be spent in gathering together the materials for life.' 'By living, I suppose you mean enjoyment.' 'Yes, enjoyment of the power and influence which money gives. You are all striving for money. What do you want it for?' Mr. Thornton was silent. Then he said, 'I really don't know. But money is not what I strive for.' 'What then?' 'It is a personal question. I am not sure I am prepared to lay myself open to such a catechism.' 'No!' said Mr. Hale; 'don't let us be personal in our catechism. You are each of you too individual to represent a city.' 'I am not sure whether to consider that as a compliment or not,' said Mr. Bell. 'I should like to be the representative of Oxford, with its beauty and its learning, and its proud history. What do you say, Margaret; ought I to be flattered?' 'I don't know Oxford. But there is a difference between being the representative of a city and the representative man of its inhabitants.' 'Very true, Miss Margaret. Now I remember, you were against me this morning, and were quite Miltonian in your preferences.' Margaret saw the quick glance of surprise that Mr. Thornton gave her. Mr. Bell went on- 'Ah! I wish I could show you our High Street - our Radcliffe Square. I am leaving out our colleges, just as I give Mr. Thornton leave to omit his factories in speaking of the charms of Milton. I have a right to abuse my birth-place. Remember I am a Milton man.' Mr. Thornton was not in a mood for joking. He was annoyed enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to be seriously attacked. 'I don't set up Milton as a model of a town.' 'Not in architecture?' slyly asked Mr. Bell. 'No! We've been too busy to attend to mere outward appearances. Remember, we are of a different race from the Greeks, to whom beauty was everything,' said Mr. Thornton. 'I belong to Teutonic blood; it is little mingled in this part of England. We retain much of their language, and more of their spirit; we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but for action and exertion. Our glory and our beauty arise out of inward strength, which makes us victorious over difficulties. And in Darkshire, we hate to have laws made for us at a distance. We wish people would allow us to right ourselves, instead of continually meddling, with their imperfect legislation. We stand up for self-government, and oppose centralisation.' 'Well, at any rate, I revoke what I said this morning - that you Milton people did not reverence the past. You are regular worshippers of Thor.' 'If we do not reverence the past as you do in Oxford, it is because we want something which can apply to the present. It would be finer if the words of experience could direct us how to act in the difficulties that must be encountered. The way in which they are met and conquered - not merely pushed aside for the time - decides our future. Some people can speak of Utopia much more easily than of the next day's duty; and yet when that duty is all done by others, they are ready to cry, "Fie, for shame!"' 'Would you Milton men condescend to send up your today's difficulty to Oxford? You have not tried us yet.' Mr. Thornton laughed outright. 'I was thinking of the strikes we have gone through, which are troublesome enough, as I am finding to my cost. And yet this last strike, under which I am smarting, has been respectable.' 'A respectable strike!' said Mr. Bell. 'That sounds as if you were far gone in the worship of Thor.' Margaret felt, rather than saw, that Mr. Thornton was chagrined by the repeated turning into jest of what he was feeling as very serious. She tried to change the conversation, and forced herself to say something. 'Edith says she finds the printed calicoes in Corfu better and cheaper than in London.' 'Does she?' said her father. 'I think that must be one of Edith's exaggerations.' 'I don't believe a cousin of Margaret's could exaggerate,' said Mr. Bell. 'Is Miss Hale so remarkable for truth?' said Mr. Thornton, bitterly. The moment he had done so, he could have bitten his tongue out. Why should he stab her with her shame in this way? How evil he was tonight; possessed by ill-humour, unable to cope light-heartedly with one who was trying, by gay and careless speeches, to make the evening pass pleasantly. And to speak to Margaret as he had done! She did not get up and leave the room, as she had done formerly, when his abruptness had annoyed her. She sat quite still, after the first momentary glance of grieved surprise. Her eyes looked like some child's who has met with a rebuff, full of reproachful sadness; and then they fell, and she bent over her work, and did not speak again. But he saw a sigh tremble over her body, as if she quivered in some unwonted chill. He gave short sharp answers to the others; he was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between jest and earnest; anxious only for a look, a word of hers. But she neither looked nor spoke. Her tapered fingers flew in and out of her sewing as if that were the business of her life. She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, to read the repentance in his. He could have struck her before he left, in order that by some strange act of rudeness, he might earn the privilege of telling her the remorse that gnawed at his heart. The long walk in the open air sobered him. He gravely resolved that henceforth he would see as little of her as possible, since the sight and sound of her threw him so off-balance. Well! He had known what love was - a sharp, fierce pang, a fire through which he was struggling! but through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age, all the richer and more human for having known this great passion. When he had left, Margaret rose from her seat, and began silently to fold up her work. She looked like one who had gone through a day of great fatigue. As the three prepared for bed, Mr. Bell muttered a little condemnation of Mr. Thornton. 'I never saw a fellow so spoiled by success. He can't bear a jest of any kind. Everything seems to touch on his high dignity. Formerly, he was as simple as the day; you could not offend him, because he had no vanity.' 'He is not vain now,' said Margaret, turning round. 'Tonight he has not been like himself. Something must have annoyed him before he came here.' Mr. Bell gave her a sharp glance. After she had left the room, he asked, 'Hale! did it ever strike you that Thornton and your daughter have a tendresse for each other?' 'Never!' said Mr. Hale, startled. 'No, I am sure you are mistaken. If there is anything, it is on Mr. Thornton's side. Poor fellow! I hope he is not thinking of her, for I am sure she would not have him.' 'Well! I'm a bachelor, so perhaps my opinion is not worth having. Or else I should say she showed some pretty symptoms!' 'Margaret would never think of him, I'm sure! Such a thing has never entered her head.' 'Entering her heart would do. But I merely threw out a suggestion. I dare say I was wrong. And I'm very sleepy; so I'll take myself off to bed.' But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea; so he lay awake, determining not to think about it. Mr. Bell left the next day, telling Margaret to look on him as one who had a right to help her in all her troubles. To Mr. Hale he said: 'That Margaret of yours has gone deep into my heart. Take care of her, for she is very precious - a great deal too good for Milton - only fit for Oxford, in fact. The town, I mean; not the men. Seriously, Hale! I wish you'd leave Milton, which is a most unsuitable place for you, though it was my recommendation. If you could swallow your doubts, you could take a college living; and you and Margaret should come and live at the parsonage - you as a sort of lay curate, and she to be our housekeeper - the village Lady Bountiful. I could be very happy in such a life. What do you think?' 'Never!' said Mr. Hale, decidedly. 'My one great change has been made, and my price paid. Here I stay out my life.' 'I don't give up my plan. Only I won't bait you with it any more just now. Where's the Pearl? Come, Margaret, give me a farewell kiss; and remember, my dear, where you may find a true friend. You are my child, Margaret. Remember that, and God bless you!' So they fell back into the monotony of their quiet life. There was no invalid to care for; even the Higginses seemed to have receded from any need of immediate thought. The Boucher children claimed Margaret's care; and she went pretty often to see Mary Higgins, who had charge of them. The two families were living in one house: the elder children were at humble schools, while the younger ones were tended, in Mary's absence at work, by the kind neighbour. She was paid for her trouble. Indeed, in all his arrangements for these orphan children, Nicholas showed a sober judgment at variance with his former more eccentric jerks of action. He was so steady at his work, that Margaret did not often see him during these winter months; but when she did, he winced away from any reference to Boucher. He did not speak easily of Mr. Thornton. 'To tell the truth,' said he, 'he fairly bamboozles me. He's two chaps. One chap I knowed of old as measter all o'er. T'other chap hasn't an ounce of measter about him. How them two chaps is bound up in one body, is a craddy for me to find out. He comes here pretty often; that's how I know the chap that's a man, not a measter. And I reckon he's taken aback by me pretty much as I am by him; for he sits and listens and stares, as if I were some strange beast. But I'm none daunted. And I tell him some of my mind that I reckon he'd ha' been the better of hearing when he were a younger man.' 'And does he answer you?' asked Mr. Hale. 'Well! I'll not say th' advantage is all on his side, for all I take credit for improving him. Sometimes he says a rough thing or two, which has a queer smack o' truth in it when yo' come to chew it. He'll be coming tonight, I reckon, about them childer's schooling. He's not satisfied wi' it, and wants for t' examine 'em.' 'What are they-' began Mr. Hale; but Margaret, touching his arm, showed him her watch. 'It is nearly seven,' she said. 'Come, papa.' She did not breathe freely till they were away from the house. Then, as she became calmer, she wished that she had not been in so great a hurry; for they saw Mr. Thornton very seldom now; and for the old friendship's sake she should like to have seen him tonight. Yes! he came very seldom. Mr. Hale was disappointed in his pupil's sudden lukewarmness about Greek literature. And often a hurried note from Mr. Thornton would arrive at the last moment, saying that he could not come to read with Mr. Hale that evening. Though other pupils had taken his place, no one was like his first scholar in Mr. Hale's heart. He was saddened, and used to sit pondering the reasons for this change. He startled Margaret one evening by suddenly asking: 'Margaret! had you ever any reason for thinking that Mr. Thornton cared for you?' Margaret did not answer immediately; but by the drooping of her head, he guessed what her reply would be. 'Yes; I believe - oh papa, I should have told you.' And she dropped her work, and hid her face in her hands. 'No, dear; I am sure you would have told me if you had felt that you could return his regard. Did he speak to you about it?' A little gentle, reluctant 'Yes.' 'And you refused him?' A long sigh; and another 'Yes.' But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy with beautiful shame, and said: 'Now, papa, I cannot tell you more; and the whole thing is so painful to me that I cannot bear to think of it. Oh, papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend, but I could not help it. Oh! I am very sorry.' She sat down on the floor, and laid her head on his knees. 'I too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said some idea of the kind-' 'Oh, did Mr. Bell see it?' 'He took it into his head that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton. I knew that could never be. I knew your real feelings; you could never like Mr. Thornton in that way. But I am very sorry.' They were very quiet for some minutes. But, on stroking her cheek caressingly, he was shocked to find her face wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling brightly, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted to force it back into the old channel. 'Tomorrow they will be back in Harley Street. I wonder what room they will make into the nursery? Aunt Shaw will be happy with the baby. Fancy Edith a mamma! And Captain Lennox - I wonder what he will do with himself now he has sold out!' 'I'll tell you what,' said her father, anxious to indulge her in this fresh subject of interest, 'I think you should run up to town and see the travellers. You could learn more about Frederick's chances in half an hour's conversation with Mr. Henry Lennox than in a dozen of these letters of his. It would be uniting business with pleasure.' 'No, papa, you cannot spare me.' After a pause, she added, 'I am losing hope about Frederick; he is letting us down gently, but I can see that Mr. Lennox has no hope of hunting up the witnesses after so many years. We must console ourselves with being glad that Frederick is so happy, and with being a great deal to each other. So don't offend me by talking of being able to spare me, papa, for I assure you, you can't.' But the idea of a change took root in Margaret's heart, although not in the way her father proposed. She began to consider how good a change would be for her father, whose spirits now became too frequently depressed, and whose health had been seriously affected by his wife's death. His pupils did not provide the companionship that Mr. Thornton had. Margaret was conscious that her father needed to converse with men. At Helstone there had been perpetual exchanging of visits with neighbouring clergymen; and the poor labourers in the fields, or tending their cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to talk. But in Milton everyone was too busy; they spoke only about business, and then sank into fallow until next morning. The workman went away to some lecture, or club, or beer-shop, according to his character. Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures, but he contemplated doing this so much as an effort of duty that Margaret was sure that it would not be well done until he could look upon it with zest.

North and South

Chapter 40: OUT OF TUNE

The future sometimes seems to sob a low warning of the events it is bringing us, like some gathering though yet remote storm, which, in tones of the wind, in flushings of the firmament, in clouds strangely torn, announces a blast strong to strew the sea with wrecks; or commissioned to bring in fog the yellow taint of pestilence covering white Western isles with the poisoned exhalations of the East, dimming the lattices of English homes with the breath of Indian plague. At other times this future bursts suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a grave had opened, whence issues the body of one that slept. Ere you are aware you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of calamity--a new Lazarus. Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's Cottage in good health, as she imagined. On waking the next morning she felt oppressed with unwonted languor. At breakfast, at each meal of the following day, she missed all sense of appetite. Palatable food was as ashes and sawdust to her. "Am I ill?" she asked, and looked at herself in the glass. Her eyes were bright, their pupils dilated, her cheeks seemed rosier, and fuller than usual. "I look well; why can I not eat?" She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples; she felt, too, her brain in strange activity. Her spirits were raised; hundreds of busy and broken but brilliant thoughts engaged her mind. A glow rested on them, such as tinged her complexion. Now followed a hot, parched, thirsty, restless night. Towards morning one terrible dream seized her like a tiger; when she woke, she felt and knew she was ill. How she had caught the fever (fever it was) she could not tell. Probably in her late walk home, some sweet, poisoned breeze, redolent of honey-dew and miasma, had passed into her lungs and veins, and finding there already a fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long conflict and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark to flame, and left a well-lit fire behind it. It seemed, however, but a gentle fire. After two hot days and worried nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle, nor Fanny, nor the doctor, nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any fear for her. A few days would restore her, every one believed. The few days passed, and--though it was still thought it could not long delay--the revival had not begun. Mrs. Pryor, who had visited her daily--being present in her chamber one morning when she had been ill a fortnight--watched her very narrowly for some minutes. She took her hand and placed her finger on her wrist; then, quietly leaving the chamber, she went to Mr. Helstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long time--half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid aside shawl and bonnet. She stood awhile at the bedside, one hand placed in the other, gently rocking herself to and fro, in an attitude and with a movement habitual to her. At last she said, "I have sent Fanny to Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, such as I shall want during a short stay here. It is my wish to remain with you till you are better. Your uncle kindly permits my attendance. Will it to yourself be acceptable, Caroline?" "I am sorry you should take such needless trouble. I do not feel very ill, but I cannot refuse resolutely. It will be such comfort to know you are in the house, to see you sometimes in the room; but don't confine yourself on my account, dear Mrs. Pryor. Fanny nurses me very well." Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was now smoothing the hair under her cap, and gently raising her pillow. As she performed these offices, Caroline, smiling, lifted her face to kiss her. "Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease?" was inquired in a low, earnest voice, as the self-elected nurse yielded to the caress. "I think I am almost happy." "You wish to drink? Your lips are parched." She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her mouth. "Have you eaten anything to-day, Caroline?" "I cannot eat." "But soon your appetite will return; it _must_ return--that is, I pray God it may." In laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her arms; and while so doing, by a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew her to her heart, and held her close gathered an instant. "I shall hardly wish to get well, that I may keep you always," said Caroline. Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features ran a tremor, which for some minutes she was absorbed in repressing. "You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?" "No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must have been accustomed to wait on sick people, ma'am. You move about the room so softly, and you speak so quietly, and touch me so gently." "I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but never negligent." Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour Fanny and Eliza became ciphers in the sick-room. Mrs. Pryor made it her domain; she performed all its duties; she lived in it day and night. The patient remonstrated--faintly, however, from the first, and not at all ere long. Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection and solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced in wondrous union. Caroline was usually pained to require or receive much attendance. Mrs. Pryor, under ordinary circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art of performing little offices of service; but all now passed with such ease, so naturally, that the patient was as willing to be cherished as the nurse was bent on cherishing; no sign of weariness in the latter ever reminded the former that she ought to be anxious. There was, in fact, no very hard duty to perform; but a hireling might have found it hard. With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet such was the case. She wasted like any snow-wreath in thaw; she faded like any flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or death seldom intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her friend; but seeing her change and sink from time to time when she paid her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Helstone and expressed herself with so much energy that that gentleman was at last obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill of something more than a migraine; and when Mrs. Pryor came and quietly demanded a physician, he said she might send for two if she liked. One came, but that one was an oracle. He delivered a dark saying of which the future was to solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some directions--the whole with an air of crushing authority--pocketed his fee, and went. Probably he knew well enough he could do no good, but didn't like to say so. Still, no rumour of serious illness got wind in the neighbourhood. At Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline had only a severe cold, she having written a note to Hortense to that effect; and mademoiselle contented herself with sending two pots of currant jam, a recipe for a tisane, and a note of advice. Mrs. Yorke being told that a physician had been summoned, sneered at the hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having nothing but themselves to think about, must needs send for a doctor if only so much as their little finger ached. The "rich and idle," represented in the person of Caroline, were meantime falling fast into a condition of prostration, whose quickly consummated debility puzzled all who witnessed it except one; for that one alone reflected how liable is the undermined structure to sink in sudden ruin. Sick people often have fancies inscrutable to ordinary attendants, and Caroline had one which even her tender nurse could not at first explain. On a certain day in the week, at a certain hour, she would--whether worse or better--entreat to be taken up and dressed, and suffered to sit in her chair near the window. This station she would retain till noon was past. Whatever degree of exhaustion or debility her wan aspect betrayed, she still softly put off all persuasion to seek repose until the church clock had duly tolled midday. The twelve strokes sounded, she grew docile, and would meekly lie down. Returned to the couch, she usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the coverlets close round her, as if to shut out the world and sun, of which she was tired. More than once, as she thus lay, a slight convulsion shook the sick-bed, and a faint sob broke the silence round it. These things were not unnoted by Mrs. Pryor. One Tuesday morning, as usual, she had asked leave to rise, and now she sat wrapped in her white dressing-gown, leaning forward in the easy-chair, gazing steadily and patiently from the lattice. Mrs. Pryor was seated a little behind, knitting as it seemed, but, in truth, watching her. A change crossed her pale, mournful brow, animating its languor; a light shot into her faded eyes, reviving their lustre; she half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor, drawing softly near, glanced over her shoulder. From this window was visible the churchyard, beyond it the road; and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman. The figure was not yet too remote for recognition. Mrs. Pryor had long sight; she knew Mr. Moore. Just as an intercepting rising ground concealed him from view, the clock struck twelve. "May I lie down again?" asked Caroline. Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down and drawn the curtain, she stood listening near. The little couch trembled, the suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction as of anguish altered Mrs. Pryor's features; she wrung her hands; half a groan escaped her lips. She now remembered that Tuesday was Whinbury market day. Mr. Moore must always pass the rectory on his way thither, just ere noon of that day. Caroline wore continually round her neck a slender braid of silk, attached to which was some trinket. Mrs. Pryor had seen the bit of gold glisten, but had not yet obtained a fair view of it. Her patient never parted with it. When dressed it was hidden in her bosom; as she lay in bed she always held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon the transient doze--more like lethargy than sleep--which sometimes abridged the long days, had stolen over her. The weather was hot. While turning in febrile restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nerveless on the sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously-guarded treasure. Those fingers whose attenuation it gave pain to see were now relaxed in sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny locket--a slight thing it was, such as it suited her small purse to purchase. Under its crystal face appeared a curl of black hair, too short and crisp to have been severed from a female head. Some agitated movement occasioned a twitch of the silken chain. The sleeper started and woke. Her thoughts were usually now somewhat scattered on waking, her look generally wandering. Half rising, as if in terror, she exclaimed, "Don't take it from me, Robert! Don't! It is my last comfort; let me keep it. I never tell any one whose hair it is; I never show it." Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain. Reclining far back in a deep arm-chair by the bedside, she was withdrawn from view. Caroline looked abroad into the chamber; she thought it empty. As her stray ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's sad shore, like birds exhausted, beholding void, and perceiving silence round her, she believed herself alone. Collected she was not yet; perhaps healthy self-possession and self-control were to be hers no more; perhaps that world the strong and prosperous live in had already rolled from beneath her feet for ever. So, at least, it often seemed to herself. In health she had never been accustomed to think aloud, but now words escaped her lips unawares. "Oh, I _should_ see him once more before all is over! Heaven _might_ favour me thus far!" she cried. "God grant me a little comfort before I die!" was her humble petition. "But he will not know I am ill till I am gone, and he will come when they have laid me out, and I am senseless, cold, and stiff. "What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to the clay? Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living flesh? Can the dead at all revisit those they leave? Can they come in the elements? Will wind, water, fire, lend me a path to Moore? "Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately sometimes--sings as I have lately heard it sing at night--or passes the casement sobbing, as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing, then, haunt it, nothing inspire it? "Why, it suggested to me words one night; it poured a strain which I could have written down, only I was appalled, and dared not rise to seek pencil and paper by the dim watch-light. "What is that electricity they speak of, whose changes make us well or ill, whose lack or excess blasts, whose even balance revives? What are all those influences that are about us in the atmosphere, that keep playing over our nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call forth now a sweet note, and now a wail--now an exultant swell, and anon the saddest cadence? "_Where is_ the other world? In _what_ will another life consist? Why do I ask? Have I not cause to think that the hour is hasting but too fast when the veil must be rent for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is likely to burst prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness I confide, whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands! Sustain me through the ordeal I dread and must undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience! Give me--oh, _give me_ FAITH!" She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor found means to steal quietly from the room. She re-entered it soon after, apparently as composed as if she had really not overheard this strange soliloquy. The next day several callers came. It had become known that Miss Helstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister Margaret arrived. Both, after they had been in the sickroom, quitted it in tears; they had found the patient more altered than they expected. Hortense Moore came. Caroline seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her, smiling, she was not dangerously ill; she talked to her in a low voice, but cheerfully. During her stay, excitement kept up the flush of her complexion; she looked better. "How is Mr. Robert?" asked Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense was preparing to take leave. "He was very well when he left." "Left! Is he gone from home?" It was then explained that some police intelligence about the rioters of whom he was in pursuit had, that morning, called him away to Birmingham, and probably a fortnight might elapse ere he returned. "He is not aware that Miss Helstone is very ill?" "Oh no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad cold." After this visit, Mrs. Pryor took care not to approach Caroline's couch for above an hour. She heard her weep, and dared not look on her tears. As evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline, opening her eyes from a moment's slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognizing glance. "I smelt the honeysuckles in the glen this summer morning," she said, "as I stood at the counting-house window." Strange words like these from pallid lips pierce a loving listener's heart more poignantly than steel. They sound romantic, perhaps, in books; in real life they are harrowing. "My darling, do you know me?" said Mrs. Pryor. "I went in to call Robert to breakfast. I have been with him in the garden. He asked me to go. A heavy dew has refreshed the flowers. The peaches are ripening." "My darling! my darling!" again and again repeated the nurse. "I thought it was daylight--long after sunrise. It looks dark. Is the moon now set?" That moon, lately risen, was gazing full and mild upon her. Floating in deep blue space, it watched her unclouded. "Then it is not morning? I am not at the cottage? Who is this? I see a shape at my bedside." "It is myself--it is your friend--your nurse--your---- Lean your head on my shoulder. Collect yourself." In a lower tone--"O God, take pity! Give _her_ life, and _me_ strength! Send me courage! Teach me words!" Some minutes passed in silence. The patient lay mute and passive in the trembling arms, on the throbbing bosom of the nurse. "I am better now," whispered Caroline at last, "much better. I feel where I am. This is Mrs. Pryor near me. I was dreaming. I talk when I wake up from dreams; people often do in illness. How fast your heart beats, ma'am! Do not be afraid." "It is not fear, child--only a little anxiety, which will pass. I have brought you some tea, Cary. Your uncle made it himself. You know he says he can make a better cup of tea than any housewife can. Taste it. He is concerned to hear that you eat so little; he would be glad if you had a better appetite." "I am thirsty. Let me drink." She drank eagerly. "What o'clock is it, ma'am?" she asked. "Past nine." "Not later? Oh! I have yet a long night before me. But the tea has made me strong. I will sit up." Mrs. Pryor raised her, and arranged her pillows. "Thank Heaven! I am not always equally miserable, and ill, and hopeless. The afternoon has been bad since Hortense went; perhaps the evening may be better. It is a fine night, I think? The moon shines clear." "Very fine--a perfect summer night. The old church-tower gleams white almost as silver." "And does the churchyard look peaceful?" "Yes, and the garden also. Dew glistens on the foliage." "Can you see many long weeds and nettles amongst the graves? or do they look turfy and flowery?" "I see closed daisy-heads gleaming like pearls on some mounds. Thomas has mown down the dock-leaves and rank grass, and cleared all away." "I always like that to be done; it soothes one's mind to see the place in order. And, I dare say, within the church just now that moonlight shines as softly as in my room. It will fall through the east window full on the Helstone monument. When I close my eyes I seem to see poor papa's epitaph in black letters on the white marble. There is plenty of room for other inscriptions underneath." "William Farren came to look after your flowers this morning. He was afraid, now you cannot tend them yourself, they would be neglected. He has taken two of your favourite plants home to nurse for you." "If I were to make a will, I would leave William all my plants; Shirley my trinkets--except one, which must not be taken off my neck; and you, ma'am, my books." After a pause--"Mrs. Pryor, I feel a longing wish for something." "For what, Caroline?" "You know I always delight to hear you sing. Sing me a hymn just now. Sing that hymn which begins,-- 'Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, Our refuge, haven, home!'" Mrs. Pryor at once complied. No wonder Caroline liked to hear her sing. Her voice, even in speaking, was sweet and silver clear; in song it was almost divine. Neither flute nor dulcimer has tones so pure. But the tone was secondary, compared to the expression which trembled through--a tender vibration from a feeling heart. The servants in the kitchen, hearing the strain, stole to the stair-foot to listen. Even old Helstone, as he walked in the garden, pondering over the unaccountable and feeble nature of women, stood still amongst his borders to catch the mournful melody more distinctly. Why it reminded him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell; nor why it made him more concerned than he had hitherto been for Caroline's fading girlhood. He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay Wynne, the magistrate, a visit that evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were very much his aversion. When they attacked him he usually found means to make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as he crossed the fields. He hastened his customary sharp pace, that he might get beyond its reach. "Thy word commands our flesh to dust,-- 'Return, ye sons of men;' All nations rose from earth at first, And turn to earth again. "A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone-- Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day. "Like flowery fields, the nations stand, Fresh in the morning light; The flowers beneath the mower's hand Lie withering ere 'tis night. "Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Be Thou our guard while troubles last-- O Father, be our home!" "Now sing a song--a Scottish song," suggested Caroline, when the hymn was over--"'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon.'" Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, or essayed to obey. At the close of the first stanza she stopped. She could get no further. Her full heart flowed over. "You are weeping at the pathos of the air. Come here, and I will comfort you," said Caroline, in a pitying accent. Mrs. Pryor came. She sat down on the edge of her patient's bed, and allowed the wasted arms to encircle her. "You often soothe me; let me soothe you," murmured the young girl, kissing her cheek. "I hope," she added, "it is not for me you weep?" No answer followed. "Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel _very_ ill--only weak." "But your mind, Caroline--your mind is crushed. Your heart is almost broken; you have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate." "I believe grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment. I sometimes think if an abundant gush of happiness came on me I could revive yet." "Do you wish to live?" "I have no object in life." "You love me, Caroline?" "Very much--very truly--inexpressibly sometimes. Just now I feel as if I could almost grow to your heart." "I will return directly, dear," remarked Mrs. Pryor, as she laid Caroline down. Quitting her, she glided to the door, softly turned the key in the lock, ascertained that it was fast, and came back. She bent over her. She threw back the curtain to admit the moonlight more freely. She gazed intently on her face. "Then, if you love me," said she, speaking quickly, with an altered voice; "if you feel as if, to use your own words, you could 'grow to my heart,' it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that _that_ heart is the source whence yours was filled; that from _my_ veins issued the tide which flows in _yours_; that you are _mine_--my daughter--my own child." "Mrs. Pryor----" "My own child!" "That is--that means--you have adopted me?" "It means that, if I have given you nothing else, I at least gave you life; that I bore you, nursed you; that I am your true mother. No other woman can claim the title; it is _mine_." "But Mrs. James Helstone--but my father's wife, whom I do not remember ever to have seen, she is my mother?" "She _is_ your mother. James Helstone was _my_ husband. I say you are _mine_. I have proved it. I thought perhaps you were all his, which would have been a cruel dispensation for me. I find it is _not_ so. God permitted me to be the parent of my child's mind. It belongs to me; it is my property--my _right_. These features are James's own. He had a fine face when he was young, and not altered by error. Papa, my darling, gave you your blue eyes and soft brown hair; he gave you the oval of your face and the regularity of your lineaments--the outside _he_ conferred; but the heart and the brain are _mine_. The germs are from _me_, and they are improved, they are developed to excellence. I esteem and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly love her." "Is what I hear true? Is it no dream?" "I wish it were as true that the substance and colour of health were restored to your cheek." "My own mother! is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People generally did not like her--so I have been given to understand." "They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having the gift to please people generally, for their approbation she does not care. Her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or reject her?" "But if you _are_ my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I can live. I should like to recover----" "You _must_ recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter! we have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again." She held her to her bosom; she cradled her in her arms; she rocked her softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep. "My mother--my own mother!" The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling the endearment and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with noiseless kisses; she murmured love over her, like a cushat fostering its young. There was silence in the room for a long while. * * * * * "Does my uncle know?" "Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to stay with you here." "Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?" "How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone being announced, I was prepared to see my child." "It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed." "You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me." "Why? Were you disappointed?" "What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were like, I could have dropped." "Mamma, why?" "I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall never know me." "But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the thought of an introduction to strangers--that was all." "I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content." "You puzzle me." "I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant--a toil-worn governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking down before her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels. I followed them home; and when into their hands I had given without reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a transfiguration on the domestic hearth--to see the white mask lifted, the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down---- O God, I _have_ suffered!" She sank on the pillow. "I _have_ suffered! None saw--none knew. There was no sympathy, no redemption, no redress!" "Take comfort, mother. It is over now." "It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with terror--I was troubled. Through great tribulation He brought me through to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment; He has cast it out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But, Caroline----" Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause. "Mother!" "I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All _you_ derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave, between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account. Meddle not. God is the arbiter. This world's laws never came near us--never! They were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me--impotent as idiot babblings to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now; the grave lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church. To his dust I say this night, what I have never said before, 'James, slumber peacefully! See! your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black account with my own hand! James, your child atones. This living likeness of you--this thing with your perfect features--this one good gift you gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me "mother." Husband, rest forgiven!'" "Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear us? Is he comforted to know that we still love him?" "I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child; I said nothing of love! On the threshold of eternity, should he be there to see me enter, will I maintain that." "O mother, you must have suffered!" "O child, the human heart _can_ suffer! It can hold more tears than the ocean holds waters. We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness." "Mother, forget." "Forget!" she said, with the strangest spectre of a laugh. "The north pole will rush to the south, and the headlands of Europe be locked into the bays of Australia ere I forget." "Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!" And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew calmer. She resumed those tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The soft hair whose locks were loosened she rearranged, the damp brow she refreshed with a cool, fragrant essence. "Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle to come into this room by-and-by. I want to hear him say that I am your daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one minute to-night." "O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will always be 'mamma' prefacing a mandate--softly spoken, though, from you, thank God! Well," she added, under her breath, "he spoke softly too, once, like a flute breathing tenderness; and then, when the world was not by to listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood--sounds to inspire insanity." "It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let me be troublesome. Check me if I encroach." "You must not depend on me to check you; you must keep guard over yourself. I have little moral courage; the want of it is my bane. It is that which has made me an unnatural parent--which has kept me apart from my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's death left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to be snatched prematurely from their embrace." "How, mamma?" "I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears. Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic--a heavy, blunt-featured, commonplace child--I should have hastened to claim you; but there, under the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic flower--'little lady' was written on every trait. I had too recently crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman--escaped galled, crushed, paralyzed, dying--to dare to encounter his still finer and most fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with dismay; her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle as the concomitants of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of education to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted my own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone I knew, if an austere, was an upright man. He and all the world thought hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be misjudged." "Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?" "It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it that I might live unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life; I could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered of forcing me to return to bondage. It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of sustaining life; but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace! How safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no lurid reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How serene was solitude, when I feared not the irruption of violence and vice!" "But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How did it happen that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not recognized?" "I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was very different to what I am now--slender, almost as slender as my daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed; my hair, my style of dress--everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white muslin, with bare arms, bracelets and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round Grecian curls above my forehead?" "You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard the front door open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs, and let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not dreaming or delirious." The rector, of his own accord, was mounting the stairs, and Mrs. Pryor summoned him to his niece's apartment. "She's not worse, I hope?" he inquired hastily. "I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she seems stronger." "Good!" said he, brushing quickly into the room.--"Ha, Cary! how do? Did you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself." "I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has made me quite alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you in." The respected ecclesiastic looked pleased, and yet embarrassed. He was willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes, since it was her whim to wish it; but what means to employ for her entertainment he knew not. He hemmed--he fidgeted. "You'll be up in a trice," he observed, by way of saying something. "The little weakness will soon pass off; and then you must drink port wine--a pipe, if you can--and eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if they are to be had anywhere. Bless me! we'll make you as strong as Samson before we're done with you." "Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the bed-foot?" "Good God!" he ejaculated. "She's not wandering, is she, ma'am?" Mrs. Pryor smiled. "I am wandering in a pleasant world," said Caroline, in a soft, happy voice, "and I want you to tell me whether it is real or visionary. What lady is that? Give her a name, uncle." "We must have Dr. Rile again, ma'am; or better still, MacTurk. He's less of a humbug. Thomas must saddle the pony and go for him." "No; I don't want a doctor. Mamma shall be my only physician. Now, do you understand, uncle?" Mr. Helstone pushed up his spectacles from his nose to his forehead, handled his snuff-box, and administered to himself a portion of the contents. Thus fortified, he answered briefly, "I see daylight. You've told her then, ma'am?" "And is it _true_?" demanded Caroline, rising on her pillow. "Is she _really_ my mother?" "You won't cry, or make any scene, or turn hysterical, if I answer Yes?" "Cry! I'd cry if you said _No_. It would be terrible to be disappointed now. But give her a name. How do you call her?" "I call this stout lady in a quaint black dress, who looks young enough to wear much smarter raiment, if she would--I call her Agnes Helstone. She married my brother James, and is his widow." "And my mother?" "What a little sceptic it is! Look at her small face, Mrs. Pryor, scarcely larger than the palm of my hand, alive with acuteness and eagerness." To Caroline--"She had the trouble of bringing you into the world at any rate. Mind you show your duty to her by quickly getting well, and repairing the waste of these cheeks.--Heigh-ho! she used to be plump. What she has done with it all I can't, for the life of me, divine." "If _wishing_ to get well will help me, I shall not be long sick. This morning I had no reason and no strength to wish it." Fanny here tapped at the door, and said that supper was ready. "Uncle, if you please, you may send me a little bit of supper--anything you like, from your own plate. That is wiser than going into hysterics, is it not?" "It is spoken like a sage, Cary. See if I don't cater for you judiciously. When women are sensible, and, above all, intelligible, I can get on with them. It is only the vague, superfine sensations, and extremely wire-drawn notions, that put me about. Let a woman ask me to give her an edible or a wearable--be the same a roc's egg or the breastplate of Aaron, a share of St. John's locusts and honey or the leathern girdle about his loins--I can, at least, understand the demand; but when they pine for they know not what--sympathy, sentiment, some of these indefinite abstractions--I can't do it; I don't know it; I haven't got it.--Madam, accept my arm." Mrs. Pryor signified that she should stay with her daughter that evening. Helstone, accordingly, left them together. He soon returned, bringing a plate in his own consecrated hand. "This is chicken," he said, "but we'll have partridge to-morrow.--Lift her up, and put a shawl over her. On my word, I understand nursing.--Now, here is the very same little silver fork you used when you first came to the rectory. That strikes me as being what you may call a happy thought--a delicate attention. Take it, Cary, and munch away cleverly." Caroline did her best. Her uncle frowned to see that her powers were so limited. He prophesied, however, great things for the future; and as she praised the morsel he had brought, and smiled gratefully in his face, he stooped over her pillow, kissed her, and said, with a broken, rugged accent, "Good-night, bairnie! God bless thee!" Caroline enjoyed such peaceful rest that night, circled by her mother's arms, and pillowed on her breast, that she forgot to wish for any other stay; and though more than one feverish dream came to her in slumber, yet, when she woke up panting, so happy and contented a feeling returned with returning consciousness that her agitation was soothed almost as soon as felt. As to the mother, she spent the night like Jacob at Peniel. Till break of day she wrestled with God in earnest prayer.

The future sometimes seems to sob a low warning of coming events, like some remote gathering storm. At other times this future bursts suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a grave had opened. Before you are aware, you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of calamity - a new Lazarus. Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's Cottage in good health, as she imagined. On waking the next morning she felt oppressed with unwonted languor. She had no appetite. Food was as ashes and sawdust to her. "Am I ill?" she asked, and looked at herself in the glass. Her eyes were bright, their pupils dilated; her cheeks seemed rosier than usual. "I look well; why can I not eat?" She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples; she felt, too, her brain in strange activity. Hundreds of busy and broken but brilliant thoughts engaged her mind. Now followed a hot, parched, restless night. Towards morning a terrible dream seized her like a tiger; when she woke, she knew she was ill. How she had caught the fever (fever it was) she could not tell. But her long languor and habitual sadness had fanned the spark to flame, and left a well-lit fire behind it. It seemed, however, a gentle fire. After two hot days and worried nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle, nor Fanny, nor the doctor, nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any fear for her. A few days would restore her, everyone believed. The few days passed, and the revival had not begun. When she had been ill a fortnight, Mrs. Pryor, who had visited her daily, was present in her chamber one morning, watching her narrowly. She took her hand and placed her finger on her wrist; then, quietly leaving the chamber, she went to Mr. Helstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long time - half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she stood awhile at the bedside, gently rocking herself to and fro, with a movement habitual to her. At last she said, "I have sent Fanny to Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, for a short stay here. I wish to remain with you till you are better, and your uncle kindly permits it. Is that acceptable to you, Caroline?" "I am sorry you should have such trouble. I do not feel very ill, but it will be such comfort to know you are in the house, to see you sometimes in the room; but don't confine yourself on my account, dear Mrs. Pryor." Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was smoothing the hair under her cap, and gently raising her pillow. Caroline, smiling, lifted her face to kiss her. "Are you free from pain? Are you at ease?" asked Mrs. Pryor earnestly. "I think I am almost happy." "You wish to drink? Your lips are parched." She held a glass to her mouth. "Have you eaten anything today, Caroline?" "I cannot eat." "But soon your appetite will return; I pray God it may." In laying her down again, she encircled her in her arms; and with a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew her to her heart, and held her close an instant. "I shall hardly wish to get well, so that I may keep you always," said Caroline. Mrs. Pryor did not smile. A tremor ran over her features. "You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked. "I should think my attendance must seem strange?" "No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must be used to waiting on sick people, ma'am. You move so softly and gently." "I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but never negligent." Negligent, indeed, she was not. Mrs. Pryor made the sick-room her domain; she performed all its duties; she lived in it day and night. The patient remonstrated, but only faintly, and not for long. Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection and solace sat there instead. The patient was as willing to be cherished as the nurse was bent on cherishing. With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet such was the case. She faded like a flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or death seldom intruded, at first had no fears for her friend; but seeing her change and sink, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Helstone and expressed herself with so much energy that he was obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill with something more than a migraine; and when Mrs. Pryor came and quietly demanded a doctor, he said she might send for two if she liked. One came; he said darkly that the future would solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some directions - all with an air of crushing authority - pocketed his fee, and went. Probably he knew well enough he could do no good, but did not like to say so. Still, no rumour of serious illness travelled through the neighbourhood. At Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline had only a severe cold, she having written a note to Hortense to that effect. Mrs. Yorke, on being told that a doctor had been summoned, sneered at the hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having nothing but themselves to think about, must needs send for a doctor if their little finger ached. The "rich and idle" Caroline, meantime, was falling fast into a condition of debility which puzzled all except Mrs. Pryor; for she alone reflected how liable is the undermined structure to sink in sudden ruin. Sick people often have fancies, and Caroline had one which even her tender nurse could not at first explain. On a certain day in the week, at a certain hour, she would entreat to be taken up and dressed, and to sit in her chair near the window. Here she would stay till noon was past. No matter how exhausted she appeared, she would not lie down again until the church clock had tolled midday. Then, back in bed, she usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the coverlets close round her, as if to shut out the world. More than once, as she thus lay, Mrs. Pryor noted that a slight convulsion shook the sick-bed, and a faint sob broke the silence. One Tuesday morning, as usual, Caroline had asked to rise, and now she sat wrapped in her white dressing-gown, leaning forward in the easy-chair, gazing steadily through the window. Mrs. Pryor was seated behind, knitting and watching her. A change crossed her pale, mournful brow; she half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor glanced over her shoulder. From here the churchyard was visible, beyond it the road; and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman. Mrs. Pryor recognised Mr. Moore. Just as the rising ground concealed him from view, the clock struck twelve. "May I lie down again?" asked Caroline. Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down and drawn the curtain round her, she stood listening near. The little couch trembled, the suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction as of anguish altered Mrs. Pryor's features; half a groan escaped her lips. She now remembered that Tuesday was Whinbury market day, when Mr. Moore must pass by just before noon. Caroline always wore round her neck a slender braid of silk, attached to which was some trinket. When dressed it was hidden; as she lay in bed she held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon, as she dozed in feverish restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand clasped as usual her jealously-guarded treasure; but its fingers were now relaxed in sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently freed the braid, drawing out a tiny locket. Under its crystal face appeared a curl of short black hair. With an agitated movement, the sleeper started and woke. Half rising, as if in terror, she exclaimed, "Don't take it from me, Robert! It is my last comfort; let me keep it. I never tell anyone whose hair it is; I never show it." Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain. Caroline looked around the chamber; she thought it empty. Believing herself alone, she let words escape her lips unawares. "Oh, I should see him once more before all is over!" she cried. "God grant me a little comfort before I die! "But he will not know I am ill till I am gone, and he will come when they have laid me out, and I am cold and stiff. "What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to the clay? Can the dead revisit those they leave? Can they come in the elements? Will wind, water, fire, lend me a path to Moore? "Is it for nothing the wind sings at night - or sobs, as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing haunt it, nothing inspire it? "Why, it suggested to me words one night; I would have written them down, only they appalled me. "What are those influences in the atmosphere, that play over our nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call forth now a sweet, exultant note, and now the saddest wail? "Where is the other world? In what will another life consist? Is not the hour hastening when the veil must be rent for me? Great Spirit, to whom, as my Father, I have prayed from my childhood, help me! Sustain me through the ordeal I dread and must undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience! Give me - oh, give me faith!" She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor stole quietly from the room. She re-entered it soon after, as if she had overheard nothing. The next day several callers came. It had become known that Miss Helstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister Margaret arrived; both left the sickroom in tears, so altered had they found the patient. Hortense Moore came, and Caroline seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her, smiling, that she was not dangerously ill; she talked to her cheerfully, and with her flushed complexion, she looked better. "How is Mr. Robert?" asked Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense was preparing to take leave. "He was very well when he left. News from the police about the rioters has taken him to Birmingham for a fortnight." "He is not aware that Miss Helstone is very ill?" "Oh no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad cold." As evening closed in, Mrs. Pryor brought her patient some tea. Caroline, opening her eyes from a moment's slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognizing glance. "I smelt the honeysuckles this summer morning," she said, "as I stood at the counting-house window." Strange words like these pierce a loving listener's heart more poignantly than steel. They sound romantic, perhaps, in books; in real life they are harrowing. "My darling, do you know me?" said Mrs. Pryor. "I went in to call Robert to breakfast. I have been with him in the garden. He asked me to go. The peaches are ripening." "My darling! my darling!" repeated the nurse. "I thought it was daylight - long after sunrise. It looks dark. Is the moon set?" The moon, lately risen, was gazing full and mild upon her. "Then it is not morning? I am not at the cottage? Who is this at my bedside?" "It is myself - your friend - your nurse - your - lean your head on my shoulder." In a lower tone - "O God, take pity! Give her life, and give me courage! Teach me words!" Some minutes passed in silence. The patient lay mute and passive in the nurse's trembling arms. "I am better now," whispered Caroline at last. "I feel where I am. This is Mrs. Pryor near me. I was dreaming. How fast your heart beats, ma'am! Do not be afraid." "It is only a little anxiety, which will pass. I have brought you some tea, Cary. Your uncle made it himself. You know he says he can make a better cup of tea than any housewife. Taste it. He is concerned to hear that you eat so little." "I am thirsty. Let me drink." She drank eagerly. "What o'clock is it?" she asked. "Past nine." "Oh! I have yet a long night before me. But the tea has made me strong. I will sit up." Mrs. Pryor raised her, and arranged her pillows. "The afternoon has been bad since Hortense went;" said Caroline. "Perhaps the evening may be better. It is a fine night, I think?" "Very fine - a perfect summer night. The old church-tower gleams like silver." "Can you see many weeds and nettles amongst the graves? or do they look flowery?" "I see closed daisy-heads gleaming like pearls. Thomas has mown down the dock-leaves and rank grass, and cleared all away." "I always like that to be done; it soothes one's mind to see the place in order. I dare say the moonlight will fall through the east window of the church full on the Helstone monument. When I close my eyes I seem to see poor papa's epitaph on the white marble. There is plenty of room for other inscriptions underneath." "William Farren came to look after your flowers this morning. He has taken two of your favourite plants home to nurse for you." "If I were to make a will, I would leave William all my plants; Shirley my trinkets - except one, which must not be taken off my neck; and you, ma'am, my books." After a pause - "Mrs. Pryor, you know I always delight to hear you sing. Sing me a hymn. Sing 'Our God, our help in ages past.'" Mrs. Pryor at once complied. Her speaking voice was sweet and silver clear; in song it was almost divine, and trembled with tender expression. The servants in the kitchen, hearing it, stole to the stair-foot to listen. Even old Helstone, as he walked in the garden, pondering over the feeble nature of women, stood still to catch the mournful melody. Why it reminded him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell. He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay Wynne, the magistrate, a visit that evening. He was averse to gloomy thoughts, and usually found means to make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as he crossed the fields. He hastened his pace, that he might get beyond its reach. "Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Be Thou our guard while troubles last- O Father, be our home!" "Now sing a Scottish song," suggested Caroline. "'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon.'" Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, but after the first stanza she stopped. She could get no further. "You are weeping at the sadness of the song. Come here, and I will comfort you," said Caroline, in a pitying accent. Mrs. Pryor sat on the edge of the bed, and allowed the wasted arms to encircle her. "You often soothe me; let me soothe you," murmured the young girl, kissing her cheek. "I hope it is not for me you weep? I do not feel very ill - only weak." "But your heart is almost broken, Caroline; you have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate." "I believe grief has been my worst ailment. I sometimes think if happiness came to me I could revive yet." "Do you wish to live?" "I have no object in life." "You love me, Caroline?" "Very much - very truly." "I will return directly, dear," remarked Mrs. Pryor. Gliding to the door, she softly turned the key in the lock, and came back. She bent over Caroline and gazed intently on her face. "Then, if you love me," said she, "it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that from my veins issued the blood which flows in yours; that you are mine - my daughter - my own child." "Mrs. Pryor-" "My own child!" "That means - you have adopted me?" "It means that, if I have given you nothing else, I at least gave you life; that I bore you, nursed you; that I am your true mother." "But Mrs. James Helstone - my father's wife, whom I do not remember, she is my mother?" "She is your mother. James Helstone was my husband. I say you are mine. I thought perhaps you were all his, which would have been cruel. But God permitted me to be the parent of my child's mind. These features are James's; he had a fine face when he was young. Papa gave you your blue eyes and soft brown hair, my darling; he gave you your oval face and regular features; but the heart and brain are mine, in you developed to excellence. I esteem my child as highly as I do most fondly love her." "Is it true? Is it no dream? My own mother! Is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? I have been told people generally did not like her." "They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having the gift to please people generally, for their approval she does not care. Her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or reject her?" "But if you are my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I can live. I should like to recover-" "You must recover. Daughter! we have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again." She cradled her in her arms; she rocked her softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep. "My mother - my own mother!" The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent gathered her closer still. She covered her with noiseless kisses; she murmured love over her, like a dove nurturing its young. There was silence for a long while. "Does my uncle know?" "I told him when I came to stay with you here." "Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?" "How could it be otherwise? I was prepared to see my child." "I saw you were disturbed." "Caroline, you do not know what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that elapsed between you being announced and your entrance. Your appearance shook me." "Why? Were you disappointed?" "What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw you, I could have dropped. I said, I will never own her; she shall never know me." "But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at meeting strangers - that was all." "I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured me." "You puzzle me." "I had reason to dread beauty, to mistrust grace and courtesy. Beauty and affability had come in my way when I was young and desolate - a toil-worn governess breaking down before her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels. I followed them home; and when I had given my chance of future happiness into their hands, I witnessed a transfiguration - saw the white mask lifted, the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down - O God, I have suffered!" She sank on the pillow. "I have suffered! None saw - none knew. There was no sympathy, no redress!" "Take comfort, mother. It is over now." "It is over. God kept me in the days of my anguish. Through great tribulation He brought me through to this salvation. He has cast away my fear, and given me in its stead perfect love. But, Caroline-" "Mother!" "When you next look on your father's monument, respect the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred all his beauties, and none of his defects. You owe him gratitude. Leave, between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account. God is the arbiter. This world's laws were powerless to protect me, or to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now; he sleeps in that church. To his dust I say this night, what I have never said before, 'James, slumber peacefully! Your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black account with my own hand! James, your child atones. This one good gift you gave me has nestled to my heart, and tenderly called me "mother." Husband, rest forgiven!'" "Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear us? Is he comforted to know that we still love him?" "I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness." "O mother, you must have suffered!" "O child, the human heart can suffer! We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery fills it with rushing blackness." "Mother, forget." "Forget!" she said, with the strangest laugh. "The world will change before I forget." "Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!" And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had lulled the child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She grew calmer, and resumed her tender attentions. Replacing her daughter on the bed, she smoothed the pillow, rearranged the soft hair, and refreshed the damp brow. "Mamma, let them bring a candle, so that I may see you; and tell my uncle to come in. I want to hear him say that I am your daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one minute tonight." "O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I shall go; Do this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner as well as certain features - softly spoken, though, thank God! Well," she added, under her breath, "he spoke softly too, once; and then, when the world was not listening, sounds to curdle the blood." "It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. But do not let me be troublesome. Stop me if I encroach." "You must not depend on me to stop you; I have little moral courage. The want of it is my bane. It is that which kept me apart from my child during the ten years since my husband's death. It was that which first permitted the infant I might have kept a while longer to be snatched from my embrace." "How, mamma?" "I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years old; it confirmed my fears. Had it shown me a heavy, blunt-featured, commonplace child, I should have hastened to claim you; but I saw the delicacy of an aristocratic flower - a 'little lady'. I had too recently crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman - escaped crushed and paralysed - to dare to meet his still finer representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with dismay; her air of elegance froze my marrow. In my experience, truth had not gone along with beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must conceal a mind warped and cruel. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone, I knew, was an upright if austere man. He and all the world thought badly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be misjudged." "Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?" "It was a name in my mother's family. I could not bear my married name. My new name sheltered me. Under it, I resumed my old occupation of teaching. At first I scarcely earned a living; but how safe seemed the hunger and chill of a cold hearth when free from terror! How serene was solitude, when I feared no violence and vice!" "But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How was it that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not recognized?" "I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was very different. My figure, my features, my hair - everything is altered. You cannot imagine me slim and dressed in scanty white muslin, with hair in Grecian curls above my forehead?" "You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard my uncle coming into the house. Ask him to step upstairs, and let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and not dreaming." Mrs. Pryor duly summoned the rector. "She's not worse, I hope?" he inquired hastily. "I think her better. She seems stronger." "Good!" said he, brushing quickly into the room. "Ha, Cary! how do? Did you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself." "I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good. I wished for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you in." The rector looked pleased, and yet embarrassed. He was willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes; but how to entertain her he knew not. He hemmed and fidgeted. "You'll be up in a trice," he observed. "The little weakness will soon pass off; and then you must drink port wine and eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if they are to be had anywhere. Bless me! we'll make you as strong as Samson before we're done." "Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you?" "Good God!" he ejaculated. "She's not wandering, is she, ma'am?" Mrs. Pryor smiled. "I am wandering in a pleasant world," said Caroline, in a soft, happy voice, "and I want you to tell me whether it is real or visionary. What is the name of that lady, uncle?" "We must have the doctor again, ma'am. Thomas must go for him." "No; I don't want a doctor. Mamma shall be my only physician. Now, do you understand, uncle?" Mr. Helstone pushed up his spectacles to his forehead, and took a pinch of snuff from his snuff-box. Thus fortified, he answered briefly, "I see daylight. You've told her then, ma'am?" "And is it true?" demanded Caroline. "Is she really my mother?" "You won't cry, or make any scene, or turn hysterical, if I answer Yes?" "Cry! I'd cry if you said No. It would be terrible to be disappointed now. But how do you call her?" "I call her Agnes Helstone. She married my brother James, and is his widow. She had the trouble of bringing you into the world. Mind you show your duty to her by quickly getting well!" "If wishing to get well will help me, I shall not be long sick. This morning I had no reason and no strength to wish it." Fanny here tapped at the door, and said that supper was ready. "Uncle, if you please, send me a little bit of supper - anything you like, from your own plate. That is wiser than going into hysterics, is it not?" "It is spoken like a sage, Cary. When women are sensible and intelligible, I can get on with them. It is only the superfine sensations and extreme notions that put me out. If a woman asks me for something edible or wearable, I can understand the demand; but when they pine for sympathy, sentiment, and whatnot - I can't do it; I don't know it; I haven't got it." Mr. Helstone then departed, but soon returned, bringing a plate. "This is chicken," he said, "but we'll have partridge tomorrow. - Lift her up, and put a shawl over her. Now, here is the very same little silver fork you used when you first came to the rectory. That strikes me as being what you may call a happy thought - a delicate attention. Take it, Cary, and munch away." Caroline did her best. Her uncle frowned to see her so weakened. He prophesied, however, great things for the future; and as she smiled gratefully, he stooped over her pillow, kissed her, and said, with a broken, rugged accent, "Good-night, bairnie! God bless thee!" Caroline enjoyed peaceful rest that night, encircled by her mother's arms, and pillowed on her breast; and though more than one feverish dream came to her in slumber, yet, when she woke, returning consciousness brought so happy a feeling that her agitation was swiftly soothed. As for the mother, she spent the night like Jacob, wrestling with God in earnest prayer.

Shirley

Chapter 24: THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

Louis Moore's doubts respecting the immediate evacuation of Fieldhead by Mr. Sympson turned out to be perfectly well founded. The very next day after the grand quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely a sort of reconciliation was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who could never find it in her heart to be or to seem inhospitable (except in the single instance of Mr. Donne), begged the whole party to stay a little longer. She begged in such earnest it was evident she wished it for some reason. They took her at her word. Indeed, the uncle could not bring himself to leave her quite unwatched--at full liberty to marry Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should be able (Mr. Sympson piously prayed this might never be the case) to reassert his supposed pretensions to her hand. They all stayed. In his first rage against all the house of Moore, Mr. Sympson had so conducted himself towards Mr. Louis that that gentleman--patient of labour or suffering, but intolerant of coarse insolence--had promptly resigned his post, and could now be induced to resume and retain it only till such time as the family should quit Yorkshire. Mrs. Sympson's entreaties prevailed with him thus far; his own attachment to his pupil constituted an additional motive for concession; and probably he had a third motive, stronger than either of the other two. Probably he would have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now. Things went on for some time pretty smoothly. Miss Keeldar's health was re-established; her spirits resumed their flow. Moore had found means to relieve her from every nervous apprehension; and, indeed, from the moment of giving him her confidence, every fear seemed to have taken wing. Her heart became as lightsome, her manner as careless, as those of a little child, that, thoughtless of its own life or death, trusts all responsibility to its parents. He and William Farren--through whose medium he made inquiries concerning the state of Phbe--agreed in asserting that the dog was not mad, that it was only ill-usage which had driven her from home; for it was proved that her master was in the frequent habit of chastising her violently. Their assertion might or might not be true. The groom and gamekeeper affirmed to the contrary--both asserting that, if hers was not a clear case of hydrophobia, there was no such disease. But to this evidence Louis Moore turned an incredulous ear. He reported to Shirley only what was encouraging. She believed him; and, right or wrong, it is certain that in her case the bite proved innocuous. November passed; December came. The Sympsons were now really departing. It was incumbent on them to be at home by Christmas. Their packages were preparing; they were to leave in a few days. One winter evening, during the last week of their stay, Louis Moore again took out his little blank book, and discoursed with it as follows:-- * * * * * "She is lovelier than ever. Since that little cloud was dispelled all the temporary waste and wanness have vanished. It was marvellous to see how soon the magical energy of youth raised her elastic and revived her blooming. "After breakfast this morning, when I had seen her, and listened to her, and, so to speak, felt her, in every sentient atom of my frame, I passed from her sunny presence into the chill drawing-room. Taking up a little gilt volume, I found it to contain a selection of lyrics. I read a poem or two; whether the spell was in me or in the verse I know not, but my heart filled genially, my pulse rose. I glowed, notwithstanding the frost air. I, too, am young as yet. Though she said she never considered me young, I am barely thirty. There are moments when life, for no other reason than my own youth, beams with sweet hues upon me. "It was time to go to the schoolroom. I went. That same schoolroom is rather pleasant in a morning. The sun then shines through the low lattice; the books are in order; there are no papers strewn about; the fire is clear and clean; no cinders have fallen, no ashes accumulated. I found Henry there, and he had brought with him Miss Keeldar. They were together. "I said she was lovelier than ever. She is. A fine rose, not deep but delicate, opens on her cheek. Her eye, always dark, clear, and speaking, utters now a language I cannot render; it is the utterance, seen not heard, through which angels must have communed when there was 'silence in heaven.' Her hair was always dusk as night and fine as silk, her neck was always fair, flexible, polished; but both have now a new charm. The tresses are soft as shadow, the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess grace. Once I only _saw_ her beauty, now I _feel_ it. "Henry was repeating his lesson to her before bringing it to me. One of her hands was occupied with the book; he held the other. That boy gets more than his share of privileges; he dares caress and is caressed. What indulgence and compassion she shows him! Too much. If this went on, Henry in a few years, when his soul was formed, would offer it on her altar, as I have offered mine. "I saw her eyelid flitter when I came in, but she did not look up; _now_ she hardly ever gives me a glance. She seems to grow silent too; to _me_ she rarely speaks, and when I am present, she says little to others. In my gloomy moments I attribute this change to indifference, aversion, what not? In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning. I say, were I her equal, I could find in this shyness coyness, and in that coyness love. As it is, dare I look for it? What could I do with it if found? "This morning I dared at least contrive an hour's communion for her and me; I dared not only _wish_ but _will_ an interview with her. I dared summon solitude to guard us. Very decidedly I called Henry to the door. Without hesitation I said, 'Go where you will, my boy; but, till I call you, return not here.' "Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal. That boy is young, but a thinker; his meditative eye shines on me strangely sometimes. He half feels what links me to Shirley; he half guesses that there is a dearer delight in the reserve with which I am treated than in all the endearments he is allowed. The young, lame, half-grown lion would growl at me now and then, because I have tamed his lioness and am her keeper, did not the habit of discipline and the instinct of affection hold him subdued. Go, Henry; you must learn to take your share of the bitter of life with all of Adam's race that have gone before or will come after you. Your destiny can be no exception to the common lot; be grateful that your love is overlooked thus early, before it can claim any affinity to passion. An hour's fret, a pang of envy, suffice to express what you feel. Jealousy hot as the sun above the line, rage destructive as the tropic storm, the clime of your sensations ignores--as yet. "I took my usual seat at the desk, quite in my usual way. I am blessed in that power to cover all inward ebullition with outward calm. No one who looks at my slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my heart, and engulfing thought and wrecking prudence. Pleasant is it to have the gift to proceed peacefully and powerfully in your course without alarming by one eccentric movement. It was not my present intention to utter one word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of the fire in which I wasted. Presumptuous I never have been; presumptuous I never will be. Rather than even _seem_ selfish and interested, I would resolutely rise, gird my loins, part and leave her, and seek, on the other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the rock the salt tide daily washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near scrutiny--to read a line in the page of her heart. Before I left I determined to know _what_ I was leaving. "I had some quills to make into pens. Most men's hands would have trembled when their hearts were so stirred; mine went to work steadily, and my voice, when I called it into exercise, was firm. "'This day week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.' "'Yes: I rather think my uncle's intention to go is a settled one now.' "'He leaves you dissatisfied.' "'He is not pleased with me.' "'He departs as he came--no better for his journey. This is mortifying.' "'I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all inclination to lay new ones.' "'In his way Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done or intended to do he believed to be for the best.' "'You are kind to undertake the defence of a man who has permitted himself to treat you with so much insolence.' "'I never feel shocked at, or bear malice for, what is spoken in character; and most perfectly in character was that vulgar and violent onset against me, when he had quitted you worsted.' "'You cease now to be Henry's tutor?' "'I shall be parted from Henry for a while (if he and I live we shall meet again somehow, for we love each other) and be ousted from the bosom of the Sympson family for ever. Happily this change does not leave me stranded; it but hurries into premature execution designs long formed.' "'No change finds you off your guard. I was sure, in your calm way, you would be prepared for sudden mutation. I always think you stand in the world like a solitary but watchful, thoughtful archer in a wood. And the quiver on your shoulder holds more arrows than one; your bow is provided with a second string. Such too is your brother's wont. You two might go forth homeless hunters to the loneliest western wilds; all would be well with you. The hewn tree would make you a hut, the cleared forest yield you fields from its stripped bosom, the buffalo would feel your rifle-shot, and with lowered horns and hump pay homage at your feet.' "'And any Indian tribe of Blackfeet or Flatheads would afford us a bride, perhaps?' "'No' (hesitating), 'I think not. The savage is sordid. I think--that is, I _hope_--you would neither of you share your hearth with that to which you could not give your heart.' "'What suggested the wild West to your mind, Miss Keeldar? Have you been with me in spirit when I did not see you? Have you entered into my day-dreams, and beheld my brain labouring at its scheme of a future?' "She had separated a slip of paper for lighting tapers--a spill, as it is called--into fragments. She threw morsel by morsel into the fire, and stood pensively watching them consume. She did not speak. "'How did you learn what you seem to know about my intentions?' "'I know nothing. I am only discovering them now. I spoke at hazard.' "'Your hazard sounds like divination. A tutor I will never be again; never take a pupil after Henry and yourself; not again will I sit habitually at another man's table--no more be the appendage of a family. I am now a man of thirty; I have never been free since I was a boy of ten. I have such a thirst for freedom, such a deep passion to know her and call her mine, such a day-desire and night-longing to win her and possess her, I will not refuse to cross the Atlantic for her sake; her I will follow deep into virgin woods. Mine it shall not be to accept a savage girl as a slave--she could not be a wife. I know no white woman whom I love that would accompany me; but I am certain Liberty will await me, sitting under a pine. When I call her she will come to my loghouse, and she shall fill my arms.' "She could not hear me speak so unmoved, and she _was_ moved. It was right--I meant to move her. She could not answer me, nor could she look at me. I should have been sorry if she could have done either. Her cheek glowed as if a crimson flower through whose petals the sun shone had cast its light upon it. On the white lid and dark lashes of her downcast eye trembled all that is graceful in the sense of half-painful, half-pleasing shame. "Soon she controlled her emotion, and took all her feelings under command. I saw she had felt insurrection, and was waking to empire. She sat down. There was that in her face which I could read. It said, I see the line which is my limit; nothing shall make me pass it. I feel--I know how far I may reveal my feelings, and when I must clasp the volume. I have advanced to a certain distance, as far as the true and sovereign and undegraded nature of my kind permits; now here I stand rooted. My heart may break if it is baffled; let it break. It shall never dishonour me; it shall never dishonour my sisterhood in me. Suffering before degradation! death before treachery! "I, for my part, said, 'If she were poor, I would be at her feet; if she were lowly, I would take her in my arms. Her gold and her station are two griffins that guard her on each side. Love looks and longs, and dares not; Passion hovers round, and is kept at bay; Truth and Devotion are scared. There is nothing to lose in winning her, no sacrifice to make. It is all clear gain, and therefore unimaginably difficult.' "Difficult or not, something must be done, something must be said. I could not, and would not, sit silent with all that beauty modestly mute in my presence. I spoke thus, and still I spoke with calm. Quiet as my words were, I could hear they fell in a tone distinct, round, and deep. "'Still, I know I shall be strangely placed with that mountain nymph Liberty. She is, I suspect, akin to that Solitude which I once wooed, and from which I now seek a divorce. These Oreads are peculiar. They come upon you with an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening; they inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of spirits; their grace is not the grace of life, but of seasons or scenes in nature. Theirs is the dewy bloom of morning, the languid flush of evening, the peace of the moon, the changefulness of clouds. I want and will have something different. This elfish splendour looks chill to my vision, and feels frozen to my touch. I am not a poet; I cannot live with abstractions. You, Miss Keeldar, have sometimes, in your laughing satire, called me a material philosopher, and implied that I live sufficiently for the substantial. Certainly I feel material from head to foot; and glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with the solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her through the soft human eyes of a loved and lovely wife than through the wild orbs of the highest goddess of Olympus.' "'Juno could not cook a buffalo steak as you like it,' said she. "'She could not; but I will tell you who could--some young, penniless, friendless orphan girl. I wish I could find such a one--pretty enough for me to love, with something of the mind and heart suited to my taste; not uneducated--honest and modest. I care nothing for attainments, but I would fain have the germ of those sweet natural powers which nothing acquired can rival; any temper Fate wills--I can manage the hottest. To such a creature as this I should like to be first tutor and then husband. I would teach her my language, my habits and my principles, and then I would reward her with my love.' "'_Reward_ her, lord of the creation--_reward_ her!'" ejaculated she, with a curled lip. "'And be repaid a thousandfold.' "'If she willed it, monseigneur.' "'And she _should_ will it.' "'You have stipulated for any temper Fate wills. Compulsion is flint and a blow to the metal of some souls.' "'And love the spark it elicits.' "'Who cares for the love that is but a spark--seen, flown upward, and gone?' "'I must find my orphan girl. Tell me how, Miss Keeldar.' "'Advertise; and be sure you add, when you describe the qualifications, she must be a good plain cook.' "'I must find her; and when I do find her I shall marry her.' "'Not you!' and her voice took a sudden accent of peculiar scorn. "I liked this. I had roused her from the pensive mood in which I had first found her. I would stir her further. "'Why doubt it?' "'_You_ marry!' "'Yes, of course; nothing more evident than that I can and shall.' "'The contrary is evident, Mr. Moore.' "She charmed me in this mood--waxing disdainful, half insulting; pride, temper, derision, blent in her large fine eye, that had just now the look of a merlin's. "'Favour me with your reasons for such an opinion, Miss Keeldar.' "'How will _you_ manage to marry, I wonder?' "'I shall manage it with ease and speed when I find the proper person.' "'Accept celibacy!' (and she made a gesture with her hand as if she gave me something) 'take it as your doom!' "'No; you cannot give what I already have. Celibacy has been mine for thirty years. If you wish to offer me a gift, a parting present, a keepsake, you must change the boon.' "'Take worse, then!' "'How--what?' "I now felt, and looked, and spoke eagerly. I was unwise to quit my sheet-anchor of calm even for an instant; it deprived me of an advantage and transferred it to her. The little spark of temper dissolved in sarcasm, and eddied over her countenance in the ripples of a mocking smile. "'Take a wife that has paid you court to save your modesty, and thrust herself upon you to spare your scruples.' "'Only show me where.' "'Any stout widow that has had a few husbands already, and can manage these things.' "'She must not be rich, then. Oh these riches!' "'Never would you have gathered the produce of the gold-bearing garden. You have not courage to confront the sleepless dragon; you have not craft to borrow the aid of Atlas.' "'You look hot and haughty.' "'And you far haughtier. Yours is the monstrous pride which counterfeits humility.' "'I am a dependant; I know my place.' "'I am a woman; I know mine.' "'I am poor; I must be proud.' "'I have received ordinances, and own obligations stringent as yours.' "We had reached a critical point now, and we halted and looked at each other. _She_ would not give in, I felt. Beyond this I neither felt nor saw. A few moments yet were mine. The end was coming--I heard its rush--but not come. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse urged I would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in a hurry in my whole life. Hasty people drink the nectar of existence scalding hot; I taste it cool as dew. I proceeded: 'Apparently, Miss Keeldar, you are as little likely to marry as myself. I know you have refused three--nay, four--advantageous offers, and, I believe, a fifth. Have you rejected Sir Philip Nunnely?' "I put this question suddenly and promptly. "'Did you think I should take him?' "'I thought you might.' "'On what grounds, may I ask?' "'Conformity of rank, age, pleasing contrast of temper--for _he_ is mild and amiable--harmony of intellectual tastes.' "'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces. "Conformity of rank." He is quite above me. Compare my grange with his palace, if you please. I am disdained by his kith and kin. "Suitability of age." We were born in the same year; consequently he is still a boy, while I am a woman--ten years his senior to all intents and purposes. "Contrast of temper." Mild and amiable, is he; I--what? Tell me.' "'Sister of the spotted, bright, quick, fiery leopard.' "'And you would mate me with a kid--the millennium being yet millions of centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an archangel high in the seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend? Unjust barbarian! "Harmony of intellectual tastes." He is fond of poetry, and I hate it----' "'Do you? That is news.' "'I absolutely shudder at the sight of metre or at the sound of rhyme whenever I am at the priory or Sir Philip at Fieldhead. Harmony, indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets or string stanzas fragile as fragments of glass? and when did I betray a belief that those penny-beads were genuine brilliants?' "'You might have the satisfaction of leading him to a higher standard, of improving his tastes.' "'Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing! Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I suppose _you_ think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.' "'God knows it is needed!' "'What do you mean by that, Mr. Moore?' "'What I say. Improvement is imperatively needed.' "'If you were a woman you would school _monsieur, votre mari_, charmingly. It would just suit you; schooling is your vocation.' "'May I ask whether, in your present just and gentle mood, you mean to taunt me with being a tutor?' "'Yes, bitterly; and with anything else you please--any defect of which you are painfully conscious.' "'With being poor, for instance?' "'Of course; that will sting you. You are sore about your poverty; you brood over that.' "'With having nothing but a very plain person to offer the woman who may master my heart?' "'Exactly. You have a habit of calling yourself plain. You are sensitive about the cut of your features because they are not quite on an Apollo pattern. You abase them more than is needful, in the faint hope that others may say a word in their behalf--which won't happen. Your face is nothing to boast of, certainly--not a pretty line nor a pretty tint to be found therein.' "'Compare it with your own.' "'It looks like a god of Egypt--a great sand-buried stone head; or rather I will compare it to nothing so lofty. It looks like Tartar. You are my mastiff's cousin. I think you as much like him as a man can be like a dog.' "'Tartar is your dear companion. In summer, when you rise early, and run out into the fields to wet your feet with the dew, and freshen your cheek and uncurl your hair with the breeze, you always call him to follow you. You call him sometimes with a whistle that you learned from me. In the solitude of your wood, when you think nobody but Tartar is listening, you whistle the very tunes you imitated from my lips, or sing the very songs you have caught up by ear from my voice. I do not ask whence flows the feeling which you pour into these songs, for I know it flows out of your heart, Miss Keeldar. In the winter evenings Tartar lies at your feet. You suffer him to rest his head on your perfumed lap; you let him couch on the borders of your satin raiment. His rough hide is familiar with the contact of your hand. I once saw you kiss him on that snow-white beauty spot which stars his broad forehead. It is dangerous to say I am like Tartar; it suggests to me a claim to be treated like Tartar.' "'Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your penniless and friendless young orphan girl, when you find her.' "'Oh could I find her such as I image her! Something to tame first, and teach afterwards; to break in, and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over and then to be indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes his father. Oh' (I went on), 'my orphan girl would give me many a kiss; she would watch on the threshold for my coming home of an evening; she would run into my arms; she would keep my hearth as bright as she would make it warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her I must.' "Her eyes emitted an eager flash, her lips opened; but she reclosed them, and impetuously turned away. "'Tell me, tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar!' "Another movement, all haughtiness and fire and impulse. "'I must know. You _can_ tell me; you _shall_ tell me.' "'I _never will_.' "She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part as she had always parted from me? No. I had gone too far not to finish; I had come too near the end not to drive home to it. All the encumbrance of doubt, all the rubbish of indecision, must be removed at once, and the plain truth must be ascertained. She must take her part, and tell me what it was; I must take mine and adhere to it. "'A minute, madam,' I said, keeping my hand on the door-handle before I opened it. 'We have had a long conversation this morning, but the last word has not been spoken yet. It is yours to speak it.' "'May I pass?' "'No; I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me just now, without speaking the word I demand.' "'What dare you expect me to say?' "'What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I _must_ and _will_ hear; what you dare not now suppress.' "'Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You are not like yourself.' "I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her--that I could see. It was right: she must be scared to be won. "'You _do_ know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you _myself_. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the man. And remember, he is a gentleman.' "She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the lock. She might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal welded to metal. She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled. "What change I underwent I cannot explain, but out of her emotion passed into me a new spirit. I neither was crushed nor elated by her lands and gold; I thought not of them, cared not for them. They were nothing--dross that could not dismay me. I saw only herself--her young beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her girlhood. "'My pupil,' I said. "'My master,' was the low answer. "'I have a thing to tell you.' "She waited with declined brow and ringlets drooped. "'I have to tell you that for four years you have been growing into your tutor's heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare that you have bewitched me, in spite of sense, and experience, and difference of station and estate. You have so looked, and spoken, and moved; so shown me your faults and your virtues--beauties rather, they are hardly so stern as virtues--that I love you--love you with my life and strength. It is out now.' "She sought what to say, but could not find a word. She tried to rally, but vainly. I passionately repeated that I loved her. "'Well, Mr. Moore, what then?' was the answer I got, uttered in a tone that would have been petulant if it had not faltered. "'Have you nothing to say to me? Have you no love for me?' "'A little bit.' "'I am not to be tortured. I will not even play at present.' "'I don't want to play; I want to go.' "'I wonder you dare speak of going at this moment. _You_ go! What! with my heart in your hand, to lay it on your toilet and pierce it with your pins? From my presence you do not stir, out of my reach you do not stray, till I receive a hostage--pledge for pledge--your heart for mine.' "'The thing you want is mislaid--lost some time since. Let me go and seek it.' "'Declare that it is where your keys often are--in my possession.' "'You ought to know. And where are my keys, Mr. Moore? Indeed and truly I have lost them again; and Mrs. Gill wants some money, and I have none, except this sixpence.' "She took the coin out of her apron pocket, and showed it in her palm. I could have trifled with her, but it would not do; life and death were at stake. Mastering at once the sixpence and the hand that held it, I demanded, 'Am I to die without you, or am I to live for you?' "'Do as you please. Far be it from me to dictate your choice.' "'You shall tell me with your own lips whether you doom me to exile or call me to hope.' "'Go; I can bear to be left.' "'Perhaps I too _can_ bear to leave you. But reply, Shirley, my pupil, my sovereign--reply.' "'Die without me if you will; live for me if you dare.' "'I am not afraid of you, my leopardess. I _dare_ live for and with you, from this hour till my death. Now, then, I have you. You are mine. I will never let you go. Wherever my home be, I have chosen my wife. If I stay in England, in England you will stay; if I cross the Atlantic, you will cross it also. Our lives are riveted, our lots intertwined.' "'And are we equal, then, sir? are we equal at last?' "'You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I.' "'Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?' "'Will you let me breathe, and not bewilder me? You must not smile at present. The world swims and changes round me. The sun is a dizzying scarlet blaze, the sky a violet vortex whirling over me.' "I am a strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All creation was exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion more rapid, life itself more vital. I hardly saw her for a moment, but I heard her voice--pitilessly sweet. She would not subdue one of her charms in compassion. Perhaps she did not know what I felt. "'You name me leopardess. Remember, the leopardess is tameless,' said she. "'Tame or fierce, wild or subdued, you are _mine_.' "'I am glad I know my keeper and am used to him. Only his voice will I follow; only his hand shall manage me; only at his feet will I repose.' "I took her back to her seat, and sat down by her side. I wanted to hear her speak again. I could never have enough of her voice and her words. "'How much do you love me?' I asked. "'Ah! you know. I will not gratify you--I will not flatter.' "'I don't know half enough; my heart craves to be fed. If you knew how hungry and ferocious it is, you would hasten to stay it with a kind word or two.' "'Poor Tartar!' said she, touching and patting my hand--'poor fellow, stalwart friend, Shirley's pet and favourite, lie down!' "'But I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet word.' "And at last she gave it. "'Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I don't care for life unless I may pass it at your side.' "'Something more.' "She gave me a change; it was not her way to offer the same dish twice. "'Sir,' she said, starting up, 'at your peril you ever again name such sordid things as money, or poverty, or inequality. It will be absolutely dangerous to torment me with these maddening scruples. I defy you to do it.' "My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not so poor or she were not so rich. She saw the transient misery; and then, indeed, she caressed me. Blent with torment, I experienced rapture. "'Mr. Moore,' said she, looking up with a sweet, open, earnest countenance, 'teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property, but I ask you to share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. Your judgment is well balanced, your heart is kind, your principles are sound. I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe you are conscientious. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!' "'So help me God, I will!'" * * * * * Yet again a passage from the blank book if you like, reader; if you don't like it, pass it over:-- "The Sympsons are gone, but not before discovery and explanation. My manner must have betrayed something, or my looks. I was quiet, but I forgot to be guarded sometimes. I stayed longer in the room than usual; I could not bear to be out of her presence; I returned to it, and basked in it, like Tartar in the sun. If she left the oak parlour, instinctively I rose and left it too. She chid me for this procedure more than once. I did it with a vague, blundering idea of getting a word with her in the hall or elsewhere. Yesterday towards dusk I had her to myself for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood side by side; she was railing at me, and I was enjoying the sound of her voice. The young ladies passed, and looked at us; we did not separate. Ere long they repassed, and again looked. Mrs. Sympson came; we did not move. Mr. Sympson opened the dining-room door. Shirley flashed him back full payment for his spying gaze. She curled her lip and tossed her tresses. The glance she gave was at once explanatory and defiant. It said: 'I like Mr. Moore's society, and I dare you to find fault with my taste.' "I asked, 'Do you mean him to understand how matters are?' "'I do,' said she; 'but I leave the development to chance. There will be a scene. I neither invite it nor fear it; only, you must be present, for I am inexpressibly tired of facing him solus. I don't like to see him in a rage. He then puts off all his fine proprieties and conventional disguises, and the real human being below is what you would call _commun, plat, bas--vilain et un peu mchant_. His ideas are not clean, Mr. Moore; they want scouring with soft soap and fuller's earth. I think, if he could add his imagination to the contents of Mrs. Gill's bucking-basket, and let her boil it in her copper, with rain-water and bleaching-powder (I hope you think me a tolerable laundress), it would do him incalculable good.' "This morning, fancying I heard her descend somewhat early, I was down instantly. I had not been deceived. There she was, busy at work in the breakfast-parlour, of which the housemaid was completing the arrangement and dusting. She had risen betimes to finish some little keepsake she intended for Henry. I got only a cool reception, which I accepted till the girl was gone, taking my book to the window-seat very quietly. Even when we were alone I was slow to disturb her. To sit with her in sight was happiness, and the proper happiness, for early morning--serene, incomplete, but progressive. Had I been obtrusive, I knew I should have encountered rebuff. 'Not at home to suitors' was written on her brow. Therefore I read on, stole now and then a look, watched her countenance soften and open as she felt I respected her mood, and enjoyed the gentle content of the moment. "The distance between us shrank, and the light hoar-frost thawed insensibly. Ere an hour elapsed I was at her side, watching her sew, gathering her sweet smiles and her merry words, which fell for me abundantly. We sat, as we had a right to sit, side by side; my arm rested on her chair; I was near enough to count the stitches of her work, and to discern the eye of her needle. The door suddenly opened. "I believe, if I had just then started from her, she would have despised me. Thanks to the phlegm of my nature, I rarely start. When I am well-off, _bien_, comfortable, I am not soon stirred. _Bien_ I was--_trs bien_--consequently immutable. No muscle moved. I hardly looked to the door. "'Good-morning, uncle,' said she, addressing that personage, who paused on the threshold in a state of petrifaction. "'Have you been long downstairs, Miss Keeldar, and alone with Mr. Moore?' "'Yes, a very long time. We both came down early; it was scarcely light.' "'The proceeding is improper----' "'It was at first, I was rather cross, and not civil; but you will perceive that we are now friends.' "'I perceive more than you would wish me to perceive.' "'Hardly, sir,' said I; 'we have no disguises. Will you permit me to intimate that any further observations you have to make may as well be addressed to me? Henceforward I stand between Miss Keeldar and all annoyance.' "'_You!_ What have _you_ to do with Miss Keeldar?' "'To protect, watch over, serve her.' "'You, sir--you, the tutor?' "'Not one word of insult, sir,' interposed she; 'not one syllable of disrespect to Mr. Moore in this house.' "'Do you take his part?' "'_His_ part? oh yes!' "She turned to me with a sudden fond movement, which I met by circling her with my arm. She and I both rose. "'Good Ged!' was the cry from the morning-gown standing quivering at the door. _Ged_, I think, must be the cognomen of Mr. Sympson's Lares. When hard pressed he always invokes this idol. "'Come forward, uncle; you shall hear all.--Tell him all, Louis.' "'I dare him to speak--the beggar! the knave! the specious hypocrite! the vile, insinuating, infamous menial!--Stand apart from my niece, sir. Let her go!' "She clung to me with energy. 'I am near my future husband,' she said. 'Who dares touch him or me?' "'Her husband!' He raised and spread his hands. He dropped into a seat. "'A while ago you wanted much to know whom I meant to marry. My intention was then formed, but not mature for communication. Now it is ripe, sun-mellowed, perfect. Take the crimson peach--take Louis Moore!' "'But' (savagely) 'you _shall not_ have him; he _shall not_ have you.' "'I would die before I would have another. I would die if I might not have him.' "He uttered words with which this page shall never be polluted. "She turned white as death; she shook all over; she lost her strength. I laid her down on the sofa; just looked to ascertain that she had not fainted--of which, with a divine smile, she assured me. I kissed her; and then, if I were to perish, I cannot give a clear account of what happened in the course of the next five minutes. She has since--through tears, laughter, and trembling--told me that I turned terrible, and gave myself to the demon. She says I left her, made one bound across the room; that Mr. Sympson vanished through the door as if shot from a cannon. I also vanished, and she heard Mrs. Gill scream. "Mrs. Gill was still screaming when I came to my senses. I was then in another apartment--the oak parlour, I think. I held Sympson before me crushed into a chair, and my hand was on his cravat. His eyes rolled in his head; I was strangling him, I think. The housekeeper stood wringing her hands, entreating me to desist. I desisted that moment, and felt at once as cool as stone. But I told Mrs. Gill to fetch the Red-House Inn chaise instantly, and informed Mr. Sympson he must depart from Fieldhead the instant it came. Though half frightened out of his wits, he declared he would not. Repeating the former order, I added a commission to fetch a constable. I said, 'You _shall_ go, by fair means or foul.' "He threatened prosecution; I cared for nothing. I had stood over him once before, not quite so fiercely as now, but full as austerely. It was one night when burglars attempted the house at Sympson Grove, and in his wretched cowardice he would have given a vain alarm, without daring to offer defence. I had then been obliged to protect his family and his abode by mastering himself--and I had succeeded. I now remained with him till the chaise came. I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way. He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have resisted me, but knew not how. He called for his wife and daughters to come. I said they should follow him as soon as they could prepare. The smoke, the fume, the fret of his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury incapable of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must ever remain impotent. I know he will never touch me with the law. I know his wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of importance. I have long since earned her undying mother's gratitude by my devotion to her boy. In some of Henry's ailments I have nursed him--better, she said, than any woman could nurse. She will never forget that. She and her daughters quitted me to-day, in mute wrath and consternation; but she respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I lifted him into the carriage and placed him by her side, when I arranged her own wrapping to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I saw the tears start to her eyes. She will but the more zealously advocate my cause because she has left me in anger. I am glad of this--not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol--my Shirley." Once again he writes, a week after:--"I am now at Stilbro'. I have taken up my temporary abode with a friend--a professional man, in whose business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine? I am not easy, not tranquil; I am tantalized, sometimes tortured. To see her now, one would think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder, or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders me miserable. I am shunned when I visit her; she withdraws from my reach. Once this day I lifted her face, resolved to get a full look down her deep, dark eyes. Difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress! beautiful forest-born! wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain; I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her wild woods and pinings after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish there was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall lose her. No; final loss I do not fear, but long delay---- "It is now night--midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at Fieldhead. Some hours ago she passed me, coming down the oak staircase to the hall. She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she looked--slim and swift as a northern streamer! "I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone were both there; she has summoned them to bear her company awhile. In her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy, with her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning, she looked, I thought, spirit-like--a thing made of an element, the child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray and raindrop--a thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following her with my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to me--not even when she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs. Gill. I passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a word as she returned; nor in this did I fail. "'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I, meeting her. "'Why? the hall is too cold.' "'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.' "'But I shiver.' "'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and distant. Why?' "'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight.' "'_Do not--do not_ pass! Stay with me awhile. Let us exchange a few quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes are cruel.' "'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly enough. Indeed there was softness in her whole deportment--in her face, in her voice; but there was also reserve, and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible. "'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly a week since you called me your future husband and treated me as such. Now I am once more the tutor for you. I am addressed as Mr. Moore and sir. Your lips have forgotten Louis.' "'No, Louis, no. It is an easy, liquid name--not soon forgotten.' "'Be cordial to Louis, then; approach him--let him approach.' "'I _am_ cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow. "'Your voice is very sweet and very low,' I answered, quietly advancing. 'You seem subdued, but still startled.' "'No--quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured me. "'Of nothing but your votary.' "I bent a knee to the flags at her feet. "'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I don't know myself; I don't know you. But rise. When you do so I feel troubled and disturbed.' "I obeyed. It would not have suited me to retain that attitude long. I courted serenity and confidence for her, and not vainly. She trusted and clung to me again. "'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far from happy in my present uncertain, unsettled state.' "'Oh yes, you _are_ happy!' she cried hastily. 'You don't know how happy you are. Any change will be for the worse.' "'Happy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer. You are too generous to require it.' "'Be reasonable, Louis; be patient! I like you because you are patient.' "'Like me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix our marriage day; think of it to-night, and decide.' "She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted, from my arms--and I lost her."

Louis Moore's doubts whether Mr. Sympson would leave immediately turned out to be well founded. The day after the grand quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely, a sort of reconciliation was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who could never find it in her heart to be inhospitable (except to Mr. Donne), earnestly begged the family to stay a little longer. Indeed, the uncle could not bring himself to leave her unwatched - at full liberty to marry Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should be able to resume his courtship. So they all stayed. In his first rage against the house of Moore, Mr. Sympson had behaved towards Mr. Louis so insolently that the tutor had promptly resigned his post, and could be induced to resume it only until the family should quit Yorkshire. Louis was persuaded by Mrs. Sympson's entreaties and his own attachment to his pupil; and probably he had a third motive. He would have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now. Things went on pretty smoothly. Miss Keeldar's health and spirits were re-established. Moore had relieved her from every nervous apprehension; and her fear seemed to have taken wing. Her heart became as light as a child's, that trusts all responsibility to its parents. Louis and William Farren, on making inquiries, had concluded that the dog Phbe was not mad - that it was only ill-usage which had driven her from home. Right or wrong, it is certain that in her case the bite proved innocuous. November passed; December came. The Sympsons were now really departing, to be at home for Christmas. They were to leave in a few days. One winter evening, during the last week of their stay, Louis Moore again took out his notebook, and wrote in it as follows: "She is lovelier than ever. Since that little cloud was dispelled all the wanness has vanished, and with the magical energy of youth she blooms again. "After breakfast this morning, when I had seen her, and listened to her, and felt her in every atom of my frame, I went into the chill drawing-room. There I read a poem or two; whether the spell was in me or in the verse I know not, but my heart filled, my pulse rose, I glowed. I, too, am young as yet. I am barely thirty, and there are moments when life beams sweetly upon me. "It was time to go to the schoolroom. It is rather pleasant of a morning, when the sun shines through the low lattice; the books are in order, and the fireplace is clean. There I found Henry and Miss Keeldar together. "I said she was lovelier than ever. She is. A delicate rose opens on her cheek. Her eye, always dark and clear, speaks now as angels must have communed when there was 'silence in heaven.' Her hair is soft as shadow; the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess grace. Once I only saw her beauty, but now I feel it. "Henry was repeating his lesson to her before bringing it to me. He held her hand as he recited. That boy gets more than his share of privileges. What indulgence she shows him! If this went on, Henry in a few years would offer his soul on her altar, as I have offered mine. "I saw her eyelid flutter when I came in, but she did not look up; now she hardly ever gives me a glance. She rarely speaks to me either, and when I am present, she says little to others. In my gloomy moments I attribute this change to indifference and aversion. In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning. I say, were I her equal, I could find in this shyness love. Dare I look for it? What could I do with it if found? "This morning I dared at least contrive an hour's communion with her. I called Henry to the door, and said, 'Go where you will, my boy; but, till I call you, return not here.' "Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal. That boy is young, but a thinker; his meditative eye shines on me strangely sometimes. He half feels what links me to Shirley; the young, lame, half-grown lion would growl at me now and then, because I have tamed his lioness, if the habit of discipline and his affection did not subdue him. Go, Henry; be grateful that your love is overlooked thus early, before it becomes passion. An hour's fret will suffice to express what you feel. "I took my usual seat at the desk, with my usual outward calm. No one who looks at my slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my heart, engulfing thought and wrecking prudence. But I would not alarm her by one eccentric movement; at present I would not utter one word of love, or reveal one glimpse of the fire that burns me. Presumptuous I will never be. I would rather part and leave her, and seek, on the other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the wave-washed rock. My plan this morning was to scrutinise her - to read a line in the page of her heart. Before I left I was determined to know what I was leaving. "I had some quills to make into pens. My hands went to work steadily, and my voice, when I spoke, was firm. "'This day week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.' "'Yes: I rather think my uncle will go this time. He is not pleased with me.' "'In his way Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done he believed to be for the best.' "'You are kind to defend a man who has treated you with so much insolence.' "'I never feel shocked at what is spoken in character; and most perfectly in character was that vulgar and violent onset against me, when he had quitted you.' "'You cease now to be Henry's tutor?' "'I shall be parted from Henry for a while (though we shall meet again somehow, for we love each other) and leave the Sympson family for ever. Happily this change does not leave me stranded; it merely hurries on plans long formed.' "'Nothing finds you off your guard. I was sure you would be calmly prepared for sudden change. I always think you are like a solitary but watchful, thoughtful archer in a wood. Such too is your brother. You two might be homeless hunters in the loneliest western wilds; all would be well with you. The hewn tree would make you a hut, the cleared forest would yield you fields, the buffalo would feel your rifle-shot.' "'And an Indian tribe would afford us brides, perhaps?' "'No' (hesitating), 'I think not. I hope you would neither of you share your hearth with that to which you could not give your heart.' "'What suggested the wild West to your mind, Miss Keeldar? Have you entered my day-dreams, and beheld my brain at work?' "She had torn a slip of paper into fragments, and threw morsel by morsel into the fire, pensively watching them burn. She did not speak. "'How did you learn my intentions?' "'I am only discovering them now. I spoke at hazard.' "'Your hazard sounds like divination. A tutor I will never be again. I am now a man of thirty; I have never been free since I was a boy of ten. I have such a thirst for freedom, such a deep passion and longing to win her, I will not refuse to cross the Atlantic for her sake; her I will follow deep into virgin woods. I know no woman whom I love that would accompany me; but I am certain Liberty will await me, sitting under a pine; and when I call her, she shall fill my arms.' "She was moved. I meant to move her. She could not answer me, nor look at me. Her cheek glowed. On the dark lashes of her downcast eye trembled all that is graceful in half-painful, half-pleasing shame. "Soon she took her feelings under command, and sat down. I could read her face. It said, I see the line which is my limit; nothing shall make me cross it. I know how far I may reveal my feelings. I have advanced as far as my nature permits; now here I stand rooted. My heart may break if it is baffled; let it break. It shall never dishonour me! "I, for my part, said to myself, 'If she were poor, I would be at her feet; if she were lowly, I would take her in my arms. But her gold and her lofty station are two griffins that guard her on each side. Love looks and longs, and dares not; Passion hovers, and is kept at bay; Truth and Devotion are scared. There is no sacrifice to make in winning her. It is all clear gain, and therefore unimaginably difficult.' "Difficult or not, I had to say something. I could not sit silent with all that beauty modestly mute in my presence. I spoke with quiet calm. "'Still, I know I shall be strangely placed with that mountain nymph Liberty. She is, I suspect, akin to that Solitude which I once wooed, and from which I now seek a divorce. These nymphs have an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening; they inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of spirits, of nature. Theirs is the dewy bloom of morning, the languid flush of evening, the peace of the moon, the changefulness of clouds. I want something different. This elfish splendour looks chill to my vision, and feels frozen to my touch. I am not a poet; I cannot live with abstractions. Glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her, I would rather behold her through the soft human eyes of a loved and lovely wife than through the wild orbs of the highest goddess of Olympus.' "'Juno could not cook a buffalo steak as you like it,' said she. "'She could not; but I will tell you who could - some young, penniless, friendless orphan girl. I wish I could find such a one - pretty enough for me to love, honest and modest. I care nothing for attainments, but I would fain have the germ of those sweet natural powers which nothing acquired can rival; I can manage the hottest temper that Fate wills. To such a creature I should like to be first tutor and then husband. I would teach her my language, my habits and my principles, and then I would reward her with my love.' "'Reward her, lord of the creation - reward her!'" exclaimed she, with a curled lip. "'And be repaid a thousandfold.' "'If she willed it, monseigneur.' "'And she should will it.' "'You have stipulated for any temper Fate wills. Compulsion is flint and a blow to the metal of some souls.' "'And love is the spark it elicits.' "'Who cares for the love that is only a spark?' "'I must find my orphan girl. Tell me how, Miss Keeldar.' "'Advertise; and be sure you add that she must be a good plain cook.' "'I must find her; and when I find her I shall marry her.' "'Not you!' and her voice took a sudden accent of peculiar scorn. "I liked this. I had roused her from her pensive mood. "'Why doubt it?' I said. 'Of course I shall marry. Nothing is more evident.' "'The contrary is evident, Mr. Moore.' "She charmed me in this mood - disdainful pride lit her large fine eye, that had just now the look of a falcon's. "'How will you manage to marry, I wonder?' she went on. "'Accept celibacy as your doom!' "'You cannot give what I already have. Celibacy has been mine for thirty years. If you wish to offer me a parting gift, it must be something else.' "'Take worse, then!' "'How - what?' "I now felt and spoke eagerly. I was unwise to lose my calm even for an instant; it deprived me of an advantage. The little spark of temper dissolved in a mocking smile. "'Look for any stout widow that has had a few husbands already.' "'She must not be rich. Oh, these riches!' "'Yours is the monstrous pride which counterfeits humility.' "'I am a dependant; I know my place.' "'I am a woman; I know mine.' "'I am poor; I must be proud.' "'I have obligations as stringent as yours.' "We had reached a critical point now, and we halted and looked at each other. She would not give in, I felt. A few moments yet were mine, before the end came. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse urged I would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in a hurry in my whole life. I proceeded: "'Apparently, Miss Keeldar, you are as little likely to marry as myself. I know you have refused four advantageous offers, and, I believe, a fifth. Have you rejected Sir Philip Nunnely?' "'Did you think I should take him?' "'I thought you might.' "'On what grounds, may I ask?' "'Conformity of rank, age, pleasing contrast of temper - for he is mild and amiable - harmony of intellectual tastes.' "'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces. "Conformity of rank." He is quite above me. I am disdained by his family. "Suitability of age." We were born in the same year; consequently he is still a boy, while I am a woman - ten years his senior to all intents and purposes. "Contrast of temper." Mild and amiable, is he; what am I? Tell me.' "'Sister of the bright, quick, fiery leopard.' "'And you would mate me with a lamb? Unjust! "Harmony of intellectual tastes." He is fond of poetry, and I hate it-' "'Do you? That is news.' "'I absolutely shudder at the sound of rhyme from Sir Philip. Harmony, indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets or string together penny-bead stanzas in the belief that they were genuine jewels?' "'You might have the satisfaction of improving his tastes.' "'Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pathetic lecture if he is bad. Being a tutor, I suppose you think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.' "'God knows it is needed!' "'What do you mean by that, Mr. Moore?' "'What I say. Improvement is imperatively needed.' "'If you were a woman you would improve your husband charmingly. It would suit you; schooling is your vocation.' "'May I ask whether, in your present just and gentle mood, you mean to taunt me with being a tutor?' "'Yes, bitterly; and with anything else you please - any defect of which you are painfully conscious.' "'With being poor, for instance?' I asked. "'Of course. You are sore about your poverty.' "'About having nothing but a plain face to offer the woman who may master my heart?' "'Exactly. You are sensitive about your features because they are not quite on an Apollo pattern. You abase them in the faint hope that others may say a word in their behalf - which won't happen. Your face is nothing to boast of, certainly. It looks like a god of Egypt - a great sand-buried stone head. No, I will compare it to nothing so lofty. It looks like Tartar. You are my mastiff's cousin.' "'Tartar is your dear companion. In summer, when you rise early, and run out into the fields, you always call him to follow you, sometimes with a whistle that you learned from me. In the solitude of your wood, when you think nobody but Tartar is listening, you whistle the very tunes you learnt from my lips, or sing the very songs you have caught up from my voice. In the winter evenings Tartar lies at your feet. You allow him to rest his head on your lap; you let him lie on the edge of your gown. His rough hide is familiar with the feel of your hand. I once saw you kiss him on his forehead. It is dangerous to say I am like Tartar; I may claim to be treated like Tartar.' "'Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your penniless young orphan girl, when you find her.' "'Oh, could I find her as I imagine her! Something to tame first, and teach afterwards; to break in, and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out of poverty; to influence and then to be indulgent to the capricious moods that were never influenced and indulged; to see her alternately irritated and subdued twelve times in a day; and perhaps, eventually, to behold her the exemplary mother of a dozen children, only now and then giving little Louis a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes his father. Oh, my orphan girl would give me many a kiss; she would watch on the threshold for my coming home, and run into my arms; she would keep my hearth bright and warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her I must.' "Her eyes flashed eagerly, her lips opened; but she re-closed them, and turned away. "'Tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar! I must know. You can tell me.' "'I never will.' All haughtiness. She turned to leave me. "Could I now let her part as she had always parted from me? No. I had gone too far; I had come too near the end not to drive home to it. All the doubt, all the indecision, must be removed, and the plain truth seen. "'A minute, madam,' I said, keeping my hand on the door-handle. 'The last word has not been spoken yet.' "'May I pass?' "'No; I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me just now, without speaking the word I demand.' "'What dare you expect me to say?' "'What I must and will hear; what you dare not now suppress.' "'Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You are not like yourself.' "I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her - that I could see. It was right: she must be scared to be won. "'You do know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you myself. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the man.' "She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the lock. She was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled. "What change I underwent I cannot explain. A new spirit passed into me. I was not crushed by her riches; I thought not of them. I saw only herself - her young beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her girlhood. "'My pupil,' I said. "'My master,' was the low answer. "'I have a thing to tell you.' "She waited with bent head. "'I have to tell you that for four years you have been growing into your tutor's heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare that you have bewitched me, in spite of sense, and experience, and difference of estate. You have so shown me your faults and your virtues - beauties rather, they are hardly so stern as virtues - that I love you - love you with my life and strength.' "She sought what to say, but could not find a word. I passionately repeated that I loved her. "'Well, Mr. Moore, what then?' was the answer in a tone that would have been petulant if it had not faltered. "'Have you nothing to say to me? Have you no love for me?' "'A little bit. I want to go.' "'Go! What! with my heart in your hand, to lay it on your dressing-table and pierce it with your pins? From my presence you do not stir, out of my reach you do not stray, till I receive a hostage - your heart for mine.' "'The thing you want is mislaid - lost some time since. Let me go and seek it.' "'Declare that it is where your keys often are - in my possession.' "'Where are my keys, Mr. Moore? Indeed I have lost them again; and Mrs. Gill wants some money, and I have none, except this sixpence.' "She took the coin out of her pocket, and showed it. I could have trifled with her, but it would not do; life and death were at stake. Mastering at once the sixpence and the hand that held it, I demanded, 'Am I to die without you, or am I to live for you?' "'Do as you please.' "'You shall tell me with your own lips whether you doom me to exile or call me to hope.' "'Go; I can bear to be left.' "'Perhaps I too can bear to leave you. But reply, Shirley, my pupil, my sovereign.' "'Die without me if you will; live for me if you dare.' "'I am not afraid of you, my leopardess. I dare live for and with you, from this hour till my death. Now, then, I have you. You are mine. I will never let you go. Wherever my home be, I have chosen my wife. If I stay in England, in England you will stay; if I cross the Atlantic, you will cross it also. Our lives are riveted.' "'And are we equal, then, sir, at last?' "'You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I.' "'Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?' "'Will you let me breathe, and not bewilder me? You must not smile. The world swims and changes round me. The sun is a dizzying scarlet blaze, the sky a vortex whirling over me.' "I am a strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All creation was exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion more rapid, life itself more vital. I hardly saw her for a moment, but I heard her voice - pitilessly sweet. "'You name me leopardess. Remember, the leopardess is tameless,' said she. "'Tame or fierce, wild or subdued, you are mine.' "'I am glad I know my keeper and am used to him. His voice only will I follow; his hand only shall manage me; only at his feet will I repose.' "I wanted to hear her speak again. I could never have enough of her voice and her words. "'How much do you love me?' I asked. "'Ah! you know. I will not gratify you. Poor Tartar!' said she, patting my hand; 'poor fellow, stalwart friend, Shirley's favourite, lie down!' "'I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet word.' "And at last she gave it. "'Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I don't care for life unless I may pass it at your side.' "'Something more.' "She gave me a change. 'Sir,' she said, 'never again name such sordid things as money, or poverty, or inequality. It will be absolutely dangerous to torment me with these maddening scruples.' "My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not so poor or she were not so rich. She saw the misery; and then, indeed, she caressed me. Along with torment, I experienced rapture. "'Mr. Moore,' said she, looking up with a sweet, open face, 'teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property, but I ask you to share the burden, and to show me how to do it well. Your judgment is good, your heart is kind, your principles are sound. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!' "'So help me God, I will!'" Yet again a passage from the notebook, reader; if you don't like it, pass it over. "The Sympsons are gone, but not before discovery. My manner must have betrayed something, or my looks. I was quiet, but I forgot to be guarded sometimes. I stayed longer with her than usual; I could not bear to be out of her presence. If she left the parlour, instinctively I rose and left it too, with a vague idea of getting a word with her in the hall. Yesterday towards dusk I had her to myself for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood side by side, talking. The young ladies passed, and looked at us; we did not separate. Before long they repassed, and again looked. Mrs. Sympson came; we did not move. Mr. Sympson opened the dining-room door. Shirley curled her lip and tossed her tresses at him: the glance she gave was at once explanatory and defiant. It said: 'I like Mr. Moore's society, and I dare you to find fault with my taste.' "I asked, 'Do you mean him to understand how matters are?' "'I do,' said she. 'There will be a scene. I neither invite it nor fear it; only, you must be present, for I am inexpressibly tired of facing him alone. I don't like to see him in a rage. He then puts off all his fine proprieties and shows the crudity below. His ideas are not clean, Mr. Moore; I think, if he could put his imagination in Mrs. Gill's laundry-basket, for boiling and bleaching, it would do him incalculable good.' "This morning I was down early, and found her sewing in the breakfast-parlour, busy finishing some little keepsake for Henry. I got only a cool reception, which I accepted till the maid was gone, taking my book to the window-seat. To sit with her in sight was happiness. Had I been obtrusive, I knew she would have rebuffed me. Therefore I read on, stole now and then a look at her, watched her countenance soften as she felt I respected her mood, and enjoyed the gentle content of the moment. "The distance between us shrank. Soon I was at her side, watching her sew, listening to her merry words. We sat side by side; my arm rested on her chair. The door suddenly opened. "I believe, if I had started from her, she would have despised me. Thanks to the steadiness of my nature, I did not move a muscle. I hardly looked towards the door. "'Good-morning, uncle,' said she, addressing the person who paused on the threshold in a state of petrifaction. "'Have you been long downstairs, Miss Keeldar, and alone with Mr. Moore?' "'Yes, a very long time. We both came down early.' "'The proceeding is improper-' "'I was rather cross at first, and not civil; but you will perceive that we are now friends.' "'I perceive more than you would wish me to perceive.' "'Hardly, sir,' said I; 'we have no disguises. If you have any further observations to make, they may as well be addressed to me. Henceforward I stand between Miss Keeldar and all annoyance.' "'You! What have you to do with Miss Keeldar?' "'To protect, watch over, serve her.' "'You, sir - you, the tutor?' "'Not one word of insult, sir,' interposed she; 'not one syllable of disrespect to Mr. Moore in this house.' "'Do you take his part?' "'His part? oh yes!' "She turned to me with a sudden fond movement, which I met by circling her with my arm. She and I both rose. "'Good God!' was the quivering cry from the door. "'Come, uncle; you shall hear all. - Tell him, Louis.' "'I dare him to speak - the beggar! the knave! the vile, insinuating servant! Stand apart from my niece, sir. Let her go!' "She clung to me. 'I am near my future husband,' she said. "'Her husband! But' (savagely) 'you shall not have him; he shall not have you.' "'I would die before I would have another.' "Mr. Sympson uttered words with which this page shall never be polluted. "She turned white as death; she shook all over; she lost her strength. I laid her down on the sofa; just looked to make sure that she had not fainted - kissed her - and then - I cannot give a clear account of what happened in the course of the next five minutes. She has since, through tears and laughter, told me that I turned terrible, and gave myself to the demon. She says I made one bound across the room; that Mr. Sympson vanished through the door as if shot from a cannon. I also vanished, and she heard Mrs. Gill scream. "Mrs. Gill was still screaming when I came to my senses. I was then in the oak parlour, I think. I held Sympson before me crushed into a chair, and my hand was on his cravat. His eyes rolled in his head; the housekeeper stood wringing her hands, begging me to stop. I did stop, feeling at once as cool as stone. I told Mrs. Gill to fetch the chaise instantly, and informed Mr. Sympson he must depart from Fieldhead forthwith. "He threatened prosecution; but I cared for nothing. I remained with him till the chaise came. I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way. He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have resisted me, but knew not how. I said his wife and daughters should follow him as soon as they could prepare. He fumed and fretted, but he could do nothing. That man is forever impotent. His wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of importance; and I have long since earned her undying gratitude by my devotion to her boy. In Henry's ailments I have nursed him better, she said, than any woman could nurse. She will never forget that. "She and her daughters quitted me today, in mute consternation; but she respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I lifted him into the carriage, when I arranged Mrs. Sympson's wrappings to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I saw the tears start to her eyes. She will advocate my cause. I am glad of this - not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol - my Shirley." Once again he writes, a week after: "I am now at Stilbro'. I have taken up my temporary abode with a friend - a professional man, in whose business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine? I am not tranquil; I am tantalized, sometimes tortured. To see her now, one would think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder, or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders me miserable. I am shunned when I visit her; she withdraws from my reach. "Today I lifted her face, resolved to get a full look into her deep, dark eyes. Difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress! beautiful forest-born! tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain; she dreams of her wild woods and pines after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I fear any long delay "It is now midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at Fieldhead. As she came down the oak staircase to the hall, how shyly shone her large eyes upon me! How fugitive she looked - slim and swift as a northern aurora! "I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone were there. In her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full, with her noiseless step, her eye full of night and lightning, Shirley looked, I thought, spirit-like - the child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray and raindrop - a thing never to be arrested, fixed. I could not stop looking at her. I talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at her. She was very silent; she never spoke to me. "When she was called out for a minute by Mrs. Gill, I went into the moonlit hall, with the aim of getting a word as she returned. "'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I. "'Why? the hall is too cold.' "'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.' "'But I shiver.' "'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and distant. Why?' "'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight.' "'Do not pass! Stay with me awhile. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes are cruel.' "'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly enough; but there was also reserve in her manner. "'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly a week since you called me your future husband. Now I am once more the tutor, addressed as Mr. Moore and sir. Your lips have forgotten Louis.' "'No, Louis, no.' "'Be cordial to Louis, then; let him approach.' "'I am cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow. "'You seem subdued, but still startled.' "'No - quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured me. "'Of nothing but your votary.' I knelt on the flagstones at her feet. "'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I don't know myself; I don't know you. But rise. When you do that, I feel troubled.' "I obeyed, and put on serenity and confidence for her. She clung to me again. "'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far from happy in my present uncertain state.' "'You are happy!' she cried hastily. 'You don't know how happy you are. Any change will be for the worse. Louis; be patient! I like you because you are patient.' "'Like me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix our marriage day; think of it tonight, and decide.' "She breathed an inarticulate murmur; darted, or melted, from my arms - and I lost her."

Shirley

Chapter 36: WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM

Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return home. All Briarfield wondered at his strange absence, and Whinbury and Nunnely brought each its separate contribution of amazement. Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was known twenty--forty times over, there being at least forty plausible reasons adduced to account for the unaccountable circumstance. Business it was not--_that_ the gossips agreed. He had achieved the business on which he departed long ago. His four ringleaders he had soon scented out and run down. He had attended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them safely shipped prior to transportation. This was known at Briarfield. The newspapers had reported it. The _Stilbro' Courier_ had given every particular, with amplifications. None applauded his perseverance or hailed his success, though the mill-owners were glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law vindicated would henceforward paralyze the sinister valour of disaffection. Disaffection, however, was still heard muttering to himself. He swore ominous oaths over the drugged beer of alehouses, and drank strange toasts in fiery British gin. One report affirmed that Moore _dared_ not come to Yorkshire; he knew his life was not worth an hour's purchase if he did. "I'll tell him that," said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman mentioned the rumour; "and if _that_ does not bring him home full gallop, nothing will." Either that or some other motive prevailed at last to recall him. He announced to Joe Scott the day he should arrive at Stilbro', desiring his hackney to be sent to the George for his accommodation; and Joe Scott having informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman made it in his way to meet him. It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his usual place at the market dinner. As something of a stranger, and as a man of note and action, the assembled manufacturers received him with a certain distinction. Some, who in public would scarcely have dared to acknowledge his acquaintance, lest a little of the hate and vengeance laid up in store for him should perchance have fallen on them, in private hailed him as in some sort their champion. When the wine had circulated, their respect would have kindled to enthusiasm had not Moore's unshaken nonchalance held it in a damp, low, smouldering state. Mr. Yorke, the permanent president of these dinners, witnessed his young friend's bearing with exceeding complacency. If one thing could stir his temper or excite his contempt more than another, it was to see a man befooled by flattery or elate with popularity. If one thing smoothed, soothed, and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle of a public character incapable of relishing his publicity--_incapable_, I say. Disdain would but have incensed; it was indifference that appeased his rough spirit. Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while the clothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess and rehearsed his deeds--many of them interspersing their flatteries with coarse invectives against the operative class--was a delectable sight for Mr. Yorke. His heart tingled with the pleasing conviction that these gross eulogiums shamed Moore deeply, and made him half scorn himself and his work. On abuse, on reproach, on calumny, it is easy to smile; but painful indeed is the panegyric of those we contemn. Often had Moore gazed with a brilliant countenance over howling crowds from a hostile hustings. He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with gallant bearing and soul elate; but he drooped his head under the half-bred tradesmen's praise, and shrank chagrined before their congratulations. Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters, and whether he did not think they did honour to his cause. "But it is a pity, lad," he added, "that you did not hang these four samples of the unwashed. If you had managed _that_ feat, the gentry here would have riven the horses out of the coach, yoked to a score of asses, and drawn you into Stilbro' like a conquering general." Moore soon forsook the wine, broke from the party, and took the road. In less than five minutes Mr. Yorke followed him. They rode out of Stilbro' together. It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day. The last ray of the sun had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October night was casting over the moorlands the shadow of her approach. Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate libations, and not displeased to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him for his comrade during the long ride home, took the discourse much to himself. He touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and the conviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and ere long he attacked Moore on his own personal concerns. "Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it. All was smooth. Fortune had fallen in love with you. She had decreed you the first prize in her wheel--twenty thousand pounds; she only required that you should hold your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You called for a horse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire. Your sweetheart--Fortune, I mean--was perfectly indulgent. She said, 'I'll excuse him; he's young.' She waited, like 'Patience on a monument,' till the chase was over and the vermin-prey run down. She expected you would come back then, and be a good lad. You might still have had her first prize. "It capped her beyond expression, and me too, to find that, instead of thundering home in a breakneck gallop and laying your assize laurels at her feet, you coolly took coach up to London. What you have done there Satan knows; nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked. Your face was never lily fair, but it is olive green now. You're not as bonny as you were, man." "And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?" "Only a baronet; that is all. I have not a doubt in my own mind you've lost her. She will be Lady Nunnely before Christmas." "Hem! Quite probable." "But she need not to have been. Fool of a lad! I swear you might have had her." "By what token, Mr. Yorke?" "By every token--by the light of her eyes, the red of her cheeks. Red they grew when your name was mentioned, though of custom they are pale." "My chance is quite over, I suppose?" "It ought to be. But try; it is worth trying. I call this Sir Philip milk and water. And then he writes verses, they say--tags rhymes. _You_ are above that, Bob, at all events." "Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr. Yorke--at the eleventh hour?" "You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy for you--and, on my conscience, I believe she has or had--she will forgive much. But, my lad, you are laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin at your own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side of your mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as one need wish to see." "I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so kicked against the pricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wrists with wrenching them in handcuffs, and battered my hard head by driving it against a harder wall." "Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon! I hope it has done you good--ta'en some of the self-conceit out of you?" "Self-conceit? What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance even, what are they? Do you sell the articles? Do you know anybody who does? Give an indication. They would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part with my last guinea this minute to buy." "Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like a man to speak his mind. What has gone wrong?" "The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill; the boiler, which I take to be the heart, is fit to burst." "That suld be putten i' print; it's striking. It's almost blank verse. Ye'll be jingling into poetry just e'now. If the afflatus comes, give way, Robert. Never heed me; I'll bear it this whet [time]." "Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you will rue for years--what life cannot cancel." "Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the taste uncommonly. Go on. It will do you good to talk. The moor is before us now, and there is no life for many a mile round." "I _will_ talk. I am not ashamed to tell. There is a sort of wild cat in my breast, and I choose that you shall hear how it can yell." "To me it is music. What grand voices you and Louis have! When Louis sings--tones off like a soft, deep bell--I've felt myself tremble again. The night is still. It listens. It is just leaning down to you, like a black priest to a blacker penitent. Confess, lad. Smooth naught down. Be candid as a convicted, justified, sanctified Methody at an experience meeting. Make yourself as wicked as Beelzebub. It will ease your mind." "As mean as Mammon, you would say. Yorke, if I got off horseback and laid myself down across the road, would you have the goodness to gallop over me, backwards and forwards, about twenty times?" "Wi' all the pleasure in life, if there were no such thing as a coroner's inquest." "Hiram Yorke, I certainly believed she loved me. I have seen her eyes sparkle radiantly when she has found me out in a crowd; she has flushed up crimson when she has offered me her hand, and said, 'How do you do, Mr. Moore?' "My name had a magical influence over her. When others uttered it she changed countenance--I know she did. She pronounced it herself in the most musical of her many musical tones. She was cordial to me; she took an interest in me; she was anxious about me; she wished me well; she sought, she seized every opportunity to benefit me. I considered, paused, watched, weighed, wondered. I could come to but one conclusion--this is love. "I looked at her, Yorke. I saw in her youth and a species of beauty. I saw power in her. Her wealth offered me the redemption of my honour and my standing. I owed her gratitude. She had aided me substantially and effectually by a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I remember these things? Could I believe she loved me? Could I hear wisdom urge me to marry her, and disregard every dear advantage, disbelieve every flattering suggestion, disdain every well-weighed counsel, turn and leave her? Young, graceful, gracious--my benefactress, attached to me, enamoured of me. I used to say so to myself; dwell on the word; mouth it over and over again; swell over it with a pleasant, pompous complacency, with an admiration dedicated entirely to myself, and unimpaired even by esteem for her; indeed I smiled in deep secrecy at her _navet_ and simplicity in being the first to love, and to show it. That whip of yours seems to have a good heavy handle, Yorke; you can swing it about your head and knock me out of the saddle, if you choose. I should rather relish a loundering whack." "Tak patience, Robert, till the moon rises and I can see you. Speak plain out--did you love her or not? I could like to know. I feel curious." "Sir--sir--I say--she is very pretty, in her own style, and very attractive. She has a look, at times, of a thing made out of fire and air, at which I stand and marvel, without a thought of clasping and kissing it. I felt in her a powerful magnet to my interest and vanity. I never felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self. When a question on that head rushed upon me, I flung it off, saying brutally I should be rich with her and ruined without her--vowing I would be practical, and not romantic." "A very sensible resolve. What mischief came of it, Bob?" "With this sensible resolve I walked up to Fieldhead one night last August. It was the very eve of my departure for Birmingham; for, you see, I wanted to secure Fortune's splendid prize. I had previously dispatched a note requesting a private interview. I found her at home, and alone. "She received me without embarrassment, for she thought I came on business. _I_ was embarrassed enough, but determined. I hardly know how I got the operation over; but I went to work in a hard, firm fashion--frightful enough, I dare say. I sternly offered myself--my fine person--with my debts, of course, as a settlement. "It vexed me, it kindled my ire, to find that she neither blushed, trembled, nor looked down. She responded, 'I doubt whether I have understood you, Mr. Moore.' "And I had to go over the whole proposal twice, and word it as plainly as A B C, before she would fully take it in. And then, what did she do? Instead of faltering a sweet Yes, or maintaining a soft, confused silence (which would have been as good), she started up, walked twice fast through the room, in the way that _she_ only does, and no other woman, and ejaculated, 'God bless me!' "Yorke, I stood on the hearth, backed by the mantelpiece; against it I leaned, and prepared for anything--everything. I knew my doom, and I knew myself. There was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice. She stopped and looked at me. "'God bless me!' she piteously repeated, in that shocked, indignant, yet saddened accent. 'You have made a strange proposal--strange from _you_; and if you knew how strangely you worded it and looked it, you would be startled at yourself. You spoke like a brigand who demanded my purse rather than like a lover who asked my heart.' "A queer sentence, was it not, Yorke? And I knew, as she uttered it, it was true as queer. Her words were a mirror in which I saw myself. "I looked at her, dumb and wolfish. She at once enraged and shamed me. "'Grard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar.' I might have broken out into false swearing--vowed that I did love her; but I could not lie in her pure face. I could not perjure myself in her truthful presence. Besides, such hollow oaths would have been vain as void. She would no more have believed me than she would have believed the ghost of Judas, had he broken from the night and stood before her. Her female heart had finer perceptions than to be cheated into mistaking my half-coarse, half-cold admiration for true-throbbing, manly love. "What next happened? you will say, Mr. Yorke. "Why, she sat down in the window-seat and cried. She cried passionately. Her eyes not only rained but lightened. They flashed, open, large, dark, haughty, upon me. They said, 'You have pained me; you have outraged me; you have deceived me.' "She added words soon to looks. "'I _did_ respect--I _did_ admire--I _did_ like you,' she said--'yes, as much as if you were my brother; and _you--you_ want to make a speculation of me. You would immolate me to that mill, your Moloch!' "I had the common sense to abstain from any word of excuse, any attempt at palliation. I stood to be scorned. "Sold to the devil for the time being, I was certainly infatuated. When I did speak, what do you think I said? "'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded _you_ loved _me_, Miss Keeldar.' "Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moore that speaks?' I heard her mutter. 'Is it a man--or something lower?' "'Do you mean,' she asked aloud--'do you mean you thought I loved you as we love those we wish to marry?' "It _was_ my meaning, and I said so. "'You conceived an idea obnoxious to a woman's feelings,' was her answer. 'You have announced it in a fashion revolting to a woman's soul. You insinuate that all the frank kindness I have shown you has been a complicated, a bold, and an immodest manuvre to ensnare a husband. You imply that at last you come here out of pity to offer me your hand, because I have courted you. Let me say this: Your sight is jaundiced; you have seen wrong. Your mind is warped; you have judged wrong. Your tongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at rest there. My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of affection for me.' "I hope I was answered, Yorke? "'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was my remark. "'_Loved_ you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a sister--never shunned you, never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmed triumphantly--'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, nor accelerate my pulse by your influence.' "I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that the sound of my name moved her. "'Not for _your_ sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, but could get none. "'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved you then? When I stopped you in Maythorn Lane, did you think I loved you then? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with you on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?' "So she questioned me; and I said I did. "By the Lord! Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded and refined almost to flame. There was a trembling all through her, as in live coal when its vivid vermilion is hottest. "'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of me; that you deny me the possession of all I value most. That is to say that I am a traitor to all my sisters; that I have acted as no woman can act without degrading herself and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt of my kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were silent for many a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,' she went on, 'thou art fallen! You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimate in my friendship, are cast out. Go!' "I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her lip quiver. I knew another storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm and some sunshine must come, and I would wait for it. "As fast, but more quietly than before, the warm rain streamed down. There was another sound in her weeping--a softer, more regretful sound. While I watched, her eyes lifted to me a gaze more reproachful than haughty, more mournful than incensed. "'O Moore!' said she. It was worse than 'Et tu, Brute!' "I relieved myself by what should have been a sigh, but it became a groan. A sense of Cain-like desolation made my breast ache. "'There has been error in what I have done,' I said, 'and it has won me bitter wages, which I will go and spend far from her who gave them.' "I took my hat. All the time I could not have borne to depart so, and I believed she would not let me. Nor would she but for the mortal pang I had given her pride, that cowed her compassion and kept her silent. "I was obliged to turn back of my own accord when I reached the door, to approach her, and to say, 'Forgive me.' "'I could, if there was not myself to forgive too,' was her reply; 'but to mislead a sagacious man so far I must have done wrong.' "I broke out suddenly with some declamation I do not remember. I know that it was sincere, and that my wish and aim were to absolve her to herself. In fact, in her case self-accusation was a chimera. "At last she extended her hand. For the first time I wished to take her in my arms and kiss her. I _did_ kiss her hand many times. "'Some day we shall be friends again,' she said, 'when you have had time to read my actions and motives in a true light, and not so horribly to misinterpret them. Time may give you the right key to all. Then, perhaps, you will comprehend me, and then we shall be reconciled.' "Farewell drops rolled slow down her cheeks. She wiped them away. "'I am sorry for what has happened--deeply sorry,' she sobbed. So was I, God knows! Thus were we severed." "A queer tale!" commented Mr. Yorke. "I'll do it no more," vowed his companion; "never more will I mention marriage to a woman unless I feel love. Henceforth credit and commerce may take care of themselves. Bankruptcy may come when it lists. I have done with slavish fear of disaster. I mean to work diligently, wait patiently, bear steadily. Let the worst come, I will take my axe and an emigrant's berth, and go out with Louis to the West; he and I have settled it. No woman shall ever again look at me as Miss Keeldar looked, ever again feel towards me as Miss Keeldar felt. In no woman's presence will I ever again stand at once such a fool and such a knave, such a brute and such a puppy." "Tut!" said the imperturbable Yorke, "you make too much of it; but still, I say, I am capped. Firstly, that she did not love you; and secondly, that you did not love her. You are both young; you are both handsome; you are both well enough for wit and even for temper--take you on the right side. What ailed you that you could not agree?" "We never _have_ been, never _could_ be _at home_ with each other, Yorke. Admire each other as we might at a distance, still we jarred when we came very near. I have sat at one side of a room and observed her at the other, perhaps in an excited, genial moment, when she had some of her favourites round her--her old beaux, for instance, yourself and Helstone, with whom she is so playful, pleasant, and eloquent. I have watched her when she was most natural, most lively, and most lovely; my judgment has pronounced her beautiful. Beautiful she is at times, when her mood and her array partake of the splendid. I have drawn a little nearer, feeling that our terms of acquaintance gave me the right of approach. I have joined the circle round her seat, caught her eye, and mastered her attention; then we have conversed; and others, thinking me, perhaps, peculiarly privileged, have withdrawn by degrees, and left us alone. Were we happy thus left? For myself, I must say No. Always a feeling of constraint came over me; always I was disposed to be stern and strange. We talked politics and business. No soft sense of domestic intimacy ever opened our hearts, or thawed our language and made it flow easy and limpid. If we had confidences, they were confidences of the counting-house, not of the heart. Nothing in her cherished affection in me, made me better, gentler; she only stirred my brain and whetted my acuteness. She never crept into my heart or influenced its pulse; and for this good reason, no doubt, because I had not the secret of making her love me." "Well, lad, it is a queer thing. I might laugh at thee, and reckon to despise thy refinements; but as it is dark night and we are by ourselves, I don't mind telling thee that thy talk brings back a glimpse of my own past life. Twenty-five years ago I tried to persuade a beautiful woman to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to her nature; she was a stone wall to me, doorless and windowless." "But you loved _her_, Yorke; you worshipped Mary Cave. Your conduct, after all, was that of a man--never of a fortune-hunter." "Ay, I _did_ love her; but then she was beautiful as the moon we do _not_ see to-night. There is naught like her in these days. Miss Helstone, maybe, has a look of her, but nobody else." "Who has a look of her?" "That black-coated tyrant's niece--that quiet, delicate Miss Helstone. Many a time I have put on my spectacles to look at the lassie in church, because she has gentle blue een, wi' long lashes; and when she sits in shadow, and is very still and very pale, and is, happen, about to fall asleep wi' the length of the sermon and the heat of the biggin', she is as like one of Canova's marbles as aught else." "Was Mary Cave in that style?" "Far grander!--less lass-like and flesh-like. You wondered why she hadn't wings and a crown. She was a stately, peaceful angel was my Mary." "And you could not persuade her to love you?" "Not with all I could do, though I prayed Heaven many a time, on my bended knees, to help me." "Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I have seen her picture at the rectory. She is no angel, but a fair, regular-featured, taciturn-looking woman--rather too white and lifeless for my taste. But, supposing she had been something better than she was----" "Robert," interrupted Yorke, "I could fell you off your horse at this moment. However, I'll hold my hand. Reason tells me you are right and I am wrong. I know well enough that the passion I still have is only the remnant of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling or sense, she could not have been so perfectly impassible to my regard as she showed herself; she must have preferred me to that copper-faced despot." "Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women were educated in those days); supposing she had possessed a thoughtful, original mind, a love of knowledge, a wish for information, which she took an artless delight in receiving from your lips, and having measured out to her by your hand; supposing her conversation, when she sat at your side, was fertile, varied, imbued with a picturesque grace and genial interest, quiet flowing but clear and bounteous; supposing that when you stood near her by chance, or when you sat near her by design, comfort at once became your atmosphere, and content your element; supposing that whenever her face was under your gaze, or her idea filled your thoughts, you gradually ceased to be hard and anxious, and pure affection, love of home, thirst for sweet discourse, unselfish longing to protect and cherish, replaced the sordid, cankering calculations of your trade; supposing, with all this, that many a time, when you had been so happy as to possess your Mary's little hand, you had felt it tremble as you held it, just as a warm little bird trembles when you take it from its nest; supposing you had noticed her shrink into the background on your entrance into a room, yet if you sought her in her retreat she welcomed you with the sweetest smile that ever lit a fair virgin face, and only turned her eyes from the encounter of your own lest their clearness should reveal too much; supposing, in short, your Mary had been not cold, but modest; not vacant, but reflective; not obtuse, but sensitive; not inane, but innocent; not prudish, but pure,--would you have left her to court another woman for her wealth?" Mr. Yorke raised his hat, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. "The moon is up," was his first not quite relevant remark, pointing with his whip across the moor. "There she is, rising into the haze, staring at us wi' a strange red glower. She is no more silver than old Helstone's brow is ivory. What does she mean by leaning her cheek on Rushedge i' that way, and looking at us wi' a scowl and a menace?" "Yorke, if Mary had loved you silently yet faithfully, chastely yet fervently, as you would wish your wife to love, would you have left her?" "Robert!"--he lifted his arm, he held it suspended, and paused--"Robert! this is a queer world, and men are made of the queerest dregs that Chaos churned up in her ferment. I might swear sounding oaths--oaths that would make the poachers think there was a bittern booming in Bilberry Moss--that, in the case you put, death only should have parted me from Mary. But I have lived in the world fifty-five years; I have been forced to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, the odds are, if Mary had loved and not scorned me, if I had been secure of her affection, certain of her constancy, been irritated by no doubts, stung by no humiliations--the odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on the saddle)--"the odds are I should have left her!" They rode side by side in silence. Ere either spoke again they were on the other side of Rushedge. Briarfield lights starred the purple skirt of the moor. Robert, being the youngest, and having less of the past to absorb him than his comrade, recommenced first. "I believe--I daily find it proved--that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of avarice. We are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter." "What art thou going to do now, Robert? What are thy plans?" "For my private plans, I'll keep them to myself--which is very easy, as at present I have none. No private life is permitted a man in my position--a man in debt. For my public plans, my views are a little altered. While I was in Birmingham I looked a little into reality, considered closely and at their source the causes of the present troubles of this country. I did the same in London. Unknown, I could go where I pleased, mix with whom I would. I went where there was want of food, of fuel, of clothing; where there was no occupation and no hope. I saw some, with naturally elevated tendencies and good feelings, kept down amongst sordid privations and harassing griefs. I saw many originally low, and to whom lack of education left scarcely anything but animal wants, disappointed in those wants, ahungered, athirst, and desperate as famished animals. I saw what taught my brain a new lesson, and filled my breast with fresh feelings. I have no intention to profess more softness or sentiment than I have hitherto professed; mutiny and ambition I regard as I have always regarded them. I should resist a riotous mob just as heretofore; I should open on the scent of a runaway ringleader as eagerly as ever, and run him down as relentlessly, and follow him up to condign punishment as rigorously; but I should do it now chiefly for the sake and the security of those he misled. Something there is to look to, Yorke, beyond a man's personal interest, beyond the advancement of well-laid schemes, beyond even the discharge of dishonouring debts. To respect himself, a man must believe he renders justice to his fellow-men. Unless I am more considerate to ignorance, more forbearing to suffering, than I have hitherto been, I shall scorn myself as grossly unjust.--What now?" he said, addressing his horse, which, hearing the ripple of water, and feeling thirsty, turned to a wayside trough, where the moonbeam was playing in a crystal eddy. "Yorke," pursued Moore, "ride on; I must let him drink." Yorke accordingly rode slowly forwards, occupying himself as he advanced in discriminating, amongst the many lights now spangling the distance, those of Briarmains. Stilbro' Moor was left behind; plantations rose dusk on either hand; they were descending the hill; below them lay the valley with its populous parish: they felt already at home. Surrounded no longer by heath, it was not startling to Mr. Yorke to see a hat rise, and to hear a voice speak behind the wall. The words, however, were peculiar. "When the wicked perisheth there is shouting," it said; and added, "As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more" (with a deeper growl): "terrors take hold of him as waters; hell is naked before him. He shall die without knowledge." A fierce flash and sharp crack violated the calm of night. Yorke, ere he turned, knew the four convicts of Birmingham were avenged.

Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Robert Moore to return home. The gossips agreed that it was not business that kept him away. He had finished that long ago. He had soon run down his four ringleaders; he had attended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them safely shipped prior to transportation. The newspapers had reported this. None hailed his success, though the mill-owners were glad of it, trusting that the terrors of the law would from now on paralyse the disaffected. Disaffection, however, was still heard muttering to himself in alehouses. One report affirmed that Moore dared not come to Yorkshire; he knew his life was forfeit if he did. "I'll tell him that," said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman mentioned the rumour; "and if that does not bring him home full gallop, nothing will." Either that or some other motive at last recalled him. He wrote to Joe Scott naming the day he should arrive at Stilbro', and Joe Scott having informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman went to meet him. It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his usual place at the market dinner, where the assembled manufacturers received him with distinction, daring in private to do what they would not do in public - hailing him as their champion. Moore's unshaken nonchalance dampened their enthusiasm and held it in a low, smouldering state. Mr. Yorke, the president of these dinners, witnessed his young friend's bearing complacently. He despised men who were fooled by flattery or popularity. Indifference appeased his rough spirit. Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while the clothiers and blanket-makers praised him, was a delectable sight for Mr. Yorke. Moore drooped his head, and shrank before the tradesmen's congratulations. He soon forsook the wine and took to the road. Mr. Yorke followed him, and they rode out of Stilbro' together. It was late in the day. The sun's last ray had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October night was casting her shadow over the moorlands. Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with drink, and pleased to have young Moore as a comrade, did much of the talking. He touched briefly on the trials and conviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and before long he attacked Moore on his personal concerns. "Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it. Fortune offered you twenty thousand pounds; you only had to hold out your hand and take it. And what did you do? You called for a horse and rode to Warwickshire. Yet Fortune waited for you. You might still have had the prize. "Then, instead of thundering home in a breakneck gallop and laying your laurels at her feet, you coolly went to London. What you have done there Satan knows; nothing, I believe, but sat and sulked." "And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?" "Only a baronet; that is all. She will be Lady Nunnely before Christmas. Fool of a lad! I swear you might have had her." "By what sign, Mr. Yorke?" "By every sign - by the light of her eyes; her cheeks grew red when your name was mentioned." "My chance is quite over, I suppose?" "It ought to be. But it is worth trying. I call this Sir Philip milk and water. And then he writes verses. You are above that, at all events." "Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr. Yorke?" "You can but try, Robert. If she has a fancy for you, she will forgive much. But, my lad, you are laughing." "I have quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have battered my head by driving it against a wall." "Why, what has gone wrong?" "The machinery of all my nature; the whole engine of this human mill; the boiler, which I take to be the heart, is fit to burst." "Ye'll be jingling into poetry, Robert." "Hideous, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you will rue for years. Yorke, if I got off horseback and laid myself down in the road, would you have the goodness to gallop over me, backwards and forwards, about twenty times?" "Wi' all the pleasure in life, if there were no such thing as a coroner's inquest." "I certainly believed she loved me. I have seen her eyes sparkle radiantly when she saw me in a crowd; she has flushed up crimson when she has offered me her hand, and said, 'How do you do, Mr. Moore?' "My name had a magical influence over her," continued Moore. "She blushed when others said it. She pronounced it in her most musical tone. She took an interest in me; she was anxious about me; she wished me well; she sought to benefit me. I could come to but one conclusion - this is love. "Yorke, in her I saw youth and beauty; and power. Her wealth offered me the redemption of my honour. She had aided me substantially by a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I believe she loved me? Indeed I smiled at her navet and simplicity in showing her love. That whip of yours seems to have a good heavy handle, Yorke; swing it about your head and knock me out of the saddle, if you please." "Patience, Robert, till the moon rises and I can see you. Did you love her or not?" "She is very pretty, in her own style. She has a look of a thing made out of fire and air, at which I stand and marvel, without a thought of clasping it. She attracted my interest and vanity. I never felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self. When that question came to me, I flung it off, saying brutally that I should be rich with her and ruined without her - vowing I would be practical, and not romantic." "A very sensible resolve," said Mr. Yorke. "With this sensible resolve I walked up to Fieldhead one night last August, the eve of my departure. I had sent a note, and I found her at home, and alone. "She received me without embarrassment, for she thought I came on business. I was embarrassed enough, but determined. I hardly know how I got the operation over. I sternly offered myself - my fine person - with my debts, of course, as a settlement. "It vexed me to find that she neither blushed, trembled, nor looked down. She responded, 'I doubt whether I have understood you, Mr. Moore.' "And I had to go over the whole proposal twice, before she would fully take it in. And then, what did she do? Instead of faltering a sweet Yes, or maintaining a soft, confused silence, she started up, walked twice fast through the room, and exclaimed, 'God bless me!' "Yorke, I stood on the hearth, and I knew my doom. There was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice. She stopped and looked at me. "'God bless me!' she repeated, in that shocked, indignant, yet saddened tone. 'You have made a strange proposal; and if you knew how strangely you worded it and looked it, you would be startled at yourself. You spoke like a brigand who demanded my purse rather than like a lover who asked my heart.' "I knew, as she uttered it, it was true. I looked at her, dumb and wolfish. She at once enraged and shamed me. "'Grard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar,' she said. I might have broken out into false swearing - vowed that I did love her; but I could not lie in her face. Besides, she would not have believed me. She would never have mistaken my half-coarse, half-cold admiration for true manly love. "Next, she sat down in the window-seat and cried passionately. Her eyes were haughty, pained; saying, you have outraged me. She added words. "'I did respect - I did like you,' she said, 'Yes, as much as if you were my brother; and you - you want to make a speculation of me, for that mill!' "And what do you think I said? 'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded you loved me, Miss Keeldar.' "Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moore that speaks?' I heard her mutter. 'Do you mean,' she asked aloud, 'you thought I loved as we love those we wish to marry? You insinuate that all the frank kindness I have shown you has been a complicated, bold, and immodest manuvre to ensnare a husband. You imply that at last you come here out of pity to offer me your hand, because I have courted you. Let me say this: you have seen wrong. Your mind is warped; you have judged wrong. Your tongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at rest there. My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of affection for me.' "I hope I was answered, Yorke? "'I seem to be blind and besotted,' was my remark. "'Loved you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a sister - never shunned you, never feared you. Your presence cannot make me tremble, nor quicken my pulse.' "I alleged that the sound of my name moved her; it made her blush. "'Not for your sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, but could get none. "'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved you then? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with you on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?' "I said I did. Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded almost to flame. "'Then you say that I have acted as no woman can act without degrading herself. You were once high in my esteem, but are now hurled down; you, once intimate in my friendship, are cast out. Go!' "I went not. I had seen her lip quiver. I knew another storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm must follow, and I would wait for it. "This time she wept more softly. Her eyes lifted to me a gaze more reproachful than haughty, more mournful than incensed. "'O Moore!' said she. I groaned. "'I have done wrong,' I said, 'and I will go.' "I took my hat. Yet I believed she would not let me depart. But she was silent. I was obliged to turn back of my own accord when I reached the door, and to say, 'Forgive me.' "'I could, if there was not myself to forgive too,' was her reply; 'but to mislead an intelligent man I must have done wrong.' "I broke out suddenly with some declamation I do not remember. I know that I sincerely wished to absolve her. She had done no wrong. "At last she extended her hand. For the first time I wished to take her in my arms and kiss her. I did kiss her hand many times. "'Some day we shall be friends again,' she said, 'when you have had time to read my actions in a true light, and not so horribly to misinterpret them. Time may give you the right key to all.' "Drops rolled slow down her cheeks. She wiped them away. "'I am deeply sorry for what has happened,' she sobbed. So was I, God knows! Thus were we parted." "A queer tale!" commented Mr. Yorke. "I'll do it no more," vowed his companion; "never more will I mention marriage to a woman unless I feel love. Credit and commerce may take care of themselves. I mean to work diligently, and wait patiently. If the worst comes, I will take an emigrant's berth, and go out with Louis to America. No woman shall ever again feel towards me as Miss Keeldar felt. In no woman's presence will I ever again stand such a fool and a knave, such a brute and a puppy." "Tut!" said the imperturbable Yorke, "you make too much of it. Still, I am surprised that she did not love you; and that you did not love her. You are both young; you are both handsome, and have wit enough. What ailed you that you could not agree?" "We never could be at home with each other, Yorke. We jarred when we came very near. I have sat at one side of a room and observed her when she was most natural and lively. I have drawn a little nearer, have joined the circle round her seat, and been left alone with her. Were we happy thus? For myself, I must say No. Always a feeling of constraint came over me; I became stern and strange. We talked politics and business. If we had confidences, they were confidences of the counting-house, not of the heart. She never crept into my heart." "Well, lad, it is a queer thing. I don't mind telling thee that thy talk brings back a glimpse of my own past life. Twenty-five years ago I tried to persuade a beautiful woman to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to her nature; she was a stone wall to me, doorless and windowless." "But you loved her, Yorke; you worshipped Mary Cave. You were never a fortune-hunter." "Ay, I did love her; but then she was beautiful as the moon. There is naught like her in these days. Miss Helstone, maybe, has a look of her, but nobody else." "Who has a look of her?" "That quiet, delicate Miss Helstone. Many a time I have looked at the lassie in church, when she sits in shadow, and is very still and very pale, like a marble statue." "Was Mary Cave in that style?" "Far grander! You wondered why she hadn't wings and a crown. She was a stately, peaceful angel, was my Mary." "Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I have seen her picture at the rectory. She is no angel, but a fair, regular-featured woman - rather too lifeless for my taste. But supposing-" "Robert," interrupted Yorke, "I could fell you off your horse this moment. However, I won't. I know well enough that the passion I still have is only the remnant of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling or sense, she would have preferred me to that copper-faced despot." "Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women were educated in those days); supposing she had possessed a thoughtful, original mind, a love of knowledge, which she took an artless delight in receiving from your lips; supposing her conversation was varied and graceful; supposing that when you were near her, you were at once comforted and contented; supposing that whenever you looked at her or thought of her, you ceased to be hard and calculating, and felt an unselfish longing to protect and cherish; supposing that when you took your Mary's little hand, you felt it tremble just as a warm little bird trembles when you take it from its nest; supposing you had noticed her shrink into the background on your entrance into a room, yet if you sought her out she welcomed you with the sweetest smile, and only turned her eyes away lest they should reveal too much; supposing, in short, your Mary had been modest, sensitive and pure - would you have left her, to court another woman for her wealth?" Mr. Yorke raised his hat, and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. "The moon is up," was his only remark. "Yorke, if Mary had loved you silently yet faithfully, chastely yet fervently, would you have left her?" "Robert!" He lifted his arm, and paused. "Robert! I might swear thunderous oaths that, in the case you put, death only should have parted me from Mary. But I have lived in the world fifty-five years; I have been forced to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, if Mary had loved me, if I had been secure of her affection, the odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on the saddle) - "the odds are I should have left her!" They rode side by side in silence. Before either spoke again they were on the other side of Rushedge. Briarfield's lights starred the purple skirt of the moor. Robert recommenced first. "I believe that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, except through struggle or peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. If the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter." "What art thou going to do now, Robert? What are thy plans?" "For my private plans, I'll keep them to myself - which is very easy, as at present I have none. As for my public plans, my views are a little altered. While I was in Birmingham and London I looked a little into reality, considered closely and at their source the causes of the troubles of this country. I went where there was want of food, of fuel, of clothing; where there was no work and no hope. I saw what taught me a new lesson, and filled me with fresh feelings. I have no more softness or sentiment than previously; mutiny and ambition I regard as I have always regarded them. I should resist a riotous mob just as before; I should hunt a ringleader as eagerly as ever; but I should do it now chiefly for the sake of those he misled. Something there is to look to, Yorke, beyond a man's personal interest. To respect himself, a man must believe he is just to his fellow-men. Unless I am more considerate to ignorance, more forbearing to suffering, than I have been, I shall scorn myself as grossly unjust. - What now?" he said, addressing his horse, which had turned to a wayside trough. "Yorke, ride on; I must let him drink." Yorke accordingly rode slowly forwards. Stilbro' Moor was left behind; plantations rose shadowy on either hand; they were descending the hill; they were almost home. This close to the village, Mr. Yorke was not startled to hear a voice speak behind the wall. The words, however, were peculiar. "When the wicked perisheth there is shouting," it said; "As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more" (with a deeper growl): "Terrors take hold of him as waters; hell is naked before him. He shall die without knowledge." A fierce flash and sharp gunshot violated the calm of night. Yorke, even before he turned, knew the four convicts of Birmingham were avenged.

Shirley

Chapter 30: RUSHEDGE - A CONFESSIONAL

The fund prospered. By dint of Miss Keeldar's example, the three rectors' vigorous exertions, and the efficient though quiet aid of their spinster and spectacled lieutenants, Mary Ann Ainley and Margaret Hall, a handsome sum was raised; and this being judiciously managed, served for the present greatly to alleviate the distress of the unemployed poor. The neighbourhood seemed to grow calmer. For a fortnight past no cloth had been destroyed; no outrage on mill or mansion had been committed in the three parishes. Shirley was sanguine that the evil she wished to avert was almost escaped, that the threatened storm was passing over. With the approach of summer she felt certain that trade would improve--it always did; and then this weary war could not last for ever; peace must return one day. With peace, what an impulse would be given to commerce! Such was the usual tenor of her observations to her tenant, Grard Moore, whenever she met him where they could converse; and Moore would listen very quietly--too quietly to satisfy her. She would then by her impatient glance demand something more from him--some explanation, or at least some additional remark. Smiling in his way, with that expression which gave a remarkable cast of sweetness to his mouth, while his brow remained grave, he would answer to the effect that himself too trusted in the finite nature of the war; that it was indeed on that ground the anchor of his hopes was fixed; thereon his speculations depended. "For you are aware," he would continue, "that I now work Hollow's Mill entirely on speculation. I sell nothing; there is no market for my goods. I manufacture for a future day. I make myself ready to take advantage of the first opening that shall occur. Three months ago this was impossible to me; I had exhausted both credit and capital. You well know who came to my rescue, from what hand I received the loan which saved me. It is on the strength of that loan I am enabled to continue the bold game which, a while since, I feared I should never play more. Total ruin I know will follow loss, and I am aware that gain is doubtful; but I am quite cheerful. So long as I can be active, so long as I can strive, so long, in short, as my hands are not tied, it is impossible for me to be depressed. One year--nay, but six months--of the reign of the olive, and I am safe; for, as you say, peace will give an impulse to commerce. In this you are right; but as to the restored tranquillity of the neighbourhood, as to the permanent good effect of your charitable fund, I doubt. Eleemosynary relief never yet tranquillized the working-classes--it never made them grateful; it is not in human nature that it should. I suppose, were all things ordered aright, they ought not to be in a position to need that humiliating relief; and this they feel. We should feel it were we so placed. Besides, to whom should they be grateful? To you, to the clergy perhaps, but not to us mill-owners. They hate us worse than ever. Then the disaffected here are in correspondence with the disaffected elsewhere. Nottingham is one of their headquarters, Manchester another, Birmingham a third. The subalterns receive orders from their chiefs; they are in a good state of discipline; no blow is struck without mature deliberation. In sultry weather you have seen the sky threaten thunder day by day, and yet night after night the clouds have cleared, and the sun has set quietly; but the danger was not gone--it was only delayed. The long-threatening storm is sure to break at last. There is analogy between the moral and physical atmosphere." "Well, Mr. Moore" (so these conferences always ended), "take care of yourself. If you think that I have ever done you any good, reward me by promising to take care of yourself." "I do; I will take close and watchful care. I wish to live, not to die. The future opens like Eden before me; and still, when I look deep into the shades of my paradise, I see a vision that I like better than seraph or cherub glide across remote vistas." "Do you? Pray, what vision?" "I see----" The maid came bustling in with the tea-things. The early part of that May, as we have seen, was fine; the middle was wet; but in the last week, at change of moon, it cleared again. A fresh wind swept off the silver-white, deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them, mass on mass, to the eastern horizon, on whose verge they dwindled, and behind whose rim they disappeared, leaving the vault behind all pure blue space, ready for the reign of the summer sun. That sun rose broad on Whitsuntide. The gathering of the schools was signalized by splendid weather. Whit-Tuesday was the great day, in preparation for which the two large schoolrooms of Briarfield, built by the present rector, chiefly at his own expense, were cleaned out, whitewashed, repainted, and decorated with flowers and evergreens--some from the rectory garden, two cartloads from Fieldhead, and a wheel-barrowful from the more stingy domain of De Walden, the residence of Mr. Wynne. In these schoolrooms twenty tables, each calculated to accommodate twenty guests, were laid out, surrounded with benches, and covered with white cloths. Above them were suspended at least some twenty cages, containing as many canaries, according to a fancy of the district, specially cherished by Mr. Helstone's clerk, who delighted in the piercing song of these birds, and knew that amidst confusion of tongues they always carolled loudest. These tables, be it understood, were not spread for the twelve hundred scholars to be assembled from the three parishes, but only for the patrons and teachers of the schools. The children's feast was to be spread in the open air. At one o'clock the troops were to come in; at two they were to be marshalled; till four they were to parade the parish; then came the feast, and afterwards the meeting, with music and speechifying in the church. Why Briarfield was chosen for the point of rendezvous--the scene of the _fte_--should be explained. It was not because it was the largest or most populous parish--Whinbury far outdid it in that respect; nor because it was the oldest, antique as were the hoary church and rectory--Nunnely's low-roofed temple and mossy parsonage, buried both in coeval oaks, outstanding sentinels of Nunnwood, were older still. It was simply because Mr. Helstone willed it so, and Mr. Helstone's will was stronger than that of Boultby or Hall; the former _could_ not, the latter _would_ not, dispute a point of precedence with their resolute and imperious brother. They let him lead and rule. This notable anniversary had always hitherto been a trying day to Caroline Helstone, because it dragged her perforce into public, compelling her to face all that was wealthy, respectable, influential in the neighbourhood; in whose presence, but for the kind countenance of Mr. Hall, she would have appeared unsupported. Obliged to be conspicuous; obliged to walk at the head of her regiment as the rector's niece, and first teacher of the first class; obliged to make tea at the first table for a mixed multitude of ladies and gentlemen, and to do all this without the countenance of mother, aunt, or other chaperon--she, meantime, being a nervous person, who mortally feared publicity--it will be comprehended that, under these circumstances, she trembled at the approach of Whitsuntide. But this year Shirley was to be with her, and that changed the aspect of the trial singularly--it changed it utterly. It was a trial no longer--it was almost an enjoyment. Miss Keeldar was better in her single self than a host of ordinary friends. Quite self-possessed, and always spirited and easy; conscious of her social importance, yet never presuming upon it--it would be enough to give one courage only to look at her. The only fear was lest the heiress should not be punctual to tryst. She often had a careless way of lingering behind time, and Caroline knew her uncle would not wait a second for any one. At the moment of the church clock tolling two, the bells would clash out and the march begin. She must look after Shirley, then, in this matter, or her expected companion would fail her. Whit-Tuesday saw her rise almost with the sun. She, Fanny, and Eliza were busy the whole morning arranging the rectory parlours in first-rate company order, and setting out a collation of cooling refreshments--wine, fruit, cakes--on the dining-room sideboard. Then she had to dress in her freshest and fairest attire of white muslin: the perfect fineness of the day and the solemnity of the occasion warranted, and even exacted, such costume. Her new sash--a birthday present from Margaret Hall, which she had reason to believe Cyril himself had bought, and in return for which she had indeed given him a set of cambric bands in a handsome case--was tied by the dexterous fingers of Fanny, who took no little pleasure in arraying her fair young mistress for the occasion. Her simple bonnet had been trimmed to correspond with her sash; her pretty but inexpensive scarf of white crape suited her dress. When ready she formed a picture, not bright enough to dazzle, but fair enough to interest; not brilliantly striking, but very delicately pleasing--a picture in which sweetness of tint, purity of air, and grace of mien atoned for the absence of rich colouring and magnificent contour. What her brown eye and clear forehead showed of her mind was in keeping with her dress and face--modest, gentle, and, though pensive, harmonious. It appeared that neither lamb nor dove need fear her, but would welcome rather, in her look of simplicity and softness, a sympathy with their own natures, or with the natures we ascribe to them. After all, she was an imperfect, faulty human being, fair enough of form, hue, and array, but, as Cyril Hall said, neither so good nor so great as the withered Miss Ainley, now putting on her best black gown and Quaker drab shawl and bonnet in her own narrow cottage chamber. Away Caroline went, across some very sequestered fields and through some quite hidden lanes, to Fieldhead. She glided quickly under the green hedges and across the greener leas. There was no dust, no moisture, to soil the hem of her stainless garment, or to damp her slender sandal. After the late rains all was clean, and under the present glowing sun all was dry. She walked fearlessly, then, on daisy and turf, and through thick plantations; she reached Fieldhead, and penetrated to Miss Keeldar's dressing-room. It was well she had come, or Shirley would have been too late. Instead of making ready with all speed, she lay stretched on a couch, absorbed in reading. Mrs. Pryor stood near, vainly urging her to rise and dress. Caroline wasted no words. She immediately took the book from her, and with her own hands commenced the business of disrobing and rerobing her. Shirley, indolent with the heat, and gay with her youth and pleasurable nature, wanted to talk, laugh, and linger; but Caroline, intent on being in time, persevered in dressing her as fast as fingers could fasten strings or insert pins. At length, as she united a final row of hooks and eyes, she found leisure to chide her, saying she was very naughty to be so unpunctual, that she looked even now the picture of incorrigible carelessness; and so Shirley did, but a very lovely picture of that tiresome quality. She presented quite a contrast to Caroline. There was style in every fold of her dress and every line of her figure. The rich silk suited her better than a simpler costume; the deep embroidered scarf became her. She wore it negligently but gracefully. The wreath on her bonnet crowned her well. The attention to fashion, the tasteful appliance of ornament in each portion of her dress, were quite in place with her. All this suited her, like the frank light in her eyes, the rallying smile about her lips, like her shaft-straight carriage and lightsome step. Caroline took her hand when she was dressed, hurried her downstairs, out of doors; and thus they sped through the fields, laughing as they went, and looking very much like a snow-white dove and gem-tinted bird of paradise joined in social flight. Thanks to Miss Helstone's promptitude, they arrived in good time. While yet trees hid the church, they heard the bell tolling a measured but urgent summons for all to assemble. The trooping in of numbers, the trampling of many steps and murmuring of many voices, were likewise audible. From a rising ground, they presently saw, on the Whinbury road, the Whinbury school approaching. It numbered five hundred souls. The rector and curate, Boultby and Donne, headed it--the former looming large in full canonicals, walking as became a beneficed priest, under the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the dignity of an ample corporation, the embellishment of the squarest and vastest of black coats, and the support of the stoutest of gold-headed canes. As the doctor walked, he now and then slightly flourished his cane, and inclined his shovel-hat with a dogmatical wag towards his aide-de-camp. That aide-de-camp--Donne, to wit--narrow as the line of his shape was, compared to the broad bulk of his principal, contrived, notwithstanding, to look every inch a curate. All about him was pragmatical and self-complacent, from his turned-up nose and elevated chin to his clerical black gaiters, his somewhat short, strapless trousers, and his square-toed shoes. Walk on, Mr. Donne! You have undergone scrutiny. You think you look well. Whether the white and purple figures watching you from yonder hill think so is another question. These figures come running down when the regiment has marched by. The churchyard is full of children and teachers, all in their very best holiday attire; and, distressed as is the district, bad as are the times, it is wonderful to see how respectably, how handsomely even, they have contrived to clothe themselves. That British love of decency will work miracles. The poverty which reduces an Irish girl to rags is impotent to rob the English girl of the neat wardrobe she knows necessary to her self-respect. Besides, the lady of the manor--that Shirley, now gazing with pleasure on this well-dressed and happy-looking crowd--has really done them good. Her seasonable bounty consoled many a poor family against the coming holiday, and supplied many a child with a new frock or bonnet for the occasion. She knows it, and is elate with the consciousness--glad that her money, example, and influence have really, substantially, benefited those around her. She cannot be charitable like Miss Ainley: it is not in her nature. It relieves her to feel that there is another way of being charitable, practicable for other characters, and under other circumstances. Caroline, too, is pleased, for she also has done good in her small way--robbed herself of more than one dress, ribbon, or collar she could ill spare, to aid in fitting out the scholars of her class; and as she could not give money, she has followed Miss Ainley's example in giving her time and her industry to sew for the children. Not only is the churchyard full, but the rectory garden is also thronged. Pairs and parties of ladies and gentlemen are seen walking amongst the waving lilacs and laburnums. The house also is occupied: at the wide-open parlour windows gay groups are standing. These are the patrons and teachers, who are to swell the procession. In the parson's croft, behind the rectory, are the musicians of the three parish bands, with their instruments. Fanny and Eliza, in the smartest of caps and gowns, and the whitest of aprons, move amongst them, serving out quarts of ale, whereof a stock was brewed very sound and strong some weeks since by the rector's orders, and under his special superintendence. Whatever he had a hand in must be managed handsomely. "Shabby doings" of any description were not endured under his sanction. From the erection of a public building, a church, school, or court-house, to the cooking of a dinner, he still advocated the lordly, liberal, and effective. Miss Keeldar was like him in this respect, and they mutually approved each other's arrangements. Caroline and Shirley were soon in the midst of the company. The former met them very easily for her. Instead of sitting down in a retired corner, or stealing away to her own room till the procession should be marshalled, according to her wont, she moved through the three parlours, conversed and smiled, absolutely spoke once or twice ere she was spoken to, and, in short, seemed a new creature. It was Shirley's presence which thus transformed her; the view of Miss Keeldar's air and manner did her a world of good. Shirley had no fear of her kind, no tendency to shrink from, to avoid it. All human beings--men, women, or children--whom low breeding or coarse presumption did not render positively offensive, were welcome enough to her--some much more so than others, of course; but, generally speaking, till a man had indisputably proved himself bad and a nuisance, Shirley was willing to think him good and an acquisition, and to treat him accordingly. This disposition made her a general favourite, for it robbed her very raillery of its sting, and gave her serious or smiling conversation a happy charm; nor did it diminish the value of her intimate friendship, which was a distinct thing from this social benevolence--depending, indeed, on quite a different part of her character. Miss Helstone was the choice of her affection and intellect; the Misses Pearson, Sykes, Wynne, etc., etc., only the profiteers by her good-nature and vivacity. Donne happened to come into the drawing-room while Shirley, sitting on the sofa, formed the centre of a tolerably wide circle. She had already forgotten her exasperation against him, and she bowed and smiled good-humouredly. The disposition of the man was then seen. He knew neither how to decline the advance with dignity, as one whose just pride has been wounded, nor how to meet it with frankness, as one who is glad to forget and forgive. His punishment had impressed him with no sense of shame, and he did not experience that feeling on encountering his chastiser. He was not vigorous enough in evil to be actively malignant--he merely passed by sheepishly with a rated, scowling look. Nothing could ever again reconcile him to his enemy; while no passion of resentment, for even sharper and more ignominious inflictions, could his lymphatic nature know. "He was not worth a scene!" said Shirley to Caroline. "What a fool I was! To revenge on poor Donne his silly spite at Yorkshire is something like crushing a gnat for attacking the hide of a rhinoceros. Had I been a gentleman, I believe I should have helped him off the premises by dint of physical force. I am glad now I only employed the moral weapon. But he must come near me no more. I don't like him. He irritates me. There is not even amusement to be had out of him. Malone is better sport." It seemed as if Malone wished to justify the preference, for the words were scarcely out of the speaker's mouth when Peter Augustus came up, all in _grande tenue_, gloved and scented, with his hair oiled and brushed to perfection, and bearing in one hand a huge bunch of cabbage-roses, five or six in full blow. These he presented to the heiress with a grace to which the most cunning pencil could do but defective justice. And who, after this, could dare to say that Peter was not a lady's man? He had gathered and he had given flowers; he had offered a sentimental, a poetic tribute at the shrine of Love or Mammon. Hercules holding the distaff was but a faint type of Peter bearing the roses. He must have thought this himself, for he seemed amazed at what he had done. He backed without a word; he was going away with a husky chuckle of self-satisfaction; then he bethought himself to stop and turn, to ascertain by ocular testimony that he really had presented a bouquet. Yes, there were the six red cabbages on the purple satin lap, a very white hand, with some gold rings on the fingers, slightly holding them together, and streaming ringlets, half hiding a laughing face, drooped over them. Only _half_ hiding! Peter saw the laugh; it was unmistakable. He was made a joke of; his gallantry, his chivalry, were the subject of a jest for a petticoat--for two petticoats: Miss Helstone too was smiling. Moreover, he felt he was seen through, and Peter grew black as a thunder-cloud. When Shirley looked up, a fell eye was fastened on her. Malone, at least, had energy enough in hate. She saw it in his glance. "Peter _is_ worth a scene, and shall have it, if he likes, one day," she whispered to her friend. And now--solemn and sombre as to their colour, though bland enough as to their faces--appeared at the dining-room door the three rectors. They had hitherto been busy in the church, and were now coming to take some little refreshment for the body, ere the march commenced. The large morocco-covered easy-chair had been left vacant for Dr. Boultby. He was put into it, and Caroline, obeying the instigations of Shirley, who told her now was the time to play the hostess, hastened to hand to her uncle's vast, revered, and, on the whole, worthy friend, a glass of wine and a plate of macaroons. Boultby's churchwardens, patrons of the Sunday school both, as he insisted on their being, were already beside him; Mrs. Sykes and the other ladies of his congregation were on his right hand and on his left, expressing their hopes that he was not fatigued, their fears that the day would be too warm for him. Mrs. Boultby, who held an opinion that when her lord dropped asleep after a good dinner his face became as the face of an angel, was bending over him, tenderly wiping some perspiration, real or imaginary, from his brow. Boultby, in short, was in his glory, and in a round, sound _voix de poitrine_ he rumbled out thanks for attentions and assurances of his tolerable health. Of Caroline he took no manner of notice as she came near, save to accept what she offered. He did not see her--he never did see her; he hardly knew that such a person existed. He saw the macaroons, however, and being fond of sweets, possessed himself of a small handful thereof. The wine Mrs. Boultby insisted on mingling with hot water, and qualifying with sugar and nutmeg. Mr. Hall stood near an open window, breathing the fresh air and scent of flowers, and talking like a brother to Miss Ainley. To him Caroline turned her attention with pleasure. "What should she bring him? He must not help himself--he must be served by her." And she provided herself with a little salver, that she might offer him variety. Margaret Hall joined them; so did Miss Keeldar. The four ladies stood round their favourite pastor. They also had an idea that they looked on the face of an earthly angel. Cyril Hall was their pope, infallible to them as Dr. Thomas Boultby to his admirers. A throng, too, enclosed the rector of Briarfield--twenty or more pressed round him; and no parson was ever more potent in a circle than old Helstone. The curates, herding together after their manner, made a constellation of three lesser planets. Divers young ladies watched them afar off, but ventured not nigh. Mr. Helstone produced his watch. "Ten minutes to two," he announced aloud. "Time for all to fall into line. Come." He seized his shovel-hat and marched away. All rose and followed _en masse_. The twelve hundred children were drawn up in three bodies of four hundred souls each; in the rear of each regiment was stationed a band; between every twenty there was an interval, wherein Helstone posted the teachers in pairs. To the van of the armies he summoned,-- "Grace Boultby and Mary Sykes lead out Whinbury. "Margaret Hall and Mary Ann Ainley conduct Nunnely. "Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar head Briarfield." Then again he gave command,-- "Mr. Donne to Whinbury; Mr. Sweeting to Nunnely; Mr. Malone to Briarfield." And these gentlemen stepped up before the lady-generals. The rectors passed to the full front; the parish clerks fell to the extreme rear. Helstone lifted his shovel-hat. In an instant out clashed the eight bells in the tower, loud swelled the sounding bands, flute spoke and clarion answered, deep rolled the drums, and away they marched. The broad white road unrolled before the long procession, the sun and sky surveyed it cloudless, the wind tossed the tree boughs above it, and the twelve hundred children and one hundred and forty adults of which it was composed trod on in time and tune, with gay faces and glad hearts. It was a joyous scene, and a scene to do good. It was a day of happiness for rich and poor--the work, first of God, and then of the clergy. Let England's priests have their due. They are a faulty set in some respects, being only of common flesh and blood like us all; but the land would be badly off without them. Britain would miss her church, if that church fell. God save it! God also reform it!

The fund prospered. By dint of Miss Keeldar's example, the three rectors' exertions, and the efficient though quiet aid of Mary Ann Ainley and Margaret Hall, a handsome sum was raised, which greatly alleviated the distress of the unemployed poor. The neighbourhood seemed to grow calmer. For a fortnight past no cloth had been destroyed; no outrage on mill or mansion had been committed in the three parishes. Shirley believed that the evil she wished to avert was almost escaped, that the storm was passing over. With the approach of summer, trade would improve - it always did; and this weary war could not last for ever. With peace, what an impulse would be given to commerce! Such was the usual tenor of her observations to her tenant, Grard Moore, when they met; and Moore would listen very quietly - too quietly to satisfy her. She would impatiently demand his opinion. Smiling with that expression which gave a remarkable sweetness to his mouth, while his brow remained grave, he would answer that he too trusted that the war would end; on that ground his hopes were fixed. "For you are aware," he would continue, "that I now work Hollow's Mill entirely on speculation. I sell nothing; there is no market for my goods. I manufacture for the future, and am ready to take advantage of the first opening that shall occur. Three months ago this was impossible to me; I had no money. You well know who came to my rescue, from whom I received the loan which saved me. I am aware that gain is doubtful; but I am quite cheerful. So long as I can be active, it is impossible for me to be depressed. As you say, peace will give an impulse to commerce; but as to the permanent good effect of your charitable fund, I doubt. Relief never yet made the working-classes grateful; it is not in human nature that it should. They ought not to be in a position to need that humiliating relief; and this they feel. They hate us mill-owners worse than ever. They hear from the disaffected in Nottingham and Manchester and elsewhere. They receive orders from their chiefs. The danger is not gone - it is only delayed. The long-threatening storm is sure to break at last." "Well, Mr. Moore" (so these conferences always ended), "take care of yourself." "I do. I wish to live. The future opens like Eden before me; and still, when I look deep into the shades of my paradise, I see a vision glide across remote vistas." "Do you? Pray, what vision?" "I see-" The maid came bustling in with the tea-things. In the last week of May, the weather cleared. A fresh wind swept off the deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them, mass on mass, to the eastern horizon, leaving the vault behind all pure blue space, ready for the reign of the summer sun. That sun rose broad on Whitsuntide. Whit-Tuesday was the great day of the gathering of the schools. In preparation, the two large schoolrooms of Briarfield were cleaned, whitewashed, and decorated with flowers and evergreens - some from the rectory garden, and two cartloads from Fieldhead. In these schoolrooms twenty tables, each calculated to seat twenty guests, were laid out, surrounded with benches, and covered with white cloths. Above them were suspended some twenty cages containing canaries, according to a fancy of the district. These tables were not spread for the twelve hundred scholars of the three parishes, but only for the patrons and teachers. The children's feast was to be spread in the open air. At one o'clock the troops were to come in; at two they were to be marshalled; till four they were to parade through the parish; then came the feast, and afterwards the meeting with music and speeches in the church. Briarfield was chosen for the rendezvous, not because it was the largest or oldest parish, but simply because Mr. Helstone willed it, and Mr. Helstone's will was stronger than that of Boultby or Hall. They let him lead and rule. This occasion had always been a trying day to Caroline, because it dragged her into public, compelling her to face the wealthy, respectable society of the neighbourhood. Obliged to be conspicuous; obliged to walk at the head of the first class; obliged to make tea at the first table for a mixed multitude of ladies and gentlemen, and to do all this without the presence of mother, aunt, or other chaperon - she being a nervous person, who mortally feared publicity - it will be comprehended that she trembled at the approach of Whitsuntide. But this year Shirley was to be with her, and that utterly changed the aspect of the trial. It was a trial no longer - it was almost an enjoyment. Miss Keeldar was better than a host of ordinary friends. Self-possessed, always spirited and easy; conscious of her social importance, yet never presuming upon it - it gave Caroline courage to look at her. The only fear was lest the heiress should not be punctual. Caroline knew her uncle would not wait a second for anyone. The moment the church clock tolled two, the march would begin. Whit-Tuesday saw Caroline rise almost with the sun. She, Fanny, and Eliza were busy the whole morning arranging the rectory parlours, and setting out refreshments - wine, fruit, cakes - on the dining-room sideboard. Then she had to dress in her freshest white muslin, as befitted the solemn occasion. Her new sash - a birthday present from Margaret Hall, which she had reason to believe Cyril himself had bought - was tied by Fanny, who took pleasure in arraying her fair young mistress for the occasion. Caroline's simple bonnet had been trimmed to match her sash. When ready she formed a picture, not dazzling, but delicately pleasing. Her expression, like her dress, was modest, gentle, and, though pensive, harmonious. After all, she was an imperfect, faulty human being, fair enough of form, but, as Cyril Hall said, neither so good nor so great as the withered Miss Ainley, now putting on her best black gown and drab shawl and bonnet in her own narrow cottage. Away Caroline went, across quiet fields and through hidden lanes, to Fieldhead. Underfoot, all was clean and dry under the glowing sun. She walked on daisy and turf to Fieldhead, and went to Miss Keeldar's dressing-room. It was well she had come, or Shirley would have been late. Instead of making ready, she lay stretched on a couch, absorbed in reading. Mrs. Pryor stood near, vainly urging her to rise and dress. Caroline wasted no words. She immediately took the book from Shirley, and with her own hands commenced to disrobe and rerobe her. Shirley, indolent with the heat, and gay with her youth and nature, wanted to talk, laugh, and linger; but Caroline persevered in dressing her as fast as fingers could manage. At length, as she united a final row of hooks and eyes, she chided her, saying she was very naughty to be so unpunctual, that she looked the picture of carelessness; and so Shirley did, but a very lovely picture of that tiresome quality. She presented quite a contrast to Caroline. There was style in every fold of her dress and every line of her figure. The rich silk suited her better than a simpler costume; the embroidered scarf became her. She wore it negligently but gracefully. There was a frank light in her eyes, a rallying smile about her lips, as Caroline took her hand and hurried her out of doors; and thus they sped through the fields, laughing as they went, and looking very much like a snow-white dove and gem-tinted bird of paradise joined in flight. Thanks to Miss Helstone, they arrived in good time. They heard the bell tolling a summons for all to assemble. The trampling of many steps and murmuring of many voices were audible. Soon they saw the Whinbury school approaching, numbering five hundred souls. Boultby and Donne headed it - the former walking under the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the squarest and vastest of black coats, and the stoutest of gold-headed canes. Donne looked every inch a curate, from his turned-up nose and complacent, lifted chin to his clerical black gaiters, his somewhat short trousers, and his square-toed shoes. Walk on, Mr. Donne! You have undergone scrutiny. You think you look well. Whether the white and purple figures watching you from yonder hill think so is another question. These figures come running down when the regiment has marched by. The churchyard is full of children and teachers, all in their best holiday attire; and, bad as are the times, it is wonderful to see how respectably they have managed to clothe themselves. The lady of the manor - Shirley, gazing with pleasure on this happy-looking crowd - has really done them good. Her timely bounty has supplied many a child with a new frock or bonnet. She knows it, and is glad that her money has benefited those around her. Caroline, too, is pleased, for she also has done good in her small way - robbed herself of more than one dress or ribbon she could ill spare, to aid in fitting out the scholars of her class; and as she could not give money, she has followed Miss Ainley's example in giving her time to sew for the children. Not only is the churchyard full, but the rectory garden is thronged. Groups of ladies and gentlemen are walking amongst the lilacs and laburnums. The house also is occupied: at the wide-open parlour windows stand the patrons and teachers. In the parson's croft, behind the rectory, are the musicians of the three parish bands, with their instruments. Fanny and Eliza, in their smartest caps and gowns, move amongst them, serving out quarts of ale, specially brewed by the rector's orders. He could not endure "shabby doings". Miss Keeldar was like him in this respect, and they mutually approved each other's arrangements. Caroline and Shirley were soon in the midst of the company. Caroline coped very easily for her. Instead of sitting down in a retired corner, or stealing away to her own room, she moved through the three parlours, conversed and smiled, even spoke once or twice before she was spoken to, and, in short, seemed a new creature. It was Shirley's presence which thus transformed her. Shirley had no fear of humanity, no tendency to shrink from it, and since she thought well of all people until they might prove otherwise, she was a general favourite. Donne happened to come into the drawing-room while Shirley, sitting on the sofa, formed the centre of a wide circle. She had already forgotten her exasperation against him, and she bowed and smiled good-humouredly. The man's disposition was then seen. He knew neither how to decline her greeting with dignity, as one whose just pride has been wounded, nor how to meet it with frankness, as one who is glad to forget and forgive. So he merely passed by sheepishly with a scowl. "He was not worth a scene!" said Shirley to Caroline. "What a fool I was! To take revenge on poor Donne's silly spite about Yorkshire is like crushing a gnat for attacking the hide of a rhinoceros. Had I been a gentleman, I believe I should have forcibly helped him off the premises. But he must come near me no more. He irritates me. He is not even amusing. Malone is better sport." The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Peter Augustus Malone came up, gloved and scented, with his hair oiled, and bearing in one hand a huge bunch of cabbage-roses. These he presented to the heiress. Who, after this, could dare to say that Peter was not a lady's man? He had given flowers; he had offered a sentimental tribute at the shrine of Love. He must have thought this himself, for he seemed amazed at what he had done. Backing off without a word, he was going away with a husky chuckle of self-satisfaction; then he bethought himself to stop and look back. There were the six red cabbages on the purple satin lap, a white hand holding them; and over them, ringlets, half hiding a laughing face. Only half hiding! Peter saw the laugh; it was unmistakable. He was made a joke of; his chivalry was the subject of a jest for a petticoat - for two petticoats: Miss Helstone too was smiling. Peter grew black as a thunder-cloud. When Shirley looked up, a fell eye was fastened on her. Malone, at least, had energy enough in hate. "Peter is worth a scene, and shall have it, if he likes, one day," she whispered to her friend. And now the three rectors appeared at the dining-room door. They had been busy in the church, and were coming to take some refreshment before the march began. The large easy-chair had been left vacant for Dr. Boultby. He was put into it, and Caroline hastened to hand him a glass of wine and a plate of macaroons. Boultby's churchwardens were already beside him, as were Mrs. Sykes and the other ladies of his congregation, expressing their hopes that he was not fatigued. Mrs. Boultby was bending over him, tenderly wiping some perspiration, real or imaginary, from his brow. Boultby, in short, was in his glory. Of Caroline he took no notice, save to accept what she offered. He did not see her - he never did see her; he hardly knew that such a person existed. He saw the macaroons, however. Mr. Hall stood near an open window, talking like a brother to Miss Ainley. To him Caroline turned with pleasure. "What should she bring him?" She provided herself with a little plate, so that she might offer him variety. Margaret Hall joined them; so did Miss Keeldar. The four ladies stood round their favourite pastor. A throng, too, of twenty or more enclosed old Helstone. The curates, herding together, made a constellation of three lesser planets. Various young ladies watched them afar off, but ventured not nigh. Mr. Helstone produced his watch. "Ten minutes to two," he announced. "Time to fall into line. Come." He seized his shovel-hat and marched away. All rose and followed en masse. The twelve hundred children were drawn up in three bodies of four hundred souls each; in the rear of each regiment was a band; between every twenty there was a pair of teachers. To the front of the armies Mr. Helstone summoned- "Grace Boultby and Mary Sykes lead out Whinbury. "Margaret Hall and Mary Ann Ainley conduct Nunnely. "Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar head Briarfield." Then again he gave command: "Mr. Donne to Whinbury; Mr. Sweeting to Nunnely; Mr. Malone to Briarfield." And these gentlemen stepped up. The rectors advanced to the very front; Helstone lifted his shovel-hat. Out clashed the bells in the tower, loud swelled the bands, deep rolled the drums, and away they marched. The broad white road unrolled before the long procession; the twelve hundred children and one hundred and forty adults trod on, with gay faces and glad hearts. It was a joyous scene, a day of happiness for rich and poor. Let England's priests have their due. They are a faulty set in some respects, being only flesh and blood like us all; but the land would be badly off without them. Britain would miss her church, if that church fell. God save it! God also reform it!

Shirley

Chapter 16: WHITSUNTIDE

The die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley knew it; Mr. Sympson knew it. That evening, when all the Fieldhead family dined at Nunnely Priory, decided the business. Two or three things conduced to bring the baronet to a point. He had observed that Miss Keeldar looked pensive and delicate. This new phase in her demeanour smote him on his weak or poetic side. A spontaneous sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was still working there, one of his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit down to the piano and sing a ballad--one of Sir Philip's own ballads. It was the least elaborate, the least affected--out of all comparison the best of his numerous efforts. It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a window down on the park. She had seen that stormy moonlight which "le Professeur Louis" was perhaps at the same instant contemplating from her own oak-parlour lattice; she had seen the isolated trees of the domain--broad, strong, spreading oaks, and high-towering heroic beeches--wrestling with the gale. Her ear had caught the full roar of the forest lower down; the swift rushing of clouds, the moon, to the eye, hasting swifter still, had crossed her vision. She turned from sight and sound--touched, if not rapt; wakened, if not inspired. She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad--faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that in calamity waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air; in themselves they were simple and sweet. Perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when _well_ sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well. She breathed into the feeling softness; she poured round the passion force. Her voice was fine that evening, its expression dramatic. She impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat--semi-stool, semi-cushion. The ladies were round her; none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? _They_ never sang so. Was it _proper_ to sing with such expression, with such originality--so unlike a school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange, it was unusual. What was _strange_ must be _wrong_; what was _unusual_ must be _improper_. Shirley was judged. Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair by the fireside. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of mine or my daughters' kind. I object to her as my son's wife." Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed. What he so wished to win there was danger he might lose. He must make haste. The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery. Sir Philip's father--Sir Monckton--had converted it into a saloon; but still it had a shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a window--a recess that held one couch, one table, and a fairy cabinet--formed a room within a room. Two persons standing there might interchange a dialogue, and, so it were neither long nor loud, none be the wiser. Sir Philip induced two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet. He gave occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder ladies were conversing together. He was pleased to remark that meantime Shirley rose to look at the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose dark beauty seemed as that of a flower of the south. He joined her, and began to tell it. There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet adorning the recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality, perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck so still you might have fancied that whisper a charm which had changed her to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted. Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Mr. Sympson--Mr. Sympson only--had marked the pantomime. That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was meddling, as profound as he was prying, he might have found that in Sir Philip's face whereby to correct his inference. Ever shallow, hasty, and positive, he went home quite cock-a-hoop. He was not a man that kept secrets well. When elate on a subject, he could not avoid talking about it. The next morning, having occasion to employ his son's tutor as his secretary, he must needs announce to him, in mouthing accents, and with much flimsy pomp of manner, that he had better hold himself prepared for a return to the south at an early day, as the important business which had detained him (Mr. Sympson) so long in Yorkshire was now on the eve of fortunate completion. His anxious and laborious efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with the happiest success. A truly eligible addition was about to be made to the family connections. "In Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore conjectured. Whereupon Mr. Sympson treated himself simultaneously to a pinch of snuff and a chuckling laugh, checked only by a sudden choke of dignity, and an order to the tutor to proceed with business. For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as oil, but also he seemed to sit on pins, and his gait, when he walked, emulated that of a hen treading a hot girdle. He was for ever looking out of the window and listening for chariot-wheels. Bluebeard's wife--Sisera's mother--were nothing to him. He waited when the matter should be opened in form, when himself should be consulted, when lawyers should be summoned, when settlement discussions and all the delicious worldly fuss should pompously begin. At last there came a letter. He himself handed it to Miss Keeldar out of the bag. He knew the handwriting; he knew the crest on the seal. He did not see it opened and read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and was very long about it--the best part of a day. He questioned her whether it was answered; she responded, "Yes." Again he waited--waited in silence, absolutely not daring to speak, kept mute by something in Shirley's face--a very awful something--inscrutable to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. He was moved more than once to call Daniel, in the person of Louis Moore, and to ask an interpretation; but his dignity forbade the familiarity. Daniel himself, perhaps, had his own private difficulties connected with that baffling bit of translation; he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank and dictionaries dumb. * * * * * Mr. Sympson had been out, to while away an anxious hour in the society of his friends at De Walden Hall. He returned a little sooner than was expected. His family and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak parlour. Addressing the latter, he requested her to step with him into another room. He wished to have with her a "_strictly_ private interview." She rose, asking no questions and professing no surprise. "Very well, sir," she said, in the tone of a determined person who is informed that the dentist is come to extract that large double tooth of his, from which he has suffered such a purgatory this month past. She left her sewing and her thimble in the window-seat, and followed her uncle where he led. Shut into the drawing-room, the pair took seats, each in an arm-chair, placed opposite, a few yards between them. "I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green carpet. _That_ information required no response. She gave none. "I have learned," he went on slowly--"I have learned a circumstance which surprises me." Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she waited to be told _what_ circumstance. "It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up--that the family are gone back to their place in ----shire. It seems that the baronet--that the baronet--that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and sisters." "Indeed!" said Shirley. "May I ask if you share the amazement with which I received this news?" "No, sir." "_Is_ it news to you?" "Yes, sir." "I mean--I mean," pursued Mr. Sympson, now fidgeting in his chair, quitting his hitherto brief and tolerably clear phraseology, and returning to his customary wordy, confused, irritable style--"I mean to have a _thorough_ explanation. I will _not_ be put off. I--I--shall _insist_ on being heard, and on--on having my own way. My questions _must_ be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to be trifled with. (Silence.) "It is a strange and an extraordinary thing--a very singular--a most odd thing! I thought all was right, knew no other; and there--the family are gone!" "I suppose, sir, they had a right to go." "_Sir Philip is gone!_" (with emphasis). Shirley raised her brows. "_Bon voyage!_" said she. "This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am." He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed, and perfectly helpless. "Come, come now, uncle," expostulated Shirley, "do not begin to fret and fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to know. I am as willing to come to an explanation as you. I promise you truthful replies." "I want--I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you an offer?" "He has." "You avow it?" "I avow it. But now, go on. Consider that point settled." "He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory?" "It is enough to say that he made it. Go on." "He proposed in the recess--in the room that used to be a picture-gallery--that Sir Monckton converted into it saloon?" No answer. "You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all. My sagacity was not at fault--it never is. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what subject--of what nature were the contents?" "No matter." "Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?" Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet. "There you sit, silent and sullen--_you_ who promised truthful replies." "Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed." "I should like to see that letter." "You _cannot_ see it." "I _must_ and _shall_, ma'am; I am your guardian." "Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian." "Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter----" "Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both remain cool. For my part, I do not wish to get into a passion; but, you know, once drive me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I say--I am not then soon checked. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know next?" "I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I will." "Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him." "Refused him! You--_you_, Shirley Keeldar, _refused_ Sir Philip Nunnely?" "I did." The poor gentleman bounced from his chair, and first rushed and then trotted through the room. "There it is! There it is! There it is!" "Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so disappointed." Concession, contrition, never do any good with some people. Instead of softening and conciliating, they but embolden and harden them. Of that number was Mr. Sympson. "_I_ disappointed? What is it to me? Have _I_ an interest in it? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?" "Most people have motives of some sort for their actions." "She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a parent to her, she charges with bad motives!" "_Bad_ motives I did not say." "And now you prevaricate; you have no principles!" "Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away." "Go you shall not! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss Keeldar?" "In what respect?" "In respect of matrimony?" "To be quiet, and to do just as I please." "Just as you please! The words are to the last degree indecorous." "Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not bear that." "You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have imbibed French principles." "The ground you are treading now returns a mighty hollow sound under your feet. Beware!" "It will end in infamy, sooner or later. I have foreseen it all along." "Do you assert, sir, that something in which _I_ am concerned will end in infamy?" "That it will--that it will. You said just now you would act as you please. You acknowledge no rules--no limitations." "Silly stuff, and vulgar as silly!" "Regardless of decorum, you are prepared to fly in the face of propriety." "You tire me, uncle." "What, madam--_what_ could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?" "At last there is another sensible question; I shall be glad to reply to it. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his relations--his mother especially--would be annoyed if he married me. Such a step would embroil him with them. I am not his equal in the world's estimation." "Is that all?" "Our dispositions are not compatible." "Why, a more amiable gentleman never breathed." "He is very amiable--very excellent--truly estimable; but _not my master_--not in one point. I could not trust myself with his happiness. I would not undertake the keeping of it for thousands. I will accept no hand which cannot hold me in check." "I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent." "When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction that I can keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me. He would expect me always to rule--to guide--and I have no taste whatever for the office." "_You_ no taste for swaggering, and subduing, and ordering, and ruling?" "Not my husband; only my uncle." "Where is the difference?" "There _is_ a slight difference--that is certain. And I know full well any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must be able to control me." "I wish you had a real tyrant." "A tyrant would not hold me for a day, not for an hour. I would rebel--break from him--defy him." "Are you not enough to bewilder one's brain with your self-contradiction?" "It is evident I bewilder your brain." "You talk of Sir Philip being young. He is two-and-twenty." "My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty." "You had better pick out some old man--some white-headed or bald-headed swain." "No, thank you." "You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him to your apron." "I might do that with a boy; but it is not my vocation. Did I not say I prefer a _master_--one in whose presence I shall feel obliged and disposed to be good; one whose control my impatient temper must acknowledge; a man whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very possible to fear?" "What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is a baronet--a man of rank, property, connections far above yours. If you talk of intellect, he is a poet--he writes verses; which you, I take it, cannot do, with all your cleverness." "Neither his title, wealth, pedigree, nor poetry avail to invest him with the power I describe. These are feather-weights; they want ballast. A measure of sound, solid, practical sense would have stood him in better stead with me." "You and Henry rave about poetry! You used to catch fire like tinder on the subject when you were a girl." "O uncle, there is nothing really valuable in this world, there is nothing glorious in the world to come that is not poetry!" "Marry a poet, then, in God's name!" "Show him me, and I will." "Sir Philip." "Not at all. You are almost as good a poet as he." "Madam, you are wandering from the point." "Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so, and I shall be glad to lead you away with me. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not worth while." "Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of temper." "_I_ am not, yet." "If you mean to insinuate that _I_ am, I consider that you are guilty of impertinence." "You will be soon, if you go on at that rate." "There it is! With your pert tongue you would try the patience of a Job." "I know I should." "No levity, miss! This is not a laughing matter. It is an affair I am resolved to probe thoroughly, convinced that there is mischief at the bottom. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did you paint from the life?" Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed rose-red. "I shall have an answer to that question," affirmed Mr. Sympson, assuming vast courage and consequence on the strength of this symptom of confusion. "It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals." "Several originals! Bless my heart!" "I have been in love several times." "This is cynical." "With heroes of many nations." "What next----" "And philosophers." "She is mad----" "Don't ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt." "Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!" "Once I loved Socrates." "Pooh! no trifling, ma'am." "I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas." "Miss Keeldar----" "To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the actual present----" "Ah! the actual present." "To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities." "Realities! That is the test to which you shall be brought, ma'am." "To avow before what altar I now kneel--to reveal the present idol of my soul----" "You will make haste about it, if you please. It is near luncheon time, and confess _you shall_." "Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I only wish you were Mr. Helstone instead of Mr. Sympson; you would sympathize with me better." "Madam, it is a question of common sense and common prudence, not of sympathy and sentiment, and so on. Did you say it was Mr. Helstone?" "Not precisely, but as near as may be; they are rather alike." "I will know the name; I will have particulars." "They positively _are_ rather alike. Their very faces are not dissimilar--a pair of human falcons--and dry, direct, decided both. But my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows." "Rant and fustian!" "I dare say he can be harsh as a saw-edge and gruff as a hungry raven." "Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Answer me that." "Uncle, I am going to tell you; his name is trembling on my tongue." "Speak, girl!" "That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is quite tragic. England has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar exultingly over him. He has been unscared by the howl, and he will be unelated by the shout." "I said she was mad. She is." "This country will change and change again in her demeanour to him; he will never change in his duty to her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I'll tell you his name." "You shall tell me, or----" "Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington." Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat. "Ma'am, you _shall_ tell me _this_. Will your principles permit you to marry a man without money--a man below you?" "Never a man below me." (In a high voice.) "Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man?" "What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?" "I insist upon knowing." "You don't go the way to know." "My family respectability shall not be compromised." "A good resolution; keep it." "Madam, it is _you_ who shall keep it." "Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family." "Do you disown us?" "I disdain your dictatorship." "Whom _will_ you marry, Miss Keeldar?" "Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because I _only_ esteem him." "Whom have you in your eye?" "Four rejected candidates." "Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence." "What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil. Improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?" "Are you a young lady?" "I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated." "Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly solemnity)--"do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?" "Does it?" "It does. Your name is in every mouth." "It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it may purify them." "Is it _that_ person who has power to influence you?" "Beyond any whose cause you have advocated." "Is it he you will marry?" "He is handsome, and manly, and commanding." "You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave! the low trader!" "He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince is on his brow, and ruler in his bearing." "She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame, no fear!" "When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage." "I say she is mad." "You have taunted me till my blood is up; you have worried me till I turn again." "That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let the usher call you sister?" Bright and broad shone Shirley's eye as she fixed it on her questioner now. "No, no; not for a province of possession, not for a century of life." "You cannot separate the husband from his family." "What then?" "Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be." "Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your aims are not my aims, your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same tongue. Let us part." "It is not," she resumed, much excited--"it is not that I hate you; you are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we cannot suit; we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and keep me passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off. Mr. Sympson, go, offer them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I'll none of them. I wash my hands of the lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than you." "Another creed! I believe she is an infidel." "An infidel to _your_ religion, an atheist to _your_ god." "_An--atheist!!!_" "Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship; in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best--making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius, and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred--secret hatred; there is disgust--unspoken disgust; there is treachery--family treachery; there is vice--deep, deadly domestic vice. In his dominions children grow unloving between parents who have never loved; infants are nursed on deception from their very birth; they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies. Your god rules at the bridal of kings; look at your royal dynasties! Your deity is the deity of foreign aristocracies; analyze the blue blood of Spain! Your god is the Hymen of France; what is French domestic life? All that surrounds him hastens to decay; all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. _Your_ god is a masked Death." "This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no longer, Miss Keeldar; there is danger in such companionship. Had I known you a little earlier--but, extraordinary as I thought you, I could not have believed----" "Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me; that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I sweep your cobweb projects from my path, that I may pass on unsullied. I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand--_they only_. Know this at last." Mr. Sympson was becoming a little bewildered. "Never heard such language!" he muttered again and again; "never was so addressed in my life--never was so used!" "You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will." He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they must pack up at once." "Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give them time." "No more intercourse; she's not proper." He made his way to the door. He came back for his handkerchief. He dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; he stumbled out. Tartar lay outside across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell over him. In the climax of his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress. "Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and leaning her head upon a cushion, she softly subsided from excitement to repose. One, entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards, found her asleep. When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this natural refreshment; it would come at her call. The intruder paused in her unconscious presence, and said, "Miss Keeldar." Perhaps his voice harmonized with some dream into which she was passing. It did not startle, it hardly roused her. Without opening her eyes, she but turned her head a little, so that her cheek and profile, before hidden by her arm, became visible. She looked rosy, happy, half smiling, but her eyelashes were wet. She had wept in slumber; or perhaps, before dropping asleep, a few natural tears had fallen after she had heard that epithet. No man--no woman--is always strong, always able to bear up against the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even from the mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded feelings. Shirley looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now forgiven and at rest. "Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked up, and saw at her side Louis Moore--not close at her side, but standing, with arrested step, two or three yards from her. "O Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I have quarrelled." "Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply. "Can he not see that you are as yet far from strong?" "I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here." "He is about to evacuate Fieldhead--so he says. He is now giving orders to his family. He has been in the schoolroom issuing commands in a manner which, I suppose, was a continuation of that with which he has harassed you." "Are you and Henry to go?" "I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the tenor of his scarcely intelligible directions; but he may change all to-morrow. He is just in that mood when you cannot depend on his consistency for two consecutive hours. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and comment by-and-by, when I have time to bestow on them. At the moment he came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke--so fully busied that I cut short the interview with him somewhat abruptly. I left him raving. Here is the note. I wish you to see it. It refers to my brother Robert." And he looked at Shirley. "I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?" "He is come. He is in Yorkshire. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro' to meet him." "Mr. Moore, something is wrong----" "Did my voice tremble? He is now at Briarmains, and I am going to see him." "What has occurred?" "If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt." "O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down near me." "Read the note. Let me open it." Miss Keeldar read the note. It briefly signified that last night Robert Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation, at the foot of the Brow; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke observed, "it was done in revenge. It was a pity ill-will had ever been raised; but that could not be helped now." "He is my only brother," said Louis, as Shirley returned the note. "I cannot hear unmoved that ruffians have laid in wait for him, and shot him down, like some wild beast from behind a wall." "Be comforted; be hopeful. He will get better--I know he will." Shirley, solicitous to soothe, held her hand over Mr. Moore's as it lay on the arm of the chair. She just touched it lightly, scarce palpably. "Well, give me your hand," he said. "It will be for the first time; it is in a moment of calamity. Give it me." Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took what he asked. "I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "I want you to step over to the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened. Will you do this? She will hear it best from you." "Immediately," said Shirley, with docile promptitude. "Ought I to say that there is no danger?" "Say so." "You will come back soon, and let me know more?" "I will either come or write." "Trust me for watching over Caroline. I will communicate with your sister too; but doubtless she is already with Robert?" "Doubtless, or will be soon. Good-morning now." "You will bear up, come what may." "We shall see that." Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the tutor's. Louis was obliged to relinquish that hand folded, clasped, hidden in his own. "I thought I should have had to support her," he said, as he walked towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has made me strong. That look of pity, that gentle touch! No down was ever softer, no elixir more potent! It lay like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand times I have longed to possess that hand--to have it in mine. I _have_ possessed it; for five minutes I held it. Her fingers and mine can never be strangers more. Having met once they must meet again."

The die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley knew it; Mr. Sympson knew it. That evening, when the Fieldhead family dined at Nunnely Priory, decided the business. Two or three things combined to bring the baronet to a point. He had observed that Miss Keeldar looked pensive and delicate. This struck him on his poetic side. A spontaneous sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was working there, one of his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit down to the piano and sing one of his own ballads. It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a window. She had seen that stormy moonlight which Louis Moore was at the same instant contemplating from her own oak-parlour window; she had seen the trees wrestling with the gale, and heard the roar of the forest. She turned back touched, and wakened. She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad - faithful love that disaster could not shake; that in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air, and Shirley sang them well, with feeling and passion. On leaving the instrument she sat down by the fire. The ladies were round her; none of them spoke. They looked upon her as quiet poultry might look on an egret, or an ibis. What made her sing so? They never sang so, with such expression. It was decidedly improper. Shirley was judged. Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of my kind. I object to her as my son's wife." Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed: he must make haste. The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery, and still had a shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a couch, a cabinet and a window formed a room within a room. Two persons standing there might talk quietly, and no-one be the wiser. Sir Philip persuaded two of his sisters to sing a duet; the elder ladies were conversing together. He was pleased to notice that Shirley rose to look at the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one beautiful ancestress; so he joined her, and began to tell it. There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet within the recess, and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the rosary, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, Sir Philip stooped too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was so still you might have fancied her changed to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted. Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Only Mr. Sympson had noticed the pantomime. That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was meddling, he might have seen something in Sir Philip's face which corrected his ideas. Ever shallow and hasty, he went home quite cock-a-hoop. He was not a man that kept secrets well. The next morning, while employing his son's tutor as his secretary, he must needs announce to him, with much flimsy pomp of manner, that he had better prepare himself for an early return south, as Mr. Sympson's important business in Yorkshire was now on the brink of fortunate completion. His anxious efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with success. A truly eligible addition was about to be made to the family. "Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore guessed. Mr. Sympson treated himself to a pinch of snuff and a chuckling laugh, before ordering the tutor to proceed with business. For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as oil, but also he seemed to sit on pins. He was for ever looking out of the window and listening for carriage-wheels. He waited to be consulted, for lawyers to be summoned, for settlement discussions to begin. At last there came a letter for Miss Keeldar. He knew the handwriting; he knew the crest on the seal. He handed it to her, but he did not see it read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and it took her the best part of a day. He questioned her whether it was answered; she responded, "Yes." Again he waited, not daring to speak, kept mute by something in Shirley's face - a very awful and inscrutable something. He thought of calling Louis Moore to ask him for an interpretation of that look; but his dignity forbade it. Moore himself, perhaps, had his own private difficulties connected with that baffling bit of translation; he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank and dictionaries dumb. Mr. Sympson went to visit the Wynnes. He returned sooner than expected, and requested Miss Keeldar's presence for a "strictly private interview." She rose, showing no surprise, and followed her uncle into the drawing room like a person about to undergo an extraction at the dentist. "I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss Keeldar studied the carpet and gave no response. "I have learned," he went on, "a circumstance which surprises me. It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up - that the family have left the county. It seems that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and sisters." "Indeed!" said Shirley. "May I ask if you share the amazement with which I received this news?" "No, sir." "Is it news to you?" "Yes, sir." Mr. Sympson fidgeted in his chair. "I mean to have a thorough explanation. I will not be put off. My questions must be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to be trifled with. (Silence.) "It is an extraordinary thing - very singular - most odd!" he expostulated. "I suppose, sir, the family had a right to go." "Sir Philip is gone!" (with emphasis). Shirley raised her brows. "Bon voyage!" said she. "This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am." He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed, and perfectly helpless. "Come now, uncle," said Shirley, "do not fret and fume. Ask me what you want to know. I promise you truthful replies." "I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you an offer?" "He has." "He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory? He proposed in the recess? I saw it all. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what subject?" "No matter." "Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?" Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet. "There you sit, silent and sullen - you promised truthful replies." "Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed." "I should like to see that letter." "You cannot see it." "I must and shall, ma'am; I am your guardian." "Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian." "Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter-" "Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both remain cool. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know next?" "I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I will." "Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him." "Refused him! You - you, Shirley Keeldar, refused Sir Philip Nunnely?" "I did." The poor gentleman bounced from his chair. "There it is! There it is!" "I am sincerely sorry, uncle, that you are so disappointed." Concession and contrition never do any good with some people. They merely harden them. One such was Mr. Sympson. "I disappointed? What is it to me? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?" "Most people have motives for their actions." "She accuses me to my face! She charges me with bad motives!" "I did not say bad motives. Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away." "No! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss Keeldar, in respect of matrimony?" "To be quiet, and to do just as I please." "Just as you please! Wholly indecorous." "Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not bear that." "You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have imbibed French principles." "You are now treading on dangerous ground, sir. Beware!" "It will end in infamy. I have foreseen it all along." "Do you assert, sir, that something in which I am concerned will end in infamy?" "That it will - that it will. You said just now you would act as you please. You acknowledge no rules - no limitations." "Silly stuff! You tire me, uncle." "What, madam, could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?" "At last there is a sensible question; I shall be glad to reply. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his relations would be annoyed if he married me. I am not his equal in the world's view." "Is that all?" "Our dispositions are not compatible. He is very amiable; but not my master in any point. I could not trust myself with his happiness. I will accept no hand which cannot hold me in check." "I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent." "When I promise to obey, it shall be in the belief that I can keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me. He would expect me always to rule, and I have no taste for that." "You no taste for swaggering, and ordering, and ruling?" "Not my husband; only my uncle. Any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must be able to control me." "I wish you had a real tyrant." "A tyrant would not hold me for a day. I would rebel." "You bewilder one's brain with your self-contradiction!" "That is evident." "You had better find some doting fool," said Mr. Sympson; "you might pin him to your apron." "I might do that with a boy; did I not say I prefer a master? One who can control my impatient temper; a man whose approval can reward, whose displeasure can punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very possible to fear." "What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is a man of rank; he is a poet. You and Henry rave about poetry! Marry a poet, then, in God's name! Marry Sir Philip." "You are almost as good a poet as he." "Madam, you are wandering from the point." "Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not worth while." "Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of temper." "I am not, yet." "If you mean that I am, you are guilty of impertinence." "You will be soon, if you go on at that rate." "There it is! You would try the patience of Job. This is not a laughing matter, miss. I am convinced that there is mischief here. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did you paint from the life?" Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed rose-red. "I shall have an answer!" "It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals. I have been in love several times, with heroes of many nations." "What next-" "And philosophers." "She is mad!" "Once I loved Socrates; and I admired Themistocles." "Miss Keeldar-" "To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the present-" "Ah! the present." "To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities-" "Realities indeed, ma'am!" "To reveal the present idol of my soul-" "You will make haste, if you please. Confess." "Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I only wish you were Mr. Helstone; you would sympathize with me better." "I will know the name!" "My hero is rather like Mr. Helstone. Their very faces are similar - a pair of hawks - dry, direct, decided. But my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows." "Rant and fustian! Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Speak, girl!" "That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is quite tragic. England has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar exultingly over him. This country will change in her demeanour to him; he will never change in his duty to her. Come, uncle, I'll tell you his name. Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington." Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat. "Ma'am, you shall tell me this. Will your principles permit you to marry a man without money - a man below you?" "Never a man below me." "Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man? I insist upon knowing. My family respectability shall not be compromised." "A good resolution; keep it." "Madam, it is you who shall keep it." "Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family." "Whom will you marry, Miss Keeldar?" "Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because I only esteem him." "Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence." "What do you mean? Improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?" "Are you a young lady?" "I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated." "Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly solemnity) - "do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?" "Does it?" "It does. Is it he you will marry?" "He is handsome, and manly, and commanding." "You declare it to my face! The knave!" "He is talented and resolute. He is a ruler in his bearing." "She glories in it! No shame, no fear!" "When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage." "She is mad. That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let him call you sister?" Bright shone Shirley's eye now. "No, no; not for a century of life." "But Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be." "Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same tongue. It is not that I hate you; you are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper. As to your narrow rules, your little prejudices, bundle them off, Mr. Sympson; I'll none of them. I wash my hands of the lot. I walk by another creed and faith than you." "Another creed! I believe she is an infidel." "An infidel to your religion, an atheist to your god." "An atheist!!!" "Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you are an idolater. Sir, your god, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You have raised him to a throne and given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best - making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is secret hatred; there is unspoken disgust; there is treachery and vice. In his dominions children grow unloving between parents who have never loved; infants are nursed on deception from their very birth; they are reared amongst lies. Your god is a masked Death." "This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no longer, Miss Keeldar. I could not have believed-" "Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me; that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake." Mr. Sympson was bewildered. "Never heard such language!" he muttered; "Never was so addressed in my life!" "You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will." He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they must pack up at once. She's not fit for them to be with." He made his way to the door; dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; and stumbled out, almost falling over Tartar. In his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress. "Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and leant her head upon a cushion. An intruder entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards found her asleep. He paused, and said, "Miss Keeldar." Perhaps his voice harmonized with her dream. Without opening her eyes, she turned her head a little, so that her face became visible: rosy, happy, half smiling, but her eyelashes were wet. Shirley looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now forgiven and at rest. "Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked up, and saw Louis Moore standing two or three yards away. "O, Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I have quarrelled." "Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply. "Can he not see that you are still far from strong?" "I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here." "He is about to leave Fieldhead - so he says. He is now giving orders to his family." "Are you and Henry to go?" "I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the gist of his scarcely intelligible orders; but he may change tomorrow. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and comment by-and-by, when I have time to think about them. At the moment he came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke - I cut short the interview with Mr. Sympson somewhat abruptly. I left him raving. Here is the note. It refers to my brother Robert." "I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?" "He is come. He is at Briarmains. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro' to meet him." "Mr. Moore, something is wrong - what has happened?" "If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt." "O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down." "Read the note." Miss Keeldar read that last night Robert Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke wrote, "it was done in revenge.' "He is my only brother," said Louis. "Shot like some wild beast from behind a wall." "Be hopeful. He will get better - I know he will." Shirley held her hand over Mr. Moore's, touching it lightly. "Well, give me your hand," he said. Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took it. "I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "Will you step over to the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened? She will hear it best from you." "Immediately," said Shirley. "Ought I to say that there is no danger?" "Say so." "You will come back soon, and let me know more?" "I will either come or write. Good-morning now." "You will bear up, come what may." "We shall see." Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the tutor's. Louis was obliged to relinquish the hand folded in his own. "I thought I should have had to support her," he said, as he walked towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has made me strong. That look of pity, that gentle touch! It lay like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand times I have longed to possess that hand - to have it in mine. I have possessed it; her fingers and mine can never be strangers more. Having met once they must meet again."

Shirley

Chapter 31: UNCLE AND NIECE

The next day Shirley expressed to Caroline how delighted she felt that the little party had gone off so well. "I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said she. "It is amusing to observe how they enjoy a judiciously concocted repast. For ourselves, you see, these choice wines and these scientific dishes are of no importance to us; but gentlemen seem to retain something of the _navet_ of children about food, and one likes to please them--that is, when they show the becoming, decent self-government of our admirable rectors. I watch Moore sometimes, to try and discover how he can be pleased; but he has not that child's simplicity about him. Did you ever find out his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him than I." "It is not, at any rate, that of my uncle and Dr. Boultby," returned Caroline, smiling. She always felt a sort of shy pleasure in following Miss Keeldar's lead respecting the discussion of her cousin's character. Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when invited, the temptation of talking about him of whom she was ever thinking was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what it is, for I never watched Robert in my life but my scrutiny was presently baffled by finding he was watching me." "There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "You can't fix your eyes on him but his presently flash on you. He is never off his guard. He won't give you an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, his thoughts seem to be busy amongst your own thoughts, tracing your words and actions to their source, contemplating your motives at his ease. Oh! I know that sort of character, or something in the same style. It is one that piques me singularly. How does it affect you?" This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp, sudden turns. Caroline used to be fluttered by them at first, but she had now got into the way of parrying these home-thrusts like a little Quakeress. "Pique you? In what way does it pique you?" she said. "Here he comes!" suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking off, starting up and running to the window. "Here comes a diversion. I never told you of a superb conquest I have made lately--made at those parties to which I can never persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been done without effort or intention on my part--that I aver. There is the bell--and, by all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they never hunt, then, except in couples? You may have one, Lina, and you may take your choice. I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!" The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was seen in the chapter which first introduced its mistress to the reader, here gave tongue in the hall, amidst whose hollow space the deep bark resounded formidably. A growl more terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder, succeeded. "Listen!" again cried Shirley, laughing. "You would think that the prelude to a bloody onslaught. They will be frightened. They don't know old Tartar as I do. They are not aware his uproars are all sound and fury, signifying nothing!" Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane or whip. Immediately there was a yell--a scutter--a run--a positive tumult. "O Malone, Malone!" "Down! down! down!" cried the high voice. "He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him. A blow is what he is not used to, and will not take." Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot haste; another was backing fast to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time reiterating, "Down! down! down!" while the tawny dog bayed, bellowed, howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door against his fellow--nothing so merciless as terror. But the other fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield to his strength. "Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones, "spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at Tartar; he won't harm a cat." She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and John--the man who fed him--but was mostly indifferent to the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once. "Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room." "Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to reassure him." "It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.--John" (turning to her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.--Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs are slippery." In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak again. Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted _clat_, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe her to death. However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile even at any one under mortification. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed--for Shirley had looks and tones that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently _very_ civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb. For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat,--not on the sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere he opened his mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in narrower compass; he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his throat--his head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had an inventive, an original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that attitude, he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside, that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point in Peter's demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The 5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful management. From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to descend. At length, however, that gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused--not a whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is insensible to shame. He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make colour mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no modesty in his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the commonplace--conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about the business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion was, when he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be master of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an impertinent, injured tone--"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal." "Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am very fond of him." "I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady fond of that brute--'tis so ugly--a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him." "Hang what I am fond of!" "And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle--something appropriate to the fair sex. Ladies generally like lap-dogs." "Perhaps I am an exception." "Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That is universally allowed." "Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any harm." "That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When I _sor_ him" (such was Mr. Donne's pronunciation) "about to spring, I thought I should have fainted." "Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there." "No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the enemy." "But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?" "Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been assured of this, I would have remained all day in the chamber. But what is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!" And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening to the garden, stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour. He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry. "There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the pavement towards the gate, bellowing _avec explosion_. His mistress quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt, stupid head to the new callers to be patted. "What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you know us? Good-morning, old boy!" And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew to the sunny front of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was only his mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all others he showed himself obstinately insensible. Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with them cordially. They were come to tell her of certain successes they had achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr. Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who was come, ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon. Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day; the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets. Both of them looked pretty--one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the profusely blooming flowers whose perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling her to choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane. Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun. Donne was not grateful--he never _was_ grateful for kindness and attention--but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted them with native awkwardness. Malone seemed specially at a loss, when a bouquet filled one hand, while his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank you!" was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of sounds, implying that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into his buttonhole. As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning him apart, gave him some commission, which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he flew, round by the courtyard to the kitchen. No need to give him directions; he was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared, carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and bowers in the grounds, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid--Miss Keeldar kept no footman--came out, bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's nimble fingers aided in disposing glasses, plates, knives, and forks; he assisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting of cold chicken, ham, and tarts. This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight to offer any chance guests; and nothing pleased her better than to have an alert, obliging little friend, like Sweeting, to run about her hand, cheerily receive and briskly execute her hospitable hints. David and she were on the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes. The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone, indeed, contributed but little to its vivacity, the chief part they played in it being what concerned the knife, fork, and wine-glass; but where four such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were assembled in health and amity, on a green lawn, under a sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be ungenial dullness. In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united Sunday-school tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield, Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at her post as teacher, he said, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be wanting. He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of this sort. She liked festive excitement, a gathering of happiness, a concentration and combination of pleasant details, a throng of glad faces, a muster of elated hearts. She told Mr. Hall they might count on her with security. She did not know what she would have to do, but they might dispose of her as they pleased. "And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to my table, and to sit near me, Mr. Hall?" "I shall not fail, _Deo volente_," said he.--"I have occupied the place on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six years," he proceeded, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not particularly self-confident by nature, as you may have observed; and the first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is, and make tea in public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the speechless panic, the cups shaking in the little hand, and the overflowing teapot filled too full from the urn. I came to her aid, took a seat near her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made the tea for her like any old woman." "I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline. "You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well, inasmuch as it was not like the majority of little ladies of twelve, whom you may help and caress for ever without their evincing any quicker sense of the kindness done and meant than if they were made of wax and wood instead of flesh and nerves.--She kept close to me, Miss Keeldar, the rest of the evening, walking with me over the grounds where the children were playing; she followed me into the vestry when all were summoned into church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to the pulpit, had I not taken the previous precaution of conducting her to the rectory pew." "And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline. "And always sat at her table, near her tray, and handed the cups--that is the extent of my services. The next thing I do for her will be to marry her some day to some curate or mill-owner.--But mind, Caroline, I shall inquire about the bridegroom's character; and if he is not a gentleman likely to render happy the little girl who walked with me hand in hand over Nunnely Common, I will not officiate. So take care." "The caution is useless. I am not going to be married. I shall live single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall." "Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy. She has her books for a pleasure, and her brother for a care, and is content. If ever you want a home, if the day should come when Briarfield rectory is yours no longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. Should the old maid and bachelor be still living, they will make you tenderly welcome." "There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, who had kept the nosegay she had selected for him till this moment, "_you_ don't care for a bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only--to be sentimental for once--keep that little forget-me-not, which is a wild flower I gathered from the grass; and--to be still more sentimental--let me take two or three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir." And she took out a small book with enamelled cover and silver clasp, wherein, having opened it, she inserted the flowers, writing round them in pencil, "To be kept for the sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend. May --, 18--." The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, also placed a sprig in safety between the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only wrote on the margin, "Caroline." "Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic enough. Miss Keeldar," he continued (the curates, by-the-bye, during this conversation, were too much occupied with their own jokes to notice what passed at the other end of the table), "I hope you are laughing at this trait of '_exaltation_' in the old gray-headed vicar; but the fact is, I am so used to comply with the requests of this young friend of yours, I don't know how to refuse her when she tells me to do anything. You would say it is not much in my way to traffic with flowers and forget-me-nots; but, you see, when requested to be sentimental, I am obedient." "He is naturally rather sentimental," remarked Caroline. "Margaret told me so, and I know what pleases him." "That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is one of my greatest pleasures. May God long preserve to you the blessings of peace and innocence! By which phrase I mean _comparative_ innocence; for in His sight, I am well aware, _none_ are pure. What to our human perceptions looks spotless as we fancy angels, is to Him but frailty, needing the blood of His Son to cleanse, and the strength of His Spirit to sustain. Let us each and all cherish humility--I, as you, my young friends; and we may well do it when we look into our own hearts, and see there temptations, inconsistencies, propensities, even we blush to recognize. And it is not youth, nor good looks, nor grace, nor any gentle outside charm which makes either beauty or goodness in God's eyes.--Young ladies, when your mirror or men's tongues flatter you, remember that, in the sight of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley--a woman whom neither glass nor lips have ever panegyrized--is fairer and better than either of you. She is indeed," he added, after a pause--"she is indeed. You young things, wrapt up in yourselves and in earthly hopes, scarcely live as Christ lived. Perhaps you cannot do it yet, while existence is so sweet and earth so smiling to you; it would be too much to expect. She, with meek heart and due reverence, treads close in her Redeemer's steps." Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in on the mild tones of Mr. Hall. "Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat evidently for a speech of some importance--"ahem! Miss Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you please." "Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I listen. All of me is ear that is not eye." "I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, in his vulgarly presumptuous and familiar style, "and part purse. It is to the hand and purse I propose to appeal. I came here this morning with a view to beg of you----" "You should have gone to Mrs. Gill; she is my almoner." "To beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr. Boultby intend to erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg, which is under our vicarage of Whinbury. The Baptists have got possession of it. They have a chapel there, and we want to dispute the ground." "But I have nothing to do with Ecclefigg. I possess no property there." "What does that signify? You're a churchwoman, ain't you?" "Admirable creature!" muttered Shirley, under her breath. "Exquisite address! Fine style! What raptures he excites in me!" Then aloud, "I am a churchwoman, certainly." "Then you can't refuse to contribute in this case. The population of Ecclefigg are a parcel of brutes; we want to civilize them." "Who is to be the missionary?" "Myself, probably." "You won't fail through lack of sympathy with your flock." "I hope not--I expect success; but we must have money. There is the paper. Pray give a handsome sum." When asked for money, Shirley rarely held back. She put down her name for 5. After the 300 she had lately given, and the many smaller sums she was giving constantly, it was as much as she could at present afford. Donne looked at it, declared the subscription "shabby," and clamorously demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with some indignation and more astonishment. "At present I shall give no more," said she. "Not give more! Why, I expected you to head the list with a cool hundred. With your property, you should never put down a signature for less." She was silent. "In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand a year would be ashamed to give five pounds for a public object." Shirley, so rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame became nerved; her distinguished face quickened with scorn. "Strange remarks?" said she--"most inconsiderate! Reproach in return for bounty is misplaced." "Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?" "I do; and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended school, of the erection of which I approve, and in no sort to his curate, who seems ill-advised in his manner of applying for, or rather extorting, subscriptions--bounty, I repeat, which, but for this consideration, I should instantly reclaim." Donne was thick-skinned. He did not feel all or half that the tone, air, glance of the speaker expressed. He knew not on what ground he stood. "Wretched place this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could never have formed an idea_r_ of the country had I not seen it. And the people--rich and poor--what a set! How _corse_ and uncultivated! They would be scouted in the south." Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating a little, her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard. "The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious Donne, "are a parcel of misers, never living as persons with their incomes ought to live. You scarsley"--(you must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself on his southern accent; northern ears received with singular sensations his utterance of certain words)--"you scarsley ever see a fam'ly where a propa carriage or a reg'la butla is kep; and as to the poor--just look at them when they come crowding about the church doors on the occasion of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; the men in their shirt-sleeves and wool-combers' aprons, the women in mob-caps and bed-gowns. They positively deserve that one should turn a mad cow in amongst them to rout their rabble-ranks. He-he! what fun it would be!" "There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley quietly. "You have reached the climax," she repeated, turning her glowing glance towards him. "You cannot go beyond it, and," she added with emphasis, "you _shall_ not, in my house." Up she rose--nobody could control her now, for she was exasperated--straight she walked to her garden gates, wide she flung them open. "Walk through," she said austerely, "and pretty quickly, and set foot on this pavement no more." Donne was astounded. He had thought all the time he was showing himself off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled person of the first "ton;" he imagined he was producing a crushing impression. Had he not expressed disdain of everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof could be given that he was better than anything there? And yet here was he about to be turned like a dog out of a Yorkshire garden! Where, under such circumstances, was the "concatenation accordingly"? "Rid me of you instantly--instantly!" reiterated Shirley, as he lingered. "Madam--a clergyman! turn out a clergyman!" "Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself no gentleman, and must go. Quick!" She was quite resolved. There was no trifling with her. Besides, Tartar was again rising; he perceived symptoms of a commotion; he manifested a disposition to join in. There was evidently nothing for it but to go, and Donne made his exodus, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy as she closed the gates on him. "How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the lisping cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation on the circumstance, as she returned to the table. Ere long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled and darkened brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no invitation to further social enjoyment.

The next day Shirley told Caroline how delighted she felt that the little party had gone off so well. "I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said she. "It is amusing to observe how they enjoy their meal. They retain something of the navet of children about food, and one likes to please them - that is, when they show the decent restraint of our admirable rectors. Moore has not that child's simplicity. Did you ever find out his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him than I." "It is not food, at any rate," returned Caroline, smiling. She always felt a shy pleasure in discussing her cousin's character. Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when invited, the temptation of talking about him was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what it is, for whenever I watched Robert, my scrutiny was baffled by finding he was watching me." "There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "He is never off his guard. He won't give you an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, he seems to be busy tracing your words to their source, contemplating your motives. Oh! I know that sort of character. It piques me singularly. How does it affect you?" This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp, sudden turns. Caroline used to be flustered by them at first, but she had now got used to parrying them. "Pique you? In what way?" she said. "Here comes a diversion!" exclaimed Shirley, breaking off and running to the window. "I never told you of a superb conquest I have made lately, without any effort or intention on my part. By all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they only hunt in couples? You may have one, Lina; take your choice. Listen to Tartar!" Her black-muzzled dog here gave tongue in the hall, where its deep bark echoed formidably. A growl as menacing as muttered thunder followed. "Listen!" cried Shirley, laughing. "They will be frightened. They don't know old Tartar as I do. His uproars are all sound and fury, signifying nothing!" Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane. Immediately there was a yell - a scutter - a run - a positive tumult. "O Malone, Malone!" "Down! down!" cried the high voice. "He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him. He is not used to being hit." Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for refuge upstairs; another was backing to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, crying, "Down! down!" while the dog bayed and howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door closed against his fellow - nothing so merciless as terror. "Gentlemen," said Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones, "Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at Tartar; he won't harm a cat." She was caressing Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore paws stretched out, snorting, his bulldog eyes holding a dull fire. His was an honest, phlegmatic, stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and John - the man who fed him - but was indifferent to the rest of the world. He was quiet enough, unless struck or threatened, and that put a demon into him. "Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, smiling. "That is Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to come out. I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room." "Ha! ha!" cried Malone, leaning over the balustrade. "Really, that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid. I thought it better to follow, in order to reassure him." "Well, come down, if you please. John" (turning to her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne. Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs are slippery." The caution came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak. Tartar growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bow to her. He glared at both the ladies as if he would have liked to clutch one in each hand and throttle them. However, Shirley took pity and ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed by Shirley's tones. He had the sense to feel that he had better be civil, and presently grew quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself fascinating. Perhaps to allow an easy exit, he took his seat on a chair close to the door. No longer sullen or furious, he grew constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the ladies by fits and starts, on the most commonplace topics. He sighed deeply, significantly, after every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed before he spoke. At last, aiming to add ease to his other charms, he drew forth an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went to work with energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped it open; again he folded it more narrowly; he made of it a handsome band. To what would he apply it? Would he wrap it about his throat - his head? Neither. Peter Augustus had an original genius. He sat on the chair with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh silently and unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside, that her long curls might screen her smile. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by Peter's abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The 5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit had no weight against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once, to pursue the greater fortune of the two. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase, only he knew. It appeared to be some time before Mr. Donne could be persuaded to descend the stairs. At length, however, he appeared, seeming not at all ashamed. Donne, indeed, was of that immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which feels no shame. He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; he had no modesty; he was arrogant, conceited and inane; and this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about it than if he had been an image carved in wood. His notion was, after visiting her a few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. She would accept him for love of his position; they would be married, and he should be master of Fieldhead; he should live very comfortably, have servants at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an injured tone: "A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal." "Do you, Mr. Donne? I am very fond of him." "You cannot be serious. A lady fond of that ugly brute - a mere carter's dog! Pray hang him." "Hang him!" "And purchase instead some pug or poodle. Ladies generally like lap-dogs." "Perhaps I am an exception." "Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters." "Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any harm." "That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When I saw him about to spring, I thought I should have fainted." "Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there." "No; I was holding the door fast. Your man persuaded me to come out at last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. But what is that? I declare he told a falsehood! The dog is there!" And indeed Tartar walked past the garden door. He still seemed in bad humour: he was growling again, and wheezing. "There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with the provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs tend to show while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang towards the gate, bellowing. His mistress quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt head to the new callers to be patted. "What! Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "Good-morning, old boy!" And little Mr. Sweeting, who was fearless of man, woman or brute, came through the gate, caressing the dog. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no fear of Tartar either. Tartar snuffed both the gentlemen, and then, as if concluding that they were harmless, he withdrew to the sunny front of the hall. Shirley advanced to greet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting cordially. They were come to tell her of successes they had achieved that morning in asking for subscriptions to the fund. Mr. Hall's eyes beamed, his plain face positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed on her with gentle affection. Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy, sunny day; the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest to his brilliant companion, and looked most frequently at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of flowers and gave some to Caroline, telling her to choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of the summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane. Shirley now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She led Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his paws, lay snoring under the noon sun. Donne was not grateful, but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, wishing to be impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted them awkwardly; Malone seemed specially at a loss, with a bouquet filling one hand, and his shillelagh in the other. Donne's fatuous "Thank you!" implied that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an attempt by the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like the sensible little man he was, putting it gallantly into his buttonhole. As a reward, Miss Keeldar gave him an errand which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he flew to the kitchen. Ere long he reappeared, carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he collected six garden-chairs from various nooks, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid came out with a tray, and Sweeting aided her in setting out plates, knives, and forks, and a neat luncheon of cold chicken, ham, and tarts. David Sweeting and Shirley were on the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite disinterested, for it did not affect his faithful allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes. The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone contributed little to its vivacity, being busy with fork and wine-glass; but with four such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley and Caroline assembled on a green lawn, under a sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be dullness. Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united Sunday-school tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield, Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at her post as teacher, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would make her first public appearance amongst them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of this sort. She liked festive gatherings, a throng of glad faces, and told Mr. Hall they might count on her. She did not know what she would have to do, but they might order her as they pleased. "And," said Caroline, "you will promise to sit at my table, Mr. Hall?" "I shall not fail, " said he. "I have sat at her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six years," he continued, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. The first time she had to make tea in public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the speechless panic, the cups shaking in the little hand, and the overflowing teapot. I came to her aid, managed the urn, and in fact made the tea for her like any old woman." "I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline. "You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well, for it was not like the manner of most little ladies of twelve. She kept close to me, Miss Keeldar, the rest of the evening, walking with me over the grounds where the children were playing; she followed me into the vestry when all were summoned into church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to the pulpit, had I not taken the precaution of conducting her to her pew." "And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline. "And always sat at her table, and handed the cups. The next thing I do for her will be to marry her one day to some curate or mill-owner. - But mind, Caroline, I shall inquire about the bridegroom's character; and if he is not a gentleman likely to make you happy, I will not officiate. So take care." "The warning is useless. I am not going to be married. I shall live single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall." "Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy. She has her books for a pleasure, and her brother for a care, and is content. If ever you want a home, if the day should come when Briarfield rectory is yours no longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. We will make you tenderly welcome." "There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, "you don't care for a bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only, to be sentimental for a moment, keep that little wild forget-me-not, and to be still more sentimental - let me take two or three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir book." And she took out a small book with a silver clasp, wherein she inserted the flowers, writing round them in pencil, "To be kept for the sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend. May -, 18-." The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, placed a sprig in safety between the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only wrote on the margin, "Caroline." "Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic enough. Miss Keeldar, I hope you are laughing at this; but the fact is, I am so used to comply with the requests of this young friend, I don't know how to refuse her. When requested to be sentimental, I obey." "Margaret told me he is naturally sentimental," remarked Caroline, "and I know what pleases him." "That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is one of my greatest pleasures. May God long preserve to you the blessings of peace and innocence! I mean comparative innocence; for in His sight, I am well aware, none are pure. All have faults and frailty, needing the strength of His Spirit. Let us all cherish humility, when we look into our own hearts, and see there temptations which we blush to recognize. It is not youth, nor good looks, nor any outer charm which makes beauty or goodness in God's eyes. In the sight of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley is fairer and better than either of you young things, wrapt up in yourselves and in earthly hopes. She, with meekness and reverence, treads close in her Redeemer's steps." Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in. "Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat importantly. "Ahem! Miss Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you please." "Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I am all ears." "I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, "and part purse. It is to the hand and purse I appeal. I came here this morning to beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr. Boultby intend to erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg. The Baptists have a chapel there, and we want to dispute the ground." "But I have nothing to do with Ecclefigg. I possess no property there." "What does that signify? You're a churchwoman, ain't you?" "Admirable creature!" muttered Shirley, under her breath. "Fine style!" Then aloud, "I am a churchwoman, certainly." "Then you can't refuse to contribute. The population of Ecclefigg are a parcel of brutes; we want to civilize them." "Who is to be the missionary?" "Myself, probably." "You won't fail through lack of sympathy with your flock." "I expect success; but we must have money. There is the paper. Pray give a handsome sum." When asked for money, Shirley rarely held back. She put down her name for 5. After the 300 she had lately given, and the many smaller sums she was giving constantly, it was as much as she could at present afford. Donne looked at it, declared the amount "shabby," and loudly demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with indignation and astonishment. "At present I shall give no more," said she. "Not give more! Why, with your property, I expected you to head the list with a cool hundred. In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand a year would be ashamed to give five pounds for a public object." Shirley, rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame tensed; her face quickened with scorn. "Strange remarks," said she. "Reproach in return for bounty is misplaced." "Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?" "I do. If I had not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended school, the building of which I approve, and in no way to his ill-mannered curate - but for this, I should instantly reclaim it." Donne was thick-skinned. "Wretched place, this Yorkshire," he went on. "The people - what a set! How coarse and uncultivated! They would be scouted in the south." Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard. "The rich," pursued the unconscious Donne, "are a parcel of misers. You scarcely ever see a family where a proper carriage or butler is kept; and as to the poor - clattering in clogs; the men in their shirt-sleeves, the women in mob-caps and bed-gowns. They positively deserve that one should turn a mad cow amongst them to rout them. He-he! what fun it would be!" "There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley quietly, turning her glowing glance towards him. "You cannot go beyond it, and," she added with emphasis, "you shall not, in my house." Up she rose, walked to her garden gates, and flung them wide open. "Walk through quickly," she said austerely, "and set foot on this pavement no more." Donne was astounded. He had thought he was showing himself off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled person of the first "ton"; he imagined he was producing a crushing impression. Had he not expressed disdain of everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof could be given that he was better than anything there? And yet here was he about to be turned out like a dog out of a garden! "Madam! turn out a clergyman!" "Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself no gentleman, and you must go. Quick!" There was no trifling with her. Besides, Tartar was again rising; he perceived symptoms of a commotion. There was nothing for it but to go, and Donne made his exit, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy as she closed the gates on him. "How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation, as she returned to the table. Before long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled and darkened brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no invitation to further social enjoyment.

Shirley

Chapter 15: MR. DONNE'S EXODUS

In Shirley's nature prevailed at times an easy indolence. There were periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy of hand and eye--moments when her thoughts, her simple existence, the fact of the world being around and heaven above her, seemed to yield her such fullness of happiness that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy. Often, after an active morning, she would spend a sunny afternoon in lying stirless on the turf, at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage. No society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were within call; no spectacle did she ask but that of the deep blue sky, and such cloudlets as sailed afar and aloft across its span; no sound but that of the bee's hum, the leaf's whisper. Her sole book in such hours was the dim chronicle of memory or the sibyl page of anticipation. From her young eyes fell on each volume a glorious light to read by; round her lips at moments played a smile which revealed glimpses of the tale or prophecy. It was not sad, not dark. Fate had been benign to the blissful dreamer, and promised to favour her yet again. In her past were sweet passages, in her future rosy hopes. Yet one day when Caroline drew near to rouse her, thinking she had lain long enough, behold, as she looked down, Shirley's cheek was wet as if with dew; those fine eyes of hers shone humid and brimming. "Shirley, why do _you_ cry?" asked Caroline, involuntarily laying stress on _you_. Miss Keeldar smiled, and turned her picturesque head towards the questioner. "Because it pleases me mightily to cry," she said. "My heart is both sad and glad. But why, you good, patient child--why do you not bear me company? I only weep tears, delightful and soon wiped away; you might weep gall, if you choose." "Why should I weep gall?" "Mateless, solitary bird!" was the only answer. "And are not you too mateless, Shirley?" "At heart--no." "Oh! who nestles there, Shirley?" But Shirley only laughed gaily at this question, and alertly started up. "I have dreamed," she said, "a mere day-dream--certainly bright, probably baseless!" * * * * * Miss Helstone was by this time free enough from illusions: she took a sufficiently grave view of the future, and fancied she knew pretty well how her own destiny and that of some others were tending. Yet old associations retained their influence over her, and it was these and the power of habit which still frequently drew her of an evening to the field-style and the old thorn overlooking the Hollow. One night, the night after the incident of the note, she had been at her usual post, watching for her beacon--watching vainly: that evening no lamp was lit. She waited till the rising of certain constellations warned her of lateness and signed her away. In passing Fieldhead, on her return, its moonlight beauty attracted her glance, and stayed her step an instant. Tree and hall rose peaceful under the night sky and clear full orb; pearly paleness gilded the building; mellow brown gloom bosomed it round; shadows of deep green brooded above its oak-wreathed roof. The broad pavement in front shone pale also; it gleamed as if some spell had transformed the dark granite to glistering Parian. On the silvery space slept two sable shadows, thrown sharply defined from two human figures. These figures when first seen were motionless and mute; presently they moved in harmonious step, and spoke low in harmonious key. Earnest was the gaze that scrutinized them as they emerged from behind the trunk of the cedar. "Is it Mrs. Pryor and Shirley?" Certainly it is Shirley. Who else has a shape so lithe, and proud, and graceful? And her face, too, is visible--her countenance careless and pensive, and musing and mirthful, and mocking and tender. Not fearing the dew, she has not covered her head; her curls are free--they veil her neck and caress her shoulder with their tendril rings. An ornament of gold gleams through the half-closed folds of the scarf she has wrapped across her bust, and a large bright gem glitters on the white hand which confines it. Yes, that is Shirley. Her companion then is, of course, Mrs. Pryor? Yes, if Mrs. Pryor owns six feet of stature, and if she has changed her decent widow's weeds for masculine disguise. The figure walking at Miss Keeldar's side is a man--a tall, young, stately man; it is her tenant, Robert Moore. The pair speak softly; their words are not distinguishable. To remain a moment to gaze is not to be an eavesdropper; and as the moon shines so clearly and their countenances are so distinctly apparent, who can resist the attraction of such interest? Caroline, it seems, cannot, for she lingers. There was a time when, on summer nights, Moore had been wont to walk with his cousin, as he was now walking with the heiress. Often had she gone up the Hollow with him after sunset, to scent the freshness of the earth, where a growth of fragrant herbage carpeted a certain narrow terrace, edging a deep ravine, from whose rifted gloom was heard a sound like the spirit of the lonely watercourse, moaning amongst its wet stones, and between its weedy banks, and under its dark bower of alders. "But I used to be closer to him," thought Caroline. "He felt no obligation to treat me with homage; I needed only kindness. He used to hold my hand; he does not touch hers. And yet Shirley is not proud where she loves. There is no haughtiness in her aspect now, only a little in her port--what is natural to and inseparable from her, what she retains in her most careless as in her most guarded moments. Robert must think, as I think, that he is at this instant looking down on a fine face; and he must think it with a man's brain, not with mine. She has such generous yet soft fire in her eyes. She smiles--what makes her smile so sweet? I saw that Robert felt its beauty, and he must have felt it with his man's heart, not with my dim woman's perceptions. They look to me like two great happy spirits. Yonder silvered pavement reminds me of that white shore we believe to be beyond the death-flood. They have reached it; they walk there united. And what am I, standing here in shadow, shrinking into concealment, my mind darker than my hiding-place? I am one of this world, no spirit--a poor doomed mortal, who asks, in ignorance and hopelessness, wherefore she was born, to what end she lives; whose mind for ever runs on the question, how she shall at last encounter, and by whom be sustained through death. "This is the worst passage I have come to yet; still I was quite prepared for it. I gave Robert up, and gave him up to Shirley, the first day I heard she was come, the first moment I saw her--rich, youthful, and lovely. She has him now. He is her lover. She is his darling. She will be far more his darling yet when they are married. The more Robert knows of Shirley the more his soul will cleave to her. They will both be happy, and I do not grudge them their bliss; but I groan under my own misery. Some of my suffering is very acute. Truly I ought not to have been born; they should have smothered me at the first cry." Here, Shirley stepping aside to gather a dewy flower, she and her companion turned into a path that lay nearer the gate. Some of their conversation became audible. Caroline would not stay to listen. She passed away noiselessly, and the moonlight kissed the wall which her shadow had dimmed. The reader is privileged to remain, and try what he can make of the discourse. "I cannot conceive why nature did not give you a bulldog's head, for you have all a bulldog's tenacity," said Shirley. "Not a flattering idea. Am I so ignoble?" "And something also you have of the same animal's silent ways of going about its work. You give no warning; you come noiselessly behind, seize fast, and hold on." "This is guess-work. You have witnessed no such feat on my part. In your presence I have been no bulldog." "Your very silence indicates your race. How little you talk in general, yet how deeply you scheme! You are far-seeing; you are calculating." "I know the ways of these people. I have gathered information of their intentions. My note last night informed you that Barraclough's trial had ended in his conviction and sentence to transportation. His associates will plot vengeance. I shall lay my plans so as to counteract or at least be prepared for theirs--that is all. Having now given you as clear an explanation as I can, am I to understand that for what I propose doing I have your approbation?" "I shall stand by you so long as you remain on the defensive. Yes." "Good! Without any aid--even opposed or disapproved by you--I believe I should have acted precisely as I now intend to act, but in another spirit. I now feel satisfied. On the whole, I relish the position." "I dare say you do. That is evident. You relish the work which lies before you still better than you would relish the execution of a government order for army-cloth." "I certainly feel it congenial." "So would old Helstone. It is true there is a shade of difference in your motives--many shades, perhaps. Shall I speak to Mr. Helstone? I will, if you like." "Act as you please. Your judgment, Miss Keeldar, will guide you accurately. I could rely on it myself in a more difficult crisis. But I should inform you Mr. Helstone is somewhat prejudiced against me at present." "I am aware--I have heard all about your differences. Depend upon it, they will melt away. He cannot resist the temptation of an alliance under present circumstances." "I should be glad to have him; he is of true metal." "I think so also." "An old blade, and rusty somewhat, but the edge and temper still excellent." "Well, you shall have him, Mr. Moore--that is, if I can win him." "Whom can you not win?" "Perhaps not the rector; but I will make the effort." "Effort! He will yield for a word--a smile." "By no means. It will cost me several cups of tea, some toast and cake, and an ample measure of remonstrances, expostulations, and persuasions. It grows rather chill." "I perceive you shiver. Am I acting wrongly to detain you here? Yet it is so calm--I even feel it warm--and society such as yours is a pleasure to me so rare. If you were wrapped in a thicker shawl----" "I might stay longer, and forget how late it is, which would chagrin Mrs. Pryor. We keep early and regular hours at Fieldhead, Mr. Moore; and so, I am sure, does your sister at the cottage." "Yes; but Hortense and I have an understanding the most convenient in the world, that we shall each do as we please." "How do you please to do?" "Three nights in the week I sleep in the mill--but I require little rest--and when it is moonlight and mild I often haunt the Hollow till daybreak." "When I was a very little girl, Mr. Moore, my nurse used to tell me tales of fairies being seen in that Hollow. That was before my father built the mill, when it was a perfectly solitary ravine. You will be falling under enchantment." "I fear it is done," said Moore, in a low voice. "But there are worse things than fairies to be guarded against," pursued Miss Keeldar. "Things more perilous," he subjoined. "Far more so. For instance, how would you like to meet Michael Hartley, that mad Calvinist and Jacobin weaver? They say he is addicted to poaching, and often goes abroad at night with his gun." "I have already had the luck to meet him. We held a long argument together one night. A strange little incident it was; I liked it." "Liked it? I admire your taste! Michael is not sane. Where did you meet him?" "In the deepest, shadiest spot in the glen, where the water runs low, under brushwood. We sat down near that plank bridge. It was moonlight, but clouded, and very windy. We had a talk." "On politics?" "And religion. I think the moon was at the full, and Michael was as near crazed as possible. He uttered strange blasphemy in his Antinomian fashion." "Excuse me, but I think you must have been nearly as mad as he, to sit listening to him." "There is a wild interest in his ravings. The man would be half a poet, if he were not wholly a maniac; and perhaps a prophet, if he were not a profligate. He solemnly informed me that hell was foreordained my inevitable portion; that he read the mark of the beast on my brow; that I had been an outcast from the beginning. God's vengeance, he said, was preparing for me, and affirmed that in a vision of the night he had beheld the manner and the instrument of my doom. I wanted to know further, but he left me with these words, 'The end is not yet.'" "Have you ever seen him since?" "About a month afterwards, in returning from market, I encountered him and Moses Barraclough, both in an advanced stage of inebriation. They were praying in frantic sort at the roadside. They accosted me as Satan, bid me avaunt, and clamoured to be delivered from temptation. Again, but a few days ago, Michael took the trouble of appearing at the counting-house door, hatless, in his shirt-sleeves--his coat and castor having been detained at the public-house in pledge. He delivered himself of the comfortable message that he could wish Mr. Moore to set his house in order, as his soul was likely shortly to be required of him." "Do you make light of these things?" "The poor man had been drinking for weeks, and was in a state bordering on delirium tremens." "What then? He is the more likely to attempt the fulfilment of his own prophecies." "It would not do to permit incidents of this sort to affect one's nerves." "Mr. Moore, go home!" "So soon?" "Pass straight down the fields, not round by the lade and plantations." "It is early yet." "It is late. For my part, I am going in. Will you promise me not to wander in the Hollow to-night?" "If you wish it." "I do wish it. May I ask whether you consider life valueless?" "By no means. On the contrary, of late I regard my life as invaluable." "Of late?" "Existence is neither aimless nor hopeless to me now, and it was both three months ago. I was then drowning, and rather wished the operation over. All at once a hand was stretched to me--such a delicate hand I scarcely dared trust it; its strength, however, has rescued me from ruin." "Are you really rescued?" "For the time. Your assistance has given me another chance." "Live to make the best of it. Don't offer yourself as a target to Michael Hartley; and good-night!" * * * * * Miss Helstone was under a promise to spend the evening of the next day at Fieldhead. She kept her promise. Some gloomy hours had she spent in the interval. Most of the time had been passed shut up in her own apartment, only issuing from it, indeed, to join her uncle at meals, and anticipating inquiries from Fanny by telling her that she was busy altering a dress, and preferred sewing upstairs, to avoid interruption. She did sew. She plied her needle continuously, ceaselessly, but her brain worked faster than her fingers. Again, and more intensely than ever, she desired a fixed occupation, no matter how onerous, how irksome. Her uncle must be once more entreated, but first she would consult Mrs. Pryor. Her head laboured to frame projects as diligently as her hands to plait and stitch the thin texture of the muslin summer dress spread on the little white couch at the foot of which she sat. Now and then, while thus doubly occupied, a tear would fill her eyes and fall on her busy hands; but this sign of emotion was rare and quickly effaced. The sharp pang passed; the dimness cleared from her vision. She would re-thread her needle, rearrange tuck and trimming, and work on. Late in the afternoon she dressed herself. She reached Fieldhead, and appeared in the oak parlour just as tea was brought in. Shirley asked her why she came so late. "Because I have been making my dress," said she. "These fine sunny days began to make me ashamed of my winter merino, so I have furbished up a lighter garment." "In which you look as I like to see you," said Shirley. "You are a lady-like little person, Caroline.--Is she not, Mrs. Pryor?" Mrs. Pryor never paid compliments, and seldom indulged in remarks, favourable or otherwise, on personal appearance. On the present occasion she only swept Caroline's curls from her cheek as she took a seat near her, caressed the oval outline, and observed, "You get somewhat thin, my love, and somewhat pale. Do you sleep well? your eyes have a languid look." And she gazed at her anxiously. "I sometimes dream melancholy dreams," answered Caroline; "and if I lie awake for an hour or two in the night, I am continually thinking of the rectory as a dreary old place. You know it is very near the churchyard. The back part of the house is extremely ancient, and it is said that the out-kitchens there were once enclosed in the churchyard, and that there are graves under them. I rather long to leave the rectory." "My dear, you are surely not superstitious?" "No, Mrs. Pryor; but I think I grow what is called nervous. I see things under a darker aspect than I used to do. I have fears I never used to have--not of ghosts, but of omens and disastrous events; and I have an inexpressible weight on my mind which I would give the world to shake off, and I cannot do it." "Strange!" cried Shirley. "I never feel so." Mrs. Pryor said nothing. "Fine weather, pleasant days, pleasant scenes, are powerless to give me pleasure," continued Caroline. "Calm evenings are not calm to me. Moonlight, which I used to think mild, now only looks mournful. Is this weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it. I often struggle against it. I reason; but reason and effort make no difference." "You should take more exercise," said Mrs. Pryor. "Exercise! I exercise sufficiently. I exercise till I am ready to drop." "My dear, you should go from home." "Mrs. Pryor, I should like to go from home, but not on any purposeless excursion or visit. I wish to be a governess, as you have been. It would oblige me greatly if you would speak to my uncle on the subject." "Nonsense!" broke in Shirley. "What an idea! Be a governess! Better be a slave at once. Where is the necessity of it? Why should you dream of such a painful step?" "My dear," said Mrs. Pryor, "you are very young to be a governess, and not sufficiently robust. The duties a governess undertakes are often severe." "And I believe I want severe duties to occupy me." "Occupy you!" cried Shirley. "When are you idle? I never saw a more industrious girl than you. You are always at work. Come," she continued--"come and sit by my side, and take some tea to refresh you. You don't care much for my friendship, then, that you wish to leave me?" "Indeed I do, Shirley; and I don't wish to leave you. I shall never find another friend so dear." At which words Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline's with an impulsively affectionate movement, which was well seconded by the expression of her face. "If you think so, you had better make much of me," she said, "and not run away from me. I hate to part with those to whom I am become attached. Mrs. Pryor there sometimes talks of leaving me, and says I might make a more advantageous connection than herself. I should as soon think of exchanging an old-fashioned mother for something modish and stylish. As for you--why, I began to flatter myself we were thoroughly friends; that you liked Shirley almost as well as Shirley likes you, and she does not stint her regard." "I _do_ like Shirley. I like her more and more every day. But that does not make me strong or happy." "And would it make you strong or happy to go and live as a dependent amongst utter strangers? It would not. And the experiment must not be tried; I tell you it would fail. It is not in your nature to bear the desolate life governesses generally lead; you would fall ill. I won't hear of it." And Miss Keeldar paused, having uttered this prohibition very decidedly. Soon she recommenced, still looking somewhat _courrouce_, "Why, it is my daily pleasure now to look out for the little cottage bonnet and the silk scarf glancing through the trees in the lane, and to know that my quiet, shrewd, thoughtful companion and monitress is coming back to me; that I shall have her sitting in the room to look at, to talk to or to let alone, as she and I please. This may be a selfish sort of language--I know it is--but it is the language which naturally rises to my lips, therefore I utter it." "I would write to you, Shirley." "And what are letters? Only a sort of _pis aller_. Drink some tea, Caroline. Eat something--you eat nothing. Laugh and be cheerful, and stay at home." Miss Helstone shook her head and sighed. She felt what difficulty she would have to persuade any one to assist or sanction her in making that change in her life which she believed desirable. Might she only follow her own judgment, she thought she should be able to find perhaps a harsh but an effectual cure for her sufferings. But this judgment, founded on circumstances she could fully explain to none, least of all to Shirley, seemed, in all eyes but her own, incomprehensible and fantastic, and was opposed accordingly. There really was no present pecuniary need for her to leave a comfortable home and "take a situation;" and there was every probability that her uncle might, in some way, permanently provide for her. So her friends thought, and, as far as their lights enabled them to see, they reasoned correctly; but of Caroline's strange sufferings, which she desired so eagerly to overcome or escape, they had no idea, of her racked nights and dismal days no suspicion. It was at once impossible and hopeless to explain; to wait and endure was her only plan. Many that want food and clothing have cheerier lives and brighter prospects than she had; many, harassed by poverty, are in a strait less afflictive. "Now, is your mind quieted?" inquired Shirley. "Will you consent to stay at home?" "I shall not leave it against the approbation of my friends," was the reply; "but I think in time they will be obliged to think as I do." During this conversation Mrs. Pryor looked far from easy. Her extreme habitual reserve would rarely permit her to talk freely or to interrogate others closely. She could think a multitude of questions she never ventured to put, give advice in her mind which her tongue never delivered. Had she been alone with Caroline, she might possibly have said something to the point: Miss Keeldar's presence, accustomed as she was to it, sealed her lips. Now, as on a thousand other occasions, inexplicable nervous scruples kept her back from interfering. She merely showed her concern for Miss Helstone in an indirect way, by asking her if the fire made her too warm, placing a screen between her chair and the hearth, closing a window whence she imagined a draught proceeded, and often and restlessly glancing at her. Shirley resumed: "Having destroyed your plan," she said, "which I hope I have done, I shall construct a new one of my own. Every summer I make an excursion. This season I propose spending two months either at the Scotch lochs or the English lakes--that is, I shall go there provided you consent to accompany me. If you refuse, I shall not stir a foot." "You are very good, Shirley." "I would be very good if you would let me. I have every disposition to be good. It is my misfortune and habit, I know, to think of myself paramount to anybody else; but who is not like me in that respect? However, when Captain Keeldar is made comfortable, accommodated with all he wants, including a sensible, genial comrade, it gives him a thorough pleasure to devote his spare efforts to making that comrade happy. And should we not be happy, Caroline, in the Highlands? We will go to the Highlands. We will, if you can bear a sea-voyage, go to the Isles--the Hebrides, the Shetland, the Orkney Islands. Would you not like that? I see you would.--Mrs. Pryor, I call you to witness. Her face is all sunshine at the bare mention of it." "I should like it much," returned Caroline, to whom, indeed, the notion of such a tour was not only pleasant, but gloriously reviving. Shirley rubbed her hands. "Come; I can bestow a benefit," she exclaimed. "I can do a good deed with my cash. My thousand a year is not merely a matter of dirty bank-notes and jaundiced guineas (let me speak respectfully of both, though, for I adore them), but, it may be, health to the drooping, strength to the weak, consolation to the sad. I was determined to make something of it better than a fine old house to live in, than satin gowns to wear, better than deference from acquaintance and homage from the poor. Here is to begin. This summer, Caroline, Mrs. Pryor and I go out into the North Atlantic, beyond the Shetland, perhaps to the Faroe Isles. We will see seals in Suderoe, and, doubtless, mermaids in Stromoe.--Caroline is laughing, Mrs. Pryor. _I_ made her laugh; _I_ have done her good." "I shall like to go, Shirley," again said Miss Helstone. "I long to hear the sound of waves--ocean-waves--and to see them as I have imagined them in dreams, like tossing banks of green light, strewed with vanishing and reappearing wreaths of foam, whiter than lilies. I shall delight to pass the shores of those lone rock-islets where the sea-birds live and breed unmolested. We shall be on the track of the old Scandinavians--of the Norsemen. We shall almost see the shores of Norway. This is a very vague delight that I feel, communicated by your proposal, but it _is_ a delight." "Will you think of Fitful Head now when you lie awake at night, of gulls shrieking round it, and waves tumbling in upon it, rather than of the graves under the rectory back-kitchen?" "I will try; and instead of musing about remnants of shrouds, and fragments of coffins, and human bones and mould, I will fancy seals lying in the sunshine on solitary shores, where neither fisherman nor hunter ever come; of rock crevices full of pearly eggs bedded in seaweed; of unscared birds covering white sands in happy flocks." "And what will become of that inexpressible weight you said you had on your mind?" "I will try to forget it in speculation on the sway of the whole great deep above a herd of whales rushing through the livid and liquid thunder down from the frozen zone--a hundred of them, perhaps, wallowing, flashing, rolling in the wake of a patriarch bull, huge enough to have been spawned before the Flood, such a creature as poor Smart had in his mind when he said,-- 'Strong against tides, the enormous whale Emerges as he goes.'" "I hope our bark will meet with no such shoal, or herd as you term it, Caroline. (I suppose you fancy the sea-mammoths pasturing about the bases of the 'everlasting hills,' devouring strange provender in the vast valleys through and above which sea-billows roll.) I should not like to be capsized by the patriarch bull." "I suppose you expect to see mermaids, Shirley?" "One of them, at any rate--I do not bargain for less--and she is to appear in some such fashion as this. I am to be walking by myself on deck, rather late of an August evening, watching and being watched by a full harvest moon. Something is to rise white on the surface of the sea, over which that moon mounts silent and hangs glorious. The object glitters and sinks. It rises again. I think I hear it cry with an articulate voice; I call you up from the cabin; I show you an image, fair as alabaster, emerging from the dim wave. We both see the long hair, the lifted and foam-white arm, the oval mirror brilliant as a star. It glides nearer; a human face is plainly visible--a face in the style of yours--whose straight, pure (excuse the word, it is appropriate)--whose straight, pure lineaments paleness does not disfigure. It looks at us, but not with your eyes. I see a preternatural lure in its wily glance. It beckons. Were we men, we should spring at the sign--the cold billow would be dared for the sake of the colder enchantress; being women, we stand safe, though not dreadless. She comprehends our unmoved gaze; she feels herself powerless; anger crosses her front; she cannot charm, but she will appal us; she rises high, and glides all revealed on the dark wave-ridge. Temptress-terror! monstrous likeness of ourselves! Are you not glad, Caroline, when at last, and with a wild shriek, she dives?" "But, Shirley, she is not like us. We are neither temptresses, nor terrors, nor monsters." "Some of our kind, it is said, are all three. There are men who ascribe to 'woman,' in general, such attributes." "My dears," here interrupted Mrs. Pryor, "does it not strike you that your conversation for the last ten minutes has been rather fanciful?" "But there is no harm in our fancies; is there, ma'am?" "We are aware that mermaids do not exist; why speak of them as if they did? How can you find interest in speaking of a nonentity?" "I don't know," said Shirley. "My dear, I think there is an arrival. I heard a step in the lane while you were talking; and is not that the garden-gate which creaks?" Shirley stepped to the window. "Yes, there is some one," said she, turning quietly away; and as she resumed her seat a sensitive flush animated her face, while a trembling ray at once kindled and softened her eye. She raised her hand to her chin, cast her gaze down, and seemed to think as she waited. The servant announced Mr. Moore, and Shirley turned round when Mr. Moore appeared at the door. His figure seemed very tall as he entered, and stood in contrast with the three ladies, none of whom could boast a stature much beyond the average. He was looking well, better than he had been known to look for the past twelve months. A sort of renewed youth glowed in his eye and colour, and an invigorated hope and settled purpose sustained his bearing. Firmness his countenance still indicated, but not austerity. It looked as cheerful as it was earnest. "I am just returned from Stilbro'," he said to Miss Keeldar, as he greeted her; "and I thought I would call to impart to you the result of my mission." "You did right not to keep me in suspense," she said, "and your visit is well timed. Sit down. We have not finished tea. Are you English enough to relish tea, or do you faithfully adhere to coffee?" Moore accepted tea. "I am learning to be a naturalized Englishman," said he; "my foreign habits are leaving me one by one." And now he paid his respects to Mrs. Pryor, and paid them well, with a grave modesty that became his age compared with hers. Then he looked at Caroline--not, however, for the first time: his glance had fallen upon her before. He bent towards her as she sat, gave her his hand, and asked her how she was. The light from the window did not fall upon Miss Helstone; her back was turned towards it. A quiet though rather low reply, a still demeanour, and the friendly protection of early twilight kept out of view each traitorous symptom. None could affirm that she had trembled or blushed, that her heart had quaked or her nerves thrilled; none could prove emotion; a greeting showing less effusion was never interchanged. Moore took the empty chair near her, opposite Miss Keeldar. He had placed himself well. His neighbour, screened by the very closeness of his vicinage from his scrutiny, and sheltered further by the dusk which deepened each moment, soon regained not merely _seeming_ but _real_ mastery of the feelings which had started into insurrection at the first announcement of his name. He addressed his conversation to Miss Keeldar. "I went to the barracks," he said, "and had an interview with Colonel Ryde. He approved my plans, and promised the aid I wanted. Indeed, he offered a more numerous force than I require--half a dozen will suffice. I don't intend to be swamped by redcoats. They are needed for appearance rather than anything else. My main reliance is on my own civilians." "And on their captain," interposed Shirley. "What, Captain Keeldar?" inquired Moore, slightly smiling, and not lifting his eyes. The tone of raillery in which he said this was very respectful and suppressed. "No," returned Shirley, answering the smile; "Captain Grard Moore, who trusts much to the prowess of his own right arm, I believe." "Furnished with his counting-house ruler," added Moore. Resuming his usual gravity, he went on: "I received by this evening's post a note from the Home Secretary in answer to mine. It appears they are uneasy at the state of matters here in the north; they especially condemn the supineness and pusillanimity of the mill-owners. They say, as I have always said, that inaction, under present circumstances, is criminal, and that cowardice is cruelty, since both can only encourage disorder, and lead finally to sanguinary outbreaks. There is the note--I brought it for your perusal; and there is a batch of newspapers, containing further accounts of proceedings in Nottingham, Manchester, and elsewhere." He produced letters and journals, and laid them before Miss Keeldar. While she perused them he took his tea quietly; but though his tongue was still, his observant faculties seemed by no means off duty. Mrs. Pryor, sitting in the background, did not come within the range of his glance, but the two younger ladies had the full benefit thereof. Miss Keeldar, placed directly opposite, was seen without effort. She was the object his eyes, when lifted, naturally met first; and as what remained of daylight--the gilding of the west--was upon her, her shape rose in relief from the dark panelling behind. Shirley's clear cheek was tinted yet with the colour which had risen into it a few minutes since. The dark lashes of her eyes looking down as she read, the dusk yet delicate line of her eyebrows, the almost sable gloss of her curls, made her heightened complexion look fine as the bloom of a red wild flower by contrast. There was natural grace in her attitude, and there was artistic effect in the ample and shining folds of her silk dress--an attire simply fashioned, but almost splendid from the shifting brightness of its dye, warp and woof being of tints deep and changing as the hue on a pheasant's neck. A glancing bracelet on her arm produced the contrast of gold and ivory. There was something brilliant in the whole picture. It is to be supposed that Moore thought so, as his eye dwelt long on it, but he seldom permitted his feelings or his opinions to exhibit themselves in his face. His temperament boasted a certain amount of phlegm, and he preferred an undemonstrative, not ungentle, but serious aspect to any other. He could not, by looking straight before him, see Caroline, as she was close at his side. It was necessary, therefore, to manuvre a little to get her well within the range of his observation. He leaned back in his chair, and looked down on her. In Miss Helstone neither he nor any one else could discover brilliancy. Sitting in the shade, without flowers or ornaments, her attire the modest muslin dress, colourless but for its narrow stripe of pale azure, her complexion unflushed, unexcited, the very brownness of her hair and eyes invisible by this faint light, she was, compared with the heiress, as a graceful pencil sketch compared with a vivid painting. Since Robert had seen her last a great change had been wrought in her. Whether he perceived it might not be ascertained. He said nothing to that effect. "How is Hortense?" asked Caroline softly. "Very well; but she complains of being unemployed. She misses you." "Tell her that I miss her, and that I write and read a portion of French every day." "She will ask if you sent your love; she is always particular on that point. You know she likes attention." "My best love--my very best. And say to her that whenever she has time to write me a little note I shall be glad to hear from her." "What if I forget? I am not the surest messenger of compliments." "No, don't forget, Robert. It is no compliment; it is in good earnest." "And must, therefore, be delivered punctually." "If you please." "Hortense will be ready to shed tears. She is tenderhearted on the subject of her pupil; yet she reproaches you sometimes for obeying your uncle's injunctions too literally. Affection, like love, will be unjust now and then." And Caroline made no answer to this observation; for indeed her heart was troubled, and to her eyes she would have raised her handkerchief if she had dared. If she had dared, too, she would have declared how the very flowers in the garden of Hollow's Cottage were dear to her; how the little parlour of that house was her earthly paradise; how she longed to return to it, as much almost as the first woman, in her exile, must have longed to revisit Eden. Not daring, however, to say these things, she held her peace; she sat quiet at Robert's side, waiting for him to say something more. It was long since this proximity had been hers--long since his voice had addressed her; could she, with any show of probability, even of possibility, have imagined that the meeting gave him pleasure, to her it would have given deep bliss. Yet, even in doubt that it pleased, in dread that it might annoy him, she received the boon of the meeting as an imprisoned bird would the admission of sunshine to its cage. It was of no use arguing, contending against the sense of present happiness; to be near Robert was to be revived. Miss Keeldar laid down the papers. "And are you glad or sad for all these menacing tidings?" she inquired of her tenant. "Not precisely either; but I certainly am instructed. I see that our only plan is to be firm. I see that efficient preparation and a resolute attitude are the best means of averting bloodshed." He then inquired if she had observed some particular paragraph, to which she replied in the negative, and he rose to show it to her. He continued the conversation standing before her. From the tenor of what he said, it appeared evident that they both apprehended disturbances in the neighbourhood of Briarfield, though in what form they expected them to break out was not specified. Neither Caroline nor Mrs. Pryor asked questions. The subject did not appear to be regarded as one ripe for free discussion; therefore the lady and her tenant were suffered to keep details to themselves, unimportuned by the curiosity of their listeners. Miss Keeldar, in speaking to Mr. Moore, took a tone at once animated and dignified, confidential and self-respecting. When, however, the candles were brought in, and the fire was stirred up, and the fullness of light thus produced rendered the expression of her countenance legible, you could see that she was all interest, life, and earnestness. There was nothing coquettish in her demeanour; whatever she felt for Moore she felt it seriously. And serious, too, were his feelings, and settled were his views, apparently, for he made no petty effort to attract, dazzle, or impress. He contrived, notwithstanding, to command a little; because the deeper voice, however mildly modulated, the somewhat harder mind, now and then, though involuntarily and unintentionally, bore down by some peremptory phrase or tone the mellow accents and susceptible, if high, nature of Shirley. Miss Keeldar looked happy in conversing with him, and her joy seemed twofold--a joy of the past and present, of memory and of hope. What I have just said are Caroline's ideas of the pair. She felt what has just been described. In thus feeling she tried not to suffer, but suffered sharply nevertheless. She suffered, indeed, miserably. A few minutes before her famished heart had tasted a drop and crumb of nourishment, that, if freely given, would have brought back abundance of life where life was failing; but the generous feast was snatched from her, spread before another, and she remained but a bystander at the banquet. The clock struck nine; it was Caroline's time for going home. She gathered up her work, put the embroidery, the scissors, the thimble into her bag. She bade Mrs. Pryor a quiet good-night, receiving from that lady a warmer pressure of the hand than usual. She stepped up to Miss Keeldar. "Good-night, Shirley!" Shirley started up. "What! so soon? Are you going already?" "It is past nine." "I never heard the clock. You will come again to-morrow, and you will be happy to-night, will you not? Remember our plans." "Yes," said Caroline; "I have not forgotten." Her mind misgave her that neither those plans nor any other could permanently restore her mental tranquillity. She turned to Robert, who stood close behind her. As he looked up, the light of the candles on the mantelpiece fell full on her face. All its paleness, all its change, all its forlorn meaning were clearly revealed. Robert had good eyes, and might have seen it if he would; whether he did see it, nothing indicated. "Good-night!" she said, shaking like a leaf, offering her thin hand hastily, anxious to part from him quickly. "You are going home?" he asked, not touching her hand. "Yes." "Is Fanny come for you?" "Yes." "I may as well accompany you a step of the way; not up to the rectory, though, lest my old friend Helstone should shoot me from the window." He laughed, and took his hat. Caroline spoke of unnecessary trouble; he told her to put on her bonnet and shawl. She was quickly ready, and they were soon both in the open air. Moore drew her hand under his arm, just in his old manner--that manner which she ever felt to be so kind. "You may run on, Fanny," he said to the housemaid; "we shall overtake you." And when the girl had got a little in advance, he enclosed Caroline's hand in his, and said he was glad to find she was a familiar guest at Fieldhead. He hoped her intimacy with Miss Keeldar would continue; such society would be both pleasant and improving. Caroline replied that she liked Shirley. "And there is no doubt the liking is mutual," said Moore. "If she professes friendship, be certain she is sincere. She cannot feign; she scorns hypocrisy. And, Caroline, are we never to see you at Hollow's Cottage again?" "I suppose not, unless my uncle should change his mind." "Are you much alone now?" "Yes, a good deal. I have little pleasure in any society but Miss Keeldar's." "Have you been quite well lately?" "Quite." "You must take care of yourself. Be sure not to neglect exercise. Do you know I fancied you somewhat altered--a little fallen away, and pale. Is your uncle kind to you?" "Yes; he is just as he always is." "Not too tender, that is to say--not too protective and attentive. And what ails you, then? Tell me, Lina." "Nothing, Robert." But her voice faltered. "That is to say, nothing that you will tell me. I am not to be taken into confidence. Separation is then quite to estrange us, is it?" "I do not know. Sometimes I almost fear it is." "But it ought not to have that effect. 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days o' lang syne?'" "Robert, I don't forget." "It is two months, I should think, Caroline, since you were at the cottage." "Since I was _within_ it--yes." "Have you ever passed that way in your walk?" "I have come to the top of the fields sometimes of an evening and looked down. Once I saw Hortense in the garden watering her flowers, and I know at what time you light your lamp in the counting-house. I have waited for it to shine out now and then, and I have seen you bend between it and the window. I knew it was you; I could almost trace the outline of your form." "I wonder I never encountered you. I occasionally walk to the top of the Hollow's fields after sunset." "I know you do. I had almost spoken to you one night, you passed so near me." "Did I? I passed near you, and did not see you! Was I alone?" "I saw you twice, and neither time were you alone." "Who was my companion? Probably nothing but Joe Scott, or my own shadow by moonlight." "No; neither Joe Scott nor your shadow, Robert. The first time you were with Mr. Yorke; and the second time what you call your shadow was a shape with a white forehead and dark curls, and a sparkling necklace round its neck. But I only just got a glimpse of you and that fairy shadow; I did not wait to hear you converse." "It appears you walk invisible. I noticed a ring on your hand this evening; can it be the ring of Gyges? Henceforth, when sitting in the counting-house by myself, perhaps at dead of night, I shall permit myself to imagine that Caroline may be leaning over my shoulder reading with me from the same book, or sitting at my side engaged in her own particular task, and now and then raising her unseen eyes to my face to read there my thoughts." "You need fear no such infliction. I do not come near you; I only stand afar off, watching what may become of you." "When I walk out along the hedgerows in the evening after the mill is shut, or at night when I take the watchman's place, I shall fancy the flutter of every little bird over its nest, the rustle of every leaf, a movement made by you; tree-shadows will take your shape; in the white sprays of hawthorn I shall imagine glimpses of you. Lina, you will haunt me." "I will never be where you would not wish me to be, nor see nor hear what you would wish unseen and unheard." "I shall see you in my very mill in broad daylight. Indeed, I have seen you there once. But a week ago I was standing at the top of one of my long rooms; girls were working at the other end, and amongst half a dozen of them, moving to and fro, I seemed to see a figure resembling yours. It was some effect of doubtful light or shade, or of dazzling sunbeam. I walked up to this group. What I sought had glided away; I found myself between two buxom lasses in pinafores." "I shall not follow you into your mill, Robert, unless you call me there." "Nor is that the only occasion on which imagination has played me a trick. One night, when I came home late from market, I walked into the cottage parlour thinking to find Hortense; but instead of her I thought I found you. There was no candle in the room; my sister had taken the light upstairs with her. The window-blind was not drawn, and broad moonbeams poured through the panes. There you were, Lina, at the casement, shrinking a little to one side in an attitude not unusual with you. You were dressed in white, as I have seen you dressed at an evening party. For half a second your fresh, living face seemed turned towards me, looking at me; for half a second my idea was to go and take your hand, to chide you for your long absence, and welcome your present visit. Two steps forward broke the spell. The drapery of the dress changed outline; the tints of the complexion dissolved, and were formless. Positively, as I reached the spot, there was nothing left but the sweep of a white muslin curtain, and a balsam plant in a flower-pot, covered with a flush of bloom. 'Sic transit,' et cetera." "It was not my wraith, then? I almost thought it was." "No; only gauze, crockery, and pink blossom--a sample of earthly illusions." "I wonder you have time for such illusions, occupied as your mind must be." "So do I. But I find in myself, Lina, two natures--one for the world and business, and one for home and leisure. Grard Moore is a hard dog, brought up to mill and market; the person you call your cousin Robert is sometimes a dreamer, who lives elsewhere than in Cloth-hall and counting-house." "Your two natures agree with you. I think you are looking in good spirits and health. You have quite lost that harassed air which it often pained one to see in your face a few months ago." "Do you observe that? Certainly I am disentangled of some difficulties. I have got clear of some shoals, and have more sea-room." "And, with a fair wind, you may now hope to make a prosperous voyage?" "I may _hope_ it--yes--but hope is deceptive. There is no controlling wind or wave. Gusts and swells perpetually trouble the mariner's course; he dare not dismiss from his mind the expectation of tempest." "But you are ready for a breeze; you are a good seaman, an able commander. You are a skilful pilot, Robert; you will weather the storm." "My kinswoman always thinks the best of me, but I will take her words for a propitious omen. I will consider that in meeting her to-night I have met with one of those birds whose appearance is to the sailor the harbinger of good luck." "A poor harbinger of good luck is she who can do nothing, who has no power. I feel my incapacity. It is of no use saying I have the will to serve you when I cannot prove it. Yet I have that will. I wish you success. I wish you high fortune and true happiness." "When did you ever wish me anything else? What is Fanny waiting for? I told her to walk on. Oh! we have reached the churchyard. Then we are to part here, I suppose. We might have sat a few minutes in the church porch, if the girl had not been with us. It is so fine a night, so summer-mild and still, I have no particular wish to return yet to the Hollow." "But we cannot sit in the porch now, Robert." Caroline said this because Moore was turning her round towards it. "Perhaps not. But tell Fanny to go in. Say we are coming. A few minutes will make no difference." The church clock struck ten. "My uncle will be coming out to take his usual sentinel round, and he always surveys the church and churchyard." "And if he does? If it were not for Fanny, who knows we are here, I should find pleasure in dodging and eluding him. We could be under the east window when he is at the porch; as he came round to the north side we could wheel off to the south; we might at a pinch hide behind some of the monuments. That tall erection of the Wynnes would screen us completely." "Robert, what good spirits you have! Go! go!" added Caroline hastily. "I hear the front door----" "I don't want to go; on the contrary, I want to stay." "You know my uncle will be terribly angry. He forbade me to see you because you are a Jacobin." "A queer Jacobin!" "Go, Robert, he is coming; I hear him cough." "Diable! It is strange--what a pertinacious wish I feel to stay!" "You remember what he did to Fanny's--" began Caroline, and stopped abruptly short. "Sweetheart" was the word that ought to have followed, but she could not utter it. It seemed calculated to suggest ideas she had no intention to suggest--ideas delusive and disturbing. Moore was less scrupulous. "Fanny's sweetheart?" he said at once. "He gave him a shower-bath under the pump, did he not? He'd do as much for me, I dare say, with pleasure. I should like to provoke the old Turk--not, however, against you. But he would make a distinction between a cousin and a lover, would he not?" "Oh, he would not think of you in that way, of course not; his quarrel with you is entirely political. Yet I should not like the breach to be widened, and he is so testy. Here he is at the garden gate. For your own sake and mine, Robert, go!" The beseeching words were aided by a beseeching gesture and a more beseeching look. Moore covered her clasped hands an instant with his, answered her upward by a downward gaze, said "Good-night!" and went. Caroline was in a moment at the kitchen door behind Fanny. The shadow of the shovel-hat at that very instant fell on a moonlit tomb. The rector emerged, erect as a cane, from his garden, and proceeded in slow march, his hands behind him, down the cemetery. Moore was almost caught. He had to "dodge" after all, to coast round the church, and finally to bend his tall form behind the Wynnes' ambitious monument. There he was forced to hide full ten minutes, kneeling with one knee on the turf, his hat off, his curls bare to the dew, his dark eye shining, and his lips parted with inward laughter at his position; for the rector meantime stood coolly star-gazing, and taking snuff within three feet of him. It happened, however, that Mr. Helstone had no suspicion whatever on his mind; for being usually but vaguely informed of his niece's movements, not thinking it worth while to follow them closely, he was not aware that she had been out at all that day, and imagined her then occupied with book or work in her chamber--where, indeed, she was by this time, though not absorbed in the tranquil employment he ascribed to her, but standing at her window with fast-throbbing heart, peeping anxiously from behind the blind, watching for her uncle to re-enter and her cousin to escape. And at last she was gratified. She heard Mr. Helstone come in; she saw Robert stride the tombs and vault the wall; she then went down to prayers. When she returned to her chamber, it was to meet the memory of Robert. Slumber's visitation was long averted. Long she sat at her lattice, long gazed down on the old garden and older church, on the tombs laid out all gray and calm, and clear in moonlight. She followed the steps of the night, on its pathway of stars, far into the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal'." She was with Moore, in spirit, the whole time; she was at his side; she heard his voice; she gave her hand into his hand; it rested warm in his fingers. When the church clock struck, when any other sound stirred, when a little mouse familiar to her chamber--an intruder for which she would never permit Fanny to lay a trap--came rattling amongst the links of her locket-chain, her one ring, and another trinket or two on the toilet-table, to nibble a bit of biscuit laid ready for it, she looked up, recalled momentarily to the real. Then she said half aloud, as if deprecating the accusation of some unseen and unheard monitor, "I am not cherishing love dreams; I am only thinking because I cannot sleep. Of course, I know he will marry Shirley." With returning silence, with the lull of the chime, and the retreat of her small untamed and unknown _protg_, she still resumed the dream, nestling to the vision's side--listening to, conversing with it. It paled at last. As dawn approached, the setting stars and breaking day dimmed the creation of fancy; the wakened song of birds hushed her whispers. The tale full of fire, quick with interest, borne away by the morning wind, became a vague murmur. The shape that, seen in a moonbeam, lived, had a pulse, had movement, wore health's glow and youth's freshness, turned cold and ghostly gray, confronted with the red of sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last. She crept to her couch, chill and dejected.

Shirley enjoyed at times an easy indolence. There were periods when she took delight in thinking and doing nothing - moments when her simple existence, with the world around and heaven above her, seemed to give her such happiness that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy. Often, after an active morning, she would spend a sunny afternoon lying on the turf, in the shade of a tree. No society did she need but Caroline's; no spectacle did she ask but the deep blue sky, and such cloudlets as sailed across it; no sound but the bee's hum, the leaf's whisper. Her sole book in such hours was the dim chronicle of memory, or the page of blissful anticipation of the future. In her past were sweet passages, in her future rosy hopes. Yet one such day when Caroline looked down at her, Shirley's cheek was wet. "Shirley, why do you cry?" asked Caroline. Miss Keeldar smiled, and turned her picturesque head. "Because it pleases me mightily to cry," she said. "My heart is both sad and glad. But you good, patient child - why do you not cry too? I only weep tears; you might weep gall, if you choose." "Why should I weep gall?" "Mateless, solitary bird!" was the only answer. "And are not you too mateless, Shirley?" "At heart - no." "Oh! who nestles there, Shirley?" But Shirley only laughed gaily at this question, and started up. "I have dreamed a mere day-dream, bright and baseless!" Miss Helstone was by this time free from illusions: she fancied she knew pretty well where her own destiny and that of some others were leading. Yet she was still frequently drawn of an evening to the field-stile overlooking the Hollow. On the night after the incident of the note, she had been there, watching for her beacon - watching vainly: no lamp was lit. She turned for home; in passing Fieldhead, its moonlight beauty attracted her glance. Tree and hall rose peaceful under the moon; pearly paleness gilded the building. The broad pavement in front shone pale also, gleaming as if some spell had transformed the dark granite to marble. On the silvery space were two human figures, at first motionless and mute; presently they moved in step, and spoke low. Caroline scrutinized them earnestly. "Is it Mrs. Pryor and Shirley?" Certainly it is Shirley. Who else has a shape so lithe, and proud, and graceful? And her face, too, is visible - careless and pensive, mocking and tender. Her curls caress her shoulder with their tendril rings. That is Shirley. Her companion then is, of course, Mrs. Pryor? Yes, if Mrs. Pryor is six feet tall, and is wearing men's clothes. The figure walking at Miss Keeldar's side is a tall young man; it is her tenant, Robert Moore. The pair speak softly - Caroline cannot hear them. She is not eavesdropping; and so she lingers. There was a time when, on summer nights, Moore used to walk with his cousin along a narrow terrace in the Hollow. "But he used to hold my hand," thought Caroline; "he does not touch hers. And yet she does not look haughty now. Robert must think hers a fine face; she has such generous yet soft fire in her eyes. She smiles - what makes her smile so sweet? Robert must have felt its beauty. They look to me like two happy spirits on a silver shore, beyond the death-flood. They have reached it; they walk there united. And what am I, standing here in shadow and concealment, my mind darker than my hiding-place? I am one of this world - a poor doomed mortal, who asks hopelessly why she was born, why she lives. "This is the worst time I have come to yet; still I am prepared for it. I gave Robert up to Shirley, the first moment I saw her - rich, youthful, and lovely. She has him now. He is her lover. She is his darling. When they are married, they will both be happy, and I do not grudge them their bliss; but I groan under my own acute misery. Truly I ought not to have been born; they should have smothered me at the first cry." Here, Shirley and her companion turned toward the gate, and some of their conversation became audible. Caroline would not stay to listen. She passed away noiselessly. The reader, however, may remain and hear. "I cannot imagine why nature did not give you a bulldog's head, for you have a bulldog's tenacity," said Shirley. "Not a flattering idea. Am I so ignoble?" "And also you have the bulldog's silent way of coming up noiselessly behind, to seize fast, and hold on." "This is guess-work. In your presence I have been no bulldog." "Your very silence indicates your race. How little you talk, yet how deeply you scheme!" "I know the ways of these people. I have learnt their intentions. My note last night informed you that Barraclough's trial had ended in his conviction and sentence to transportation. His associates will plot vengeance. I shall lay my plans: I shall be prepared - that is all. Do you approve of what I propose?" "I shall stand by you so long as you are defending yourself." "Good!" said Moore. "Even if you disapproved, I believe I should act the same way; but I now feel satisfied. On the whole, I relish the task." "I dare say you do. So would old Helstone. Shall I speak to him? I will, if you like." "Act as you please. But I should inform you that Mr. Helstone is somewhat prejudiced against me." "I have heard all about your differences. Depend upon it, they will melt away. He cannot resist the temptation of an alliance under present circumstances." "I should be glad to have him; he is of true metal. An old blade, and rusty somewhat, but the edge still excellent." "Well, you shall have him, Mr. Moore, if I can win him. It will cost me several cups of tea, toast and cake, and an ample measure of persuasion. It grows rather chill." "I see you shiver. Am I wrong to keep you here? Yet it is so calm - I even feel warm - and society such as yours is a rare pleasure to me. If you were wrapped in a thicker shawl-" "I might stay longer, and forget how late it is, which would dismay Mrs. Pryor. We keep early hours at Fieldhead, Mr. Moore; and so, I am sure, does your sister at the cottage." "Yes; but Hortense and I have an understanding that we shall each do as we please. Three nights a week I sleep in the mill; when it is moonlight and mild, I often haunt the Hollow till daybreak." "When I was a very little girl, Mr. Moore, my nurse used to tell me tales of fairies being seen in that Hollow. You will be falling under enchantment." "I fear it is done," said Moore, in a low voice. "But there are worse things than fairies to be guarded against," pursued Miss Keeldar. "Things more perilous." "Far more so. For instance, how would you like to meet Michael Hartley, that mad Calvinist and Jacobin weaver? They say he is a poacher, and often goes abroad at night with his gun." "I have already had the luck to meet him. We held a long argument together one night. A strange little incident it was; I liked it." "Liked it? I admire your taste! Michael is not sane. Where did you meet him?" "In the deepest spot in the glen," said Moore. "We sat down near the bridge in moonlight. We had a talk about politics and religion. Michael was near crazed, but there was a wild interest in his ravings. The man would be half a poet, if he were not wholly a maniac. He solemnly informed me that hell was waiting for me, and that he read the mark of the beast on my brow. He said he had beheld the manner of my doom, and left me with these words, 'The end is not yet.'" "Have you seen him since?" "About a month afterwards, in returning from market, I met him and Moses Barraclough, both drunk. They were praying at the roadside. They accosted me as Satan, and bid me flee. Then just a few days ago, Michael appeared at my counting-house door, in his shirt-sleeves. He delivered the comforting message that he wished Mr. Moore to set his house in order, as his soul was likely shortly to be required." "Do you make light of these things?" "The poor man had been drinking for weeks, and was in a state bordering on delirium tremens." "Then he is the more likely to try to fulfil his own prophecies. Mr. Moore, go home!" "So soon? It is early yet." "It is late. For my part, I am going in. Will you promise me not to wander in the Hollow tonight?" "If you wish it." "I do wish it. Do you consider life valueless?" "On the contrary, of late I regard my life as invaluable. Existence is neither aimless nor hopeless to me now," said Moore, "and it was both three months ago. I was then drowning. All at once a hand was stretched to me - such a delicate hand I scarcely dared trust it; its strength, however, has rescued me from ruin." "Are you really rescued?" "For the time. Your assistance has given me another chance." "Live to make the best of it. Don't offer yourself as a target to Michael Hartley; and good-night!" Caroline had promised to spend the next evening at Fieldhead. The gloomy hours beforehand she spent shut up in her own apartment, only leaving it to join her uncle at meals, and avoiding inquiries from Fanny by telling her that she was busy altering a dress. She did sew. She plied her needle ceaselessly, but her brain worked faster than her fingers. More intensely than ever, she desired a fixed occupation. Her uncle must be once more entreated, but first she would consult Mrs. Pryor. Her head laboured to make plans: now and then, a tear would fall on her busy hands; but this sign of emotion was rare and quickly effaced. She would re-thread her needle, and work on. Late in the afternoon she reached Fieldhead, and appeared in the oak parlour just as tea was brought in. Shirley asked her why she came so late. "Because I have been making my summer dress," said she. "In which I will like to see you," said Shirley. "You are a lady-like little person, Caroline. Is she not, Mrs. Pryor?" Mrs. Pryor never paid compliments on personal appearance. On this occasion she only swept Caroline's curls from her cheek, and observed, "You get somewhat thin, my love, and somewhat pale. Do you sleep well?" And she gazed at her anxiously. "I sometimes dream melancholy dreams," answered Caroline; "and if I lie awake at night, the rectory seems a dreary old place. You know it is very near the churchyard, and it is said that there are graves underneath the out-kitchens. I rather long to leave the rectory." "My dear, you are surely not superstitious?" "No, Mrs. Pryor; but I think I grow what is called nervous. I see things under a darker aspect than I used to do. I have fears I never used to have; and I have an inexpressible weight on my mind which I would give the world to shake off, and I cannot do it." "Strange!" cried Shirley. "I never feel so." Mrs. Pryor said nothing. "Fine weather and pleasant scenes give me no pleasure," continued Caroline. "Calm evenings are not calm to me. Is this weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it. I often struggle against it. I reason; but reason and effort make no difference." "You should take more exercise," said Mrs. Pryor. "Exercise! I exercise till I am ready to drop." "My dear, you should go away from home." "Mrs. Pryor, I should like to. I wish to be a governess, as you have been. It would oblige me greatly if you would speak to my uncle on the subject." "Nonsense!" broke in Shirley. "What an idea! Be a governess! Better be a slave. Why should you dream of such a painful step?" "My dear," said Mrs. Pryor, "you are very young to be a governess, and not sufficiently robust. The duties a governess undertakes are often severe." "I believe I want severe duties to occupy me." "Occupy you!" cried Shirley. "When are you idle? I never saw a more industrious girl. You are always at work. Come, sit by my side, and take some tea. Don't you care for my friendship, then, that you wish to leave me?" "Indeed I do, Shirley; I shall never find another friend so dear." Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline's with impulsive affection. "If you think so, you had better make much of me," she said, "and not run away. I hate to part with those to whom I am become attached. Mrs. Pryor there sometimes talks of leaving me, and says I might find someone more advantageous, but I should as soon think of exchanging an old-fashioned mother for something modish. As for you - why, I began to flatter myself we were thoroughly friends; that you liked Shirley almost as well as Shirley likes you." "I do like Shirley. I like her more every day. But that does not make me strong or happy." "And would it make you strong or happy to go and live as a dependent amongst utter strangers? It would not. It is not in your nature to bear the desolate life governesses generally lead; you would fall ill. I won't hear of it." And Miss Keeldar paused, having said this very decidedly. Soon she went on, "Why, it is my daily pleasure now to look out for you, to know that my quiet, shrewd companion and monitress is coming; that I shall have her sitting in the room to look at or to talk to, as we please. This may be selfish, but it is true." "I would write to you, Shirley." "And what are letters? Only a stopgap. Drink some tea, Caroline. Eat something - you eat nothing. Laugh and be cheerful, and stay at home." Miss Helstone shook her head and sighed. She felt how difficult it would be to persuade anyone to help her make the change which she believed desirable. But this cure for circumstances which she could fully explain to none, least of all to Shirley, seemed, in all eyes but her own, incomprehensible. There really was no financial need for her to leave a comfortable home and "take a situation." So her friends thought; but of Caroline's strange sufferings, which she desired so eagerly to escape, they had no idea. It was both impossible and hopeless to explain; to wait and endure was her only plan. "Now, is your mind quieter?" inquired Shirley. "Will you stay at home?" "I shall not leave it against the approval of my friends," was the reply; "but I think in time they will be obliged to think as I do." During this conversation Mrs. Pryor looked uneasy. Her extreme habitual reserve would rarely permit her to interrogate others. She had a multitude of questions she never ventured to put. Had she been alone with Caroline, she might have spoken: but Miss Keeldar's presence sealed her lips, and nervous scruples kept her from interfering. She merely showed her concern for Miss Helstone indirectly, by asking her if the fire made her too warm, closing a window whence she imagined a draught blew, and often glancing at her. Shirley resumed. "Having destroyed your plan," she said, "which I hope I have done, I shall construct a new one of my own. Every summer I make an excursion. This season I propose spending two months either at the Scotch lochs or the English lakes - that is, I shall go provided you consent to accompany me. If you refuse, I shall not stir." "You are very good, Shirley." "I would be very good if you would let me. I have every intention to be good. I know I think of myself more than anybody else; but who does not? However, when Captain Keeldar is made comfortable, and has a sensible, congenial comrade, it gives him a thorough pleasure to make that comrade happy. Should we not be happy, Caroline, in the Highlands? Or if you can bear a sea-voyage, we can go to the Isles - the Hebrides, Shetland, the Orkney Islands. Would you not like that? I see you would. Your face is all sunshine at the mention of it." "I should like it very much," returned Caroline, to whom, indeed, the notion of such a tour was gloriously reviving. Shirley rubbed her hands. "Come; I can do a good deed with my cash," she exclaimed. "My thousand a year can bring health to the drooping, and consolation to the sad. This summer, we shall go out into the North Atlantic, beyond the Shetlands, perhaps to the Faroe Isles. We will see seals and mermaids. Caroline is laughing, Mrs. Pryor. I have done her good." "I shall like to go, Shirley," said Miss Helstone. "I long to hear the ocean-waves, and to see them as I have imagined them in dreams, like tossing banks of green light, strewed with vanishing and reappearing wreaths of foam. I shall delight to see those lone rock-islets where the sea-birds live unmolested. We shall be on the track of the Vikings; we shall almost see the shores of Norway." "Will you think of Fitful Head now when you lie awake at night, of gulls shrieking round it, and waves tumbling upon it, rather than of the graves under the rectory back-kitchen?" "I will try; and instead of musing about shrouds and coffins, I will fancy seals lying in the sunshine on solitary shores; of happy flocks of unscared birds." "And what will become of that weight you said you had on your mind?" "I will try to forget it in imagining a herd of whales rushing through the deep, a hundred of them wallowing and rolling in the wake of a patriarch bull." "I hope our boat will meet with no such herd, Caroline. I should not like to be capsized by the patriarch bull." "I suppose you expect to see mermaids, Shirley?" "One of them, at any rate - and she is to appear like this. I am to be walking by myself on deck, under a full harvest moon. Something will rise white on the surface of the sea, over which that moon hangs glorious. The object glitters and sinks. It rises again. I think I hear it cry out; I call you up from the cabin; we see an image emerging from the dim wave. We both see the long hair, the lifted foam-white arm. It glides nearer; a human face is plainly visible, with an alluring glance. It beckons. Were we men, we should spring into the cold billow; being women, we stand safe, though not without dread. She feels herself powerless; anger crosses her face; she cannot charm, but she will appal us; she rises high, and glides revealed on the dark wave-ridge. Temptress-terror! monstrous likeness of ourselves! Are you not glad, Caroline, when at last, with a wild shriek, she dives?" "But, Shirley, she is not like us. We are neither temptresses, nor terrors, nor monsters." "Some of our kind, it is said, are all three. There are men who ascribe to 'woman,' in general, such attributes." "My dears," here interrupted Mrs. Pryor, "does it not strike you that your conversation is rather fanciful?" "But there is no harm in our fancies; is there, ma'am?" "Mermaids do not exist; why speak of them as if they did? My dear, I think there is an arrival. I heard a step in the lane while you were talking." Shirley went to the window. "Yes, there is some one," said she, turning quietly away; a sensitive flush animated her face. She cast her gaze down, and seemed to think as she waited. The servant announced Mr. Moore, and Shirley turned. He seemed very tall as he entered, and stood in contrast with the three ladies. He was looking well; a renewed youth and hope glowed in his eye. His face was as cheerful as it was earnest. "I am just returned from Stilbro'," he said to Miss Keeldar; "and I thought I would call to tell you the result of my mission." "Your visit is well timed," she said. "Sit down. We have not finished tea. Are you English enough to enjoy tea, or do you faithfully adhere to coffee?" Moore accepted tea, and paid his respects to Mrs. Pryor with grave modesty. Then he looked at Caroline - not, however, for the first time: his glance had fallen upon her before. He gave her his hand, and asked her how she was. Miss Helstone replied quietly. She was in the shadow, and the friendly protection of early twilight kept out of view each traitorous blush. Moore took the empty chair near her, opposite Miss Keeldar. Caroline, screened by his very closeness, and sheltered by the deepening dusk, soon regained mastery of her feelings. He addressed Miss Keeldar. "I went to the barracks," he said, "and had an interview with Colonel Ryde. He approved my plans, and promised the aid I wanted. Indeed, he offered more soldiers than I require - half a dozen will suffice. I don't intend to be swamped by redcoats. They are needed for appearance rather than anything else. My main reliance is on my own civilians." "And on their captain," interposed Shirley. "What, Captain Keeldar?" inquired Moore, smiling slightly, in a tone of respectful raillery. "No," returned Shirley, answering the smile; "Captain Grard Moore, who trusts to the prowess of his own right arm, I believe." "Furnished with his counting-house ruler," added Moore. Resuming his usual gravity, he went on: "I received by this evening's post a note from the Home Secretary in answer to mine. It appears they are uneasy at the state of matters here in the north; they especially condemn the weakness of the mill-owners. They say, as I have always said, that inaction can only encourage disorder, and lead to bloodshed. There is the note - I brought it for your perusal; and there is a batch of newspapers, containing further accounts of uprisings in Nottingham, Manchester, and elsewhere." He laid them before Miss Keeldar. While she read them he took his tea quietly; but his eyes were busy, watching the two young ladies. Miss Keeldar, directly opposite, was easily seen. Her clear cheek was tinted still with the colour which had risen into it a few minutes since. Her dark lashes looking down as she read, the dusky yet delicate line of her eyebrows, the gloss of her curls, made her heightened complexion look like the bloom of a wild flower. There was natural grace in her attitude, and her silk dress, though simply fashioned, was almost splendid in the shifting brightness of its tints. On her arm she wore a bracelet of gold and ivory. There was something brilliant in the whole picture. It is to be supposed that Moore thought so, as his eye dwelt long on it, but he seldom permitted his feelings to show in his serious face. He could not see Caroline without manuvering a little. He leaned back in his chair, and looked down on her. Miss Helstone had no brilliancy. Sitting in the shade, without ornaments, her modest muslin dress colourless but for its narrow stripe of pale azure, the very brownness of her hair and eyes invisible by this faint light, she was, compared with the heiress, as a graceful pencil sketch compared with a vivid painting. Since Robert had seen her last a great change had been wrought in her. If he perceived it, he said nothing. "How is Hortense?" asked Caroline softly. "Very well; but she misses you." "Tell her that I miss her, and that I write and read some French every day." "She will ask if you sent your love; she is always particular on that point. You know she likes attention." "My very best love. And say to her that whenever she has time to write me a little note I shall be glad to hear from her." "Hortense will be ready to shed tears. She is tenderhearted about her pupil; yet she reproaches you sometimes for obeying your uncle's injunctions too literally. Affection, like love, will be unjust now and then." Caroline made no answer; for indeed her heart was troubled, and she would have raised her handkerchief to her eyes if she had dared. If she had dared, too, she would have declared how the very flowers in the garden of Hollow's Cottage were dear to her; how the little parlour of that house was her earthly paradise; how she longed to return to it, as Eve, in her exile, must have longed to revisit Eden. Not daring, however, to say these things, she held her peace, waiting for Robert to say something more. It was long since his voice had addressed her; if she could have imagined that the meeting gave him pleasure, to her it would have been blissful. Yet, even in doubt, the meeting was as welcome as sunshine to the cage of an imprisoned bird. To be near Robert was to be revived. Miss Keeldar laid down the papers. "And are you glad or sad for all these menacing tidings?" she asked him. "Neither; but I certainly am instructed. I see that our only plan is to be firm. Efficient preparation and a resolute attitude are the best means of averting bloodshed." As the candles were brought in, he rose to show her a particular paragraph; it seemed that he expected disturbances around Briarfield, though in what form was not specified. Neither Caroline nor Mrs. Pryor asked questions. Miss Keeldar, however, spoke with interest, life, and earnestness. There was nothing coquettish in her demeanour; whatever she felt for Moore, she felt it seriously. And serious, too, were his feelings, apparently, for he made no effort to dazzle or impress. Notwithstanding, his deeper voice and somewhat harder mind gave him an aspect of command. Miss Keeldar looked happy in conversing with him, and her joy seemed twofold - joy of the past and present, of memory and of hope. These were Caroline's ideas of the pair. She tried not to suffer, but suffered miserably nevertheless. A few minutes before, her famished heart had tasted a crumb of nourishment; but the feast was snatched from her, spread before another, and she remained a bystander at the banquet. The clock struck nine; it was Caroline's time for going home. She gathered up her work, and bade Mrs. Pryor a quiet good-night, receiving from her a warmer pressure of the hand than usual. She stepped up to Miss Keeldar. "Good-night, Shirley!" Shirley started up. "What! Are you going already?" "It is past nine." "I never heard the clock. You will come again tomorrow, and be happy tonight, will you not? Remember our plans." "Yes," said Caroline; "I have not forgotten." But she felt that no plans could permanently restore her mental tranquillity. She turned to Robert, who stood close behind her. As he looked up, the light of the candles fell full on her face. All its paleness, all its change, all its forlorn meaning were clearly revealed. Whether Robert saw it, nothing indicated. "Good-night!" she said, shaking like a leaf, hastily offering her thin hand, anxious to depart quickly. "You are going home?" he asked, not touching her hand. "Yes." "Is Fanny come for you?" "Yes." "I may as well accompany you a step of the way; not up to the rectory, though, lest my old friend Helstone should shoot me from the window." He laughed, and took his hat. Caroline spoke of unnecessary trouble; he told her to put on her bonnet and shawl. They were soon both in the open air. Moore drew her hand under his arm, just in his old, kind manner. "You may run on, Fanny," he said to the housemaid. When the girl had got a little in advance, he enclosed Caroline's hand in his, and said he was glad to find she was a familiar guest at Fieldhead. He hoped her intimacy with Miss Keeldar would continue; such society would be both pleasant and improving. Caroline replied that she liked Shirley. "And there is no doubt the liking is mutual," said Moore. "If she professes friendship, be certain she is sincere. She cannot feign; she scorns hypocrisy. And, Caroline, are we never to see you at Hollow's Cottage again?" "I suppose not, unless my uncle should change his mind." "Are you much alone now?" "Yes, a good deal." "Have you been quite well lately?" "Quite." "You must take care of yourself. Be sure not to neglect exercise. I fancied you somewhat altered - a little fallen away, and pale. Is your uncle kind to you?" "Yes; he is just as he always is." "Not too attentive, then. And what ails you? Tell me, Lina." "Nothing, Robert." But her voice faltered. "That is to say, nothing that you will tell me. I am not to be taken into confidence. Separation is to estrange us, is it?" "I do not know. Sometimes I fear it is." "But it ought not to. 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?'" "Robert, I don't forget." "It is two months, I should think, Caroline, since you were at the cottage. Have you ever passed that way in your walk?" "I have come to the top of the fields sometimes of an evening and looked down. Once I saw Hortense in the garden watering her flowers, and now and then I have waited for your lamp to shine out from the counting-house, and I have seen your outline between it and the window. I knew it was you." "I wonder I never met you. I occasionally walk to the top of the Hollow's fields after sunset." "I know," said Caroline. "I almost spoke to you one night, you passed so near me." "Did I? And I did not see you! Was I alone?" "I saw you twice, and neither time were you alone." "Who was my companion?" "The first time you were with Mr. Yorke; and the second time, somebody with dark curls, and a sparkling necklace. But I only just got a glimpse of you both; I did not wait to hear you converse." "It appears you walk invisible. Henceforth, when sitting in the counting-house at dead of night, I shall imagine that Caroline may be leaning over my shoulder reading with me from the same book, or sitting at my side." "You need fear no such infliction. I do not come near you; I only stand afar off, watching what may become of you." "When I walk out along the hedgerows in the evening, I shall fancy the flutter of every little bird over its nest is a movement made by you; tree-shadows will take your shape; in the white sprays of hawthorn I shall imagine glimpses of you. Lina, you will haunt me." "I will never be where you would not wish me to be, nor see nor hear what you would wish unseen and unheard." "I shall see you in my very mill in broad daylight. Indeed, I have seen you there once. A week ago, amongst the mill-girls, moving to and fro, I seemed to see a figure resembling yours. It was some effect of light; when I walked up to the group, I found only buxom lasses in pinafores." "I shall not follow you into your mill, Robert, unless you call me there." "Nor is that the only time on which imagination has played me a trick. One night, when I came home late from market, I walked into the cottage parlour and thought I saw you. There was no candle; moonbeams poured through the panes. There you were, Lina, at the window, dressed in white. For half a second your face seemed turned towards me; for half a second my idea was to go and take your hand, to welcome you. Two steps forward broke the spell. The drapery of the dress changed; the face dissolved. When I reached the spot, there was nothing but the sweep of a white muslin curtain, and a plant in a flower-pot. It was a mere illusion." "I wonder you have time for such illusions, occupied as your mind must be." "So do I. But I find I have two natures - one for the world and business, and one for home and leisure. Grard Moore is a hard dog, but your cousin Robert is sometimes a dreamer." "Your two natures agree with you. I think you are looking in good spirits and health. You have quite lost that harassed air of a few months ago." "Certainly I am disentangled of some difficulties. I have got clear of some shoals, and have more sea-room." "And, with a fair wind, you hope to make a prosperous voyage?" "I hope it - yes - but hope is deceptive. The mariner must always expect a tempest." "But you are a skilful pilot, Robert; you will weather the storm." "My kinswoman always thinks the best of me, but I will take her words for a good omen, as if she is one of those birds that signifies good luck to the sailor." "I can do nothing for you. I have no power. It is of no use saying I have the will to serve you. Yet I have that will. I wish you fortune and true happiness." "When did you ever wish me anything else? Oh! we have reached the churchyard. We are to part here, I suppose. It is so fine a night, I have no particular wish to return yet to the Hollow. Tell Fanny to go in. Say we are coming. A few minutes will make no difference." The church clock struck ten. "My uncle will be coming out: he always surveys the church and churchyard at this hour." "And if he does? I should find pleasure in eluding him. We could be under the east window when he is at the porch; as he came round to the north side we could wheel off to the south; we might even hide behind the monuments." "Robert, what good spirits you have! Go! go!" added Caroline hastily. "I hear the front door-" "I want to stay." "You know my uncle will be terribly angry. He forbade me to see you. Go, Robert; I hear him cough." "It is strange how much I wish to stay!" "You remember what he did to Fanny's-" began Caroline, and stopped abruptly short of saying "sweetheart." She did not wish to suggest the idea. Moore was less scrupulous. "Fanny's sweetheart?" he said. "He gave him a shower under the pump, did he not? He'd do as much for me, I dare say, with pleasure. But he would make a distinction between a cousin and a lover, would he not?" "Oh, he would not think of you in that way, of course not; his quarrel with you is political. Yet I should not like the breach to be widened, and he is so testy. For your own sake and mine, Robert, go!" She gave him a beseeching look. Moore covered her clasped hands an instant with his, said "Good-night!" and went. Caroline was in a moment at the kitchen door behind Fanny. The shadow of the shovel-hat at that very instant fell on a moonlit tomb. The rector emerged, erect as a cane, from his garden, and proceeded his slow march through the cemetery. Moore was almost caught. He had to "dodge" after all, around the church, and kneel for full ten minutes behind a monument, his hat off, his dark eye shining, and his lips parted with inward laughter at his position; for the rector meantime stood coolly star-gazing within three feet of him. Mr. Helstone, however, had no suspicion on his mind. He was not aware that his niece had been out that day, and imagined her to be reading in her chamber - where, indeed, she was by this time, though not reading, but standing at her window with fast-throbbing heart, peeping anxiously from behind the blind. At last she heard Mr. Helstone come in; she saw Robert vault the churchyard wall; she then went down to prayers. When she returned to her chamber, it was to meet the memory of Robert. Long she sat at her window, long gazed down on the old garden and church, on the tombs laid out grey and calm in moonlight. She was with Moore in spirit; she was at his side; she heard his voice; she gave her hand into his hand; it rested warm in his fingers. When the church clock struck, a little mouse familiar to her chamber - an intruder for which she would never permit Fanny to lay a trap - came rattling amongst the trinkets on the dressing-table, to nibble a bit of biscuit laid ready for it. Then Caroline looked up, recalled to the real world, and said half aloud, as if to some unseen accuser: "I am not cherishing love dreams; I am only thinking because I cannot sleep. Of course, I know he will marry Shirley." She resumed the dream, nestling to the vision's side - listening to, conversing with it. It paled at last. As dawn approached, the setting stars and breaking day dimmed the creation of fancy; the wakened song of birds hushed her whispers. The tale became a vague murmur. The shape turned cold and ghostly grey. She was left solitary at last. She crept to her couch, chill and dejected.

Shirley

Chapter 13: FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS ON BUSINESS

The hour was now that of dusk. A clear air favoured the kindling of the stars. "There will be just light enough to show me the way home," said Miss Keeldar, as she prepared to take leave of Caroline at the rectory garden door. "You must not go alone, Shirley; Fanny shall accompany you." "That she shall not. Of what need I be afraid in my own parish? I would walk from Fieldhead to the church any fine midsummer night, three hours later than this, for the mere pleasure of seeing the stars and the chance of meeting a fairy." "But just wait till the crowd is cleared away." "Agreed. There are the five Misses Armitage streaming by. Here comes Mrs. Sykes's phaeton, Mr. Wynne's close carriage, Mrs. Birtwhistle's car. I don't wish to go through the ceremony of bidding them all good-bye, so we will step into the garden and take shelter amongst the laburnums for an instant." The rectors, their curates, and their churchwardens now issued from the church porch. There was a great confabulation, shaking of hands, congratulation on speeches, recommendation to be careful of the night air, etc. By degrees the throng dispersed, the carriages drove off. Miss Keeldar was just emerging from her flowery refuge when Mr. Helstone entered the garden and met her. "Oh, I want you!" he said. "I was afraid you were already gone.--Caroline, come here." Caroline came, expecting, as Shirley did, a lecture on not having been visible at church. Other subjects, however, occupied the rector's mind. "I shall not sleep at home to-night," he continued. "I have just met with an old friend, and promised to accompany him. I shall return probably about noon to-morrow. Thomas, the clerk, is engaged, and I cannot get him to sleep in the house, as I usually do when I am absent for a night. Now----" "Now," interrupted Shirley, "you want me as a gentleman--the first gentleman in Briarfield, in short--to supply your place, be master of the rectory and guardian of your niece and maids while you are away?" "Exactly, captain. I thought the post would suit you. Will you favour Caroline so far as to be her guest for one night? Will you stay here instead of going back to Fieldhead?" "And what will Mrs. Pryor do? she expects me home." "I will send her word. Come, make up your mind to stay. It grows late; the dew falls heavily. You and Caroline will enjoy each other's society, I doubt not." "I promise you, then, to stay with Caroline," replied Shirley. "As you say, we shall enjoy each other's society. We will not be separated to-night. Now, rejoin your old friend, and fear nothing for us." "If there should chance to be any disturbance in the night, captain; if you should hear the picking of a lock, the cutting out of a pane of glass, a stealthy tread of steps about the house (and I need not fear to tell _you_, who bear a well-tempered, mettlesome heart under your girl's ribbon sash, that such little incidents are very possible in the present time), what would you do?" "Don't know; faint, perhaps--fall down, and have to be picked up again. But, doctor, if you assign me the post of honour, you must give me arms. What weapons are there in your stronghold?" "You could not wield a sword?" "No; I could manage the carving-knife better." "You will find a good one in the dining-room sideboard--a lady's knife, light to handle, and as sharp-pointed as a poniard." "It will suit Caroline. But you must give me a brace of pistols. I know you have pistols." "I have two pairs. One pair I can place at your disposal. You will find them suspended over the mantelpiece of my study in cloth cases." "Loaded?" "Yes, but not on the cock. Cock them before you go to bed. It is paying you a great compliment, captain, to lend you these. Were you one of the awkward squad you should not have them." "I will take care. You need delay no longer, Mr. Helstone. You may go now.--He is gracious to me to lend me his pistols," she remarked, as the rector passed out at the garden gate. "But come, Lina," she continued, "let us go in and have some supper. I was too much vexed at tea with the vicinage of Mr. Sam Wynne to be able to eat, and now I am really hungry." Entering the house, they repaired to the darkened dining-room, through the open windows of which apartment stole the evening air, bearing the perfume of flowers from the garden, the very distant sound of far-retreating steps from the road, and a soft, vague murmur whose origin Caroline explained by the remark, uttered as she stood listening at the casement, "Shirley, I hear the beck in the Hollow." Then she rang the bell, asked for a candle and some bread and milk--Miss Keeldar's usual supper and her own. Fanny, when she brought in the tray, would have closed the windows and the shutters, but was requested to desist for the present. The twilight was too calm, its breath too balmy to be yet excluded. They took their meal in silence. Caroline rose once to remove to the window-sill a glass of flowers which stood on the sideboard, the exhalation from the blossoms being somewhat too powerful for the sultry room. In returning she half opened a drawer, and took from it something that glittered clear and keen in her hand. "You assigned this to me, then, Shirley, did you? It is bright, keen-edged, finely tapered; it is dangerous-looking. I never yet felt the impulse which could move me to direct this against a fellow-creature. It is difficult to fancy that circumstances could nerve my arm to strike home with this long knife." "I should hate to do it," replied Shirley, "but I think I could do it, if goaded by certain exigencies which I can imagine." And Miss Keeldar quietly sipped her glass of new milk, looking somewhat thoughtful and a little pale; though, indeed, when did she not look pale? She was never florid. The milk sipped and the bread eaten, Fanny was again summoned. She and Eliza were recommended to go to bed, which they were quite willing to do, being weary of the day's exertions, of much cutting of currant-buns, and filling of urns and teapots, and running backwards and forwards with trays. Ere long the maids' chamber door was heard to close. Caroline took a candle and went quietly all over the house, seeing that every window was fast and every door barred. She did not even evade the haunted back kitchen nor the vault-like cellars. These visited, she returned. "There is neither spirit nor flesh in the house at present," she said, "which should not be there. It is now near eleven o'clock, fully bedtime; yet I would rather sit up a little longer, if you do not object, Shirley. Here," she continued, "I have brought the brace of pistols from my uncle's study. You may examine them at your leisure." She placed them on the table before her friend. "Why would you rather sit up longer?" asked Miss Keeldar, taking up the firearms, examining them, and again laying them down. "Because I have a strange, excited feeling in my heart." "So have I." "Is this state of sleeplessness and restlessness caused by something electrical in the air, I wonder?" "No; the sky is clear, the stars numberless. It is a fine night." "But very still. I hear the water fret over its stony bed in Hollow's Copse as distinctly as if it ran below the churchyard wall." "I am glad it is so still a night. A moaning wind or rushing rain would vex me to fever just now." "Why, Shirley?" "Because it would baffle my efforts to listen." "Do you listen towards the Hollow?" "Yes; it is the only quarter whence we can hear a sound just now." "The only one, Shirley." They both sat near the window, and both leaned their arms on the sill, and both inclined their heads towards the open lattice. They saw each other's young faces by the starlight and that dim June twilight which does not wholly fade from the west till dawn begins to break in the east. "Mr. Helstone thinks we have no idea which way he is gone," murmured Miss Keeldar, "nor on what errand, nor with what expectations, nor how prepared. But I guess much; do not you?" "I guess something." "All those gentlemen--your cousin Moore included--think that you and I are now asleep in our beds, unconscious." "Caring nothing about them--hoping and fearing nothing for them," added Caroline. Both kept silent for full half an hour. The night was silent too; only the church clock measured its course by quarters. Some words were interchanged about the chill of the air. They wrapped their scarves closer round them, resumed their bonnets, which they had removed, and again watched. Towards midnight the teasing, monotonous bark of the house-dog disturbed the quietude of their vigil. Caroline rose, and made her way noiselessly through the dark passages to the kitchen, intending to appease him with a piece of bread. She succeeded. On returning to the dining-room she found it all dark, Miss Keeldar having extinguished the candle. The outline of her shape was visible near the still open window, leaning out. Miss Helstone asked no questions; she stole to her side. The dog recommenced barking furiously. Suddenly he stopped, and seemed to listen. The occupants of the dining-room listened too, and not merely now to the flow of the mill-stream. There was a nearer, though a muffled, sound on the road below the churchyard--a measured, beating, approaching sound--a dull tramp of marching feet. It drew near. Those who listened by degrees comprehended its extent. It was not the tread of two, nor of a dozen, nor of a score of men; it was the tread of hundreds. They could see nothing; the high shrubs of the garden formed a leafy screen between them and the road. To hear, however, was not enough, and this they felt as the troop trod forwards, and seemed actually passing the rectory. They felt it more when a human voice--though that voice spoke but one word--broke the hush of the night. "Halt!" A halt followed. The march was arrested. Then came a low conference, of which no word was distinguishable from the dining-room. "We _must_ hear this," said Shirley. She turned, took her pistols from the table, silently passed out through the middle window of the dining-room, which was, in fact, a glass door, stole down the walk to the garden wall, and stood listening under the lilacs. Caroline would not have quitted the house had she been alone, but where Shirley went she would go. She glanced at the weapon on the sideboard, but left it behind her, and presently stood at her friend's side. They dared not look over the wall, for fear of being seen; they were obliged to crouch behind it. They heard these words,-- "It looks a rambling old building. Who lives in it besides the damned parson?" "Only three women--his niece and two servants." "Do you know where they sleep?" "The lasses behind; the niece in a front room." "And Helstone?" "Yonder is his chamber. He was burning a light, but I see none now." "Where would you get in?" "If I were ordered to do his job--and he desarves it--I'd try yond' long window; it opens to the dining-room. I could grope my way upstairs, and I know his chamber." "How would you manage about the women folk?" "Let 'em alone except they shrieked, and then I'd soon quieten 'em. I could wish to find the old chap asleep. If he waked, he'd be dangerous." "Has he arms?" "Firearms, allus--and allus loadened." "Then you're a fool to stop us here. A shot would give the alarm. Moore would be on us before we could turn round. We should miss our main object." "You might go on, I tell you. I'd engage Helstone alone." A pause. One of the party dropped some weapon, which rang on the stone causeway. At this sound the rectory dog barked again furiously--fiercely. "That spoils all!" said the voice. "He'll awake. A noise like that might rouse the dead. You did not say there was a dog. Damn you! Forward!" Forward they went--tramp, tramp--with mustering, manifold, slow-filing tread. They were gone. Shirley stood erect, looked over the wall, along the road. "Not a soul remains," she said. She stood and mused. "Thank God!" was the next observation. Caroline repeated the ejaculation--not in so steady a tone. She was trembling much. Her heart was beating fast and thick; her face was cold, her forehead damp. "Thank God for us!" she reiterated. "But what will happen elsewhere? They have passed us by that they may make sure of others." "They have done well," returned Shirley, with composure. "The others will defend themselves. They can do it. They are prepared for them. With us it is otherwise. My finger was on the trigger of this pistol. I was quite ready to give that man, if he had entered, such a greeting as he little calculated on; but behind him followed three hundred. I had neither three hundred hands nor three hundred weapons. I could not have effectually protected either you, myself, or the two poor women asleep under that roof. Therefore I again earnestly thank God for insult and peril escaped." After a second pause she continued: "What is it my duty and wisdom to do next? Not to stay here inactive, I am glad to say, but, of course, to walk over to the Hollow." "To the Hollow, Shirley?" "To the Hollow. Will you go with me?" "Where those men are gone?" "They have taken the highway; we should not encounter them. The road over the fields is as safe, silent, and solitary as a path through the air would be. Will you go?" "Yes," was the answer, given mechanically, not because the speaker wished or was prepared to go, or, indeed, was otherwise than scared at the prospect of going, but because she felt she could not abandon Shirley. "Then we must fasten up these windows, and leave all as secure as we can behind us. Do you know what we are going for, Cary?" "Yes--no--because you wish it." "Is that all? And are you so obedient to a mere caprice of mine? What a docile wife you would make to a stern husband! The moon's face is not whiter than yours at this moment, and the aspen at the gate does not tremble more than your busy fingers; and so, tractable and terror-struck, and dismayed and devoted, you would follow me into the thick of real danger! Cary, let me give your fidelity a motive. We are going for Moore's sake--to see if we can be of use to him, to make an effort to warn him of what is coming." "To be sure! I am a blind, weak fool, and you are acute and sensible, Shirley. I will go with you; I will gladly go with you!" "I do not doubt it. You would die blindly and meekly for me, but you would intelligently and gladly die for Moore. But, in truth, there is no question of death to-night; we run no risk at all." Caroline rapidly closed shutter and lattice. "Do not fear that I shall not have breath to run as fast as you can possibly run, Shirley. Take my hand. Let us go straight across the fields." "But you cannot climb walls?" "To-night I can." "You are afraid of hedges, and the beck which we shall be forced to cross?" "I can cross it." They started; they ran. Many a wall checked but did not baffle them. Shirley was surefooted and agile; she could spring like a deer when she chose. Caroline, more timid and less dexterous, fell once or twice, and bruised herself; but she rose again directly, saying she was not hurt. A quickset hedge bounded the last field; they lost time in seeking a gap in it. The aperture, when found, was narrow, but they worked their way through. The long hair, the tender skin, the silks and the muslins suffered; but what was chiefly regretted was the impediment this difficulty had caused to speed. On the other side they met the beck, flowing deep in a rough bed. At this point a narrow plank formed the only bridge across it. Shirley had trodden the plank successfully and fearlessly many a time before; Caroline had never yet dared to risk the transit. "I will carry you across," said Miss Keeldar. "You are light, and I am not weak. Let me try." "If I fall in, you may fish me out," was the answer, as a grateful squeeze compressed her hand. Caroline, without pausing, trod forward on the trembling plank as if it were a continuation of the firm turf. Shirley, who followed, did not cross it more resolutely or safely. In their present humour, on their present errand, a strong and foaming channel would have been a barrier to neither. At the moment they were above the control either of fire or water. All Stilbro' Moor, alight and aglow with bonfires, would not have stopped them, nor would Calder or Aire thundering in flood. Yet one sound made them pause. Scarce had they set foot on the solid opposite bank when a shot split the air from the north. One second elapsed. Further off burst a like note in the south. Within the space of three minutes similar signals boomed in the east and west. "I thought we were dead at the first explosion," observed Shirley, drawing a long breath. "I felt myself hit in the temples, and I concluded your heart was pierced; but the reiterated voice was an explanation. Those are signals--it is their way--the attack must be near. We should have had wings. Our feet have not borne us swiftly enough." A portion of the copse was now to clear. When they emerged from it the mill lay just below them. They could look down upon the buildings, the yard; they could see the road beyond. And the first glance in that direction told Shirley she was right in her conjecture. They were already too late to give warning. It had taken more time than they calculated on to overcome the various obstacles which embarrassed the short cut across the fields. The road, which should have been white, was dark with a moving mass. The rioters were assembled in front of the closed yard gates, and a single figure stood within, apparently addressing them. The mill itself was perfectly black and still. There was neither life, light, nor motion around it. "Surely he is prepared. Surely that is not Moore meeting them alone?" whispered Shirley. "It is. We must go to him. I _will_ go to him." "_That_ you will not." "Why did I come, then? I came only for him. I shall join him." "Fortunately it is out of your power. There is no entrance to the yard." "There _is_ a small entrance at the back, besides the gates in front. It opens by a secret method which I know. I will try it." "Not with my leave." Miss Keeldar clasped her round the waist with both arms and held her back. "Not one step shall you stir," she went on authoritatively. "At this moment Moore would be both shocked and embarrassed if he saw either you or me. Men never want women near them in time of real danger." "I would not trouble--I would help him," was the reply. "How?--by inspiring him with heroism? Pooh! these are not the days of chivalry. It is not a tilt at a tournament we are going to behold, but a struggle about money, and food, and life." "It is natural that I should be at his side." "As queen of his heart? His mill is his lady-love, Cary! Backed by his factory and his frames, he has all the encouragement he wants or can know. It is not for love or beauty, but for ledger and broadcloth, he is going to break a spear. Don't be sentimental; Robert is not so." "I _could_ help him; I _will_ seek him." "Off then--I let you go--seek Moore. You'll not find him." She loosened her hold. Caroline sped like levelled shaft from bent bow; after her rang a jesting, gibing laugh. "Look well there is no mistake!" was the warning given. But there _was_ a mistake. Miss Helstone paused, hesitated, gazed. The figure had suddenly retreated from the gate, and was running back hastily to the mill. "Make haste, Lina!" cried Shirley; "meet him before he enters." Caroline slowly returned. "It is not Robert," she said. "It has neither his height, form, nor bearing." "I saw it was not Robert when I let you go. How could you imagine it? It is a shabby little figure of a private soldier; they had posted him as sentinel. He is safe in the mill now. I saw the door open and admit him. My mind grows easier. Robert is prepared. Our warning would have been superfluous; and now I am thankful we came too late to give it. It has saved us the trouble of a scene. How fine to have entered the counting-house _toute perdue_, and to have found oneself in presence of Messrs. Armitage and Ramsden smoking, Malone swaggering, your uncle sneering, Mr. Sykes sipping a cordial, and Moore himself in his cold man-of-business vein! I am glad we missed it all." "I wonder if there are many in the mill, Shirley!" "Plenty to defend it. The soldiers we have twice seen to-day were going there, no doubt, and the group we noticed surrounding your cousin in the fields will be with him." "What are they doing now, Shirley? What is that noise?" "Hatchets and crowbars against the yard gates. They are forcing them. Are you afraid?" "No; but my heart throbs fast. I have a difficulty in standing. I will sit down. Do you feel unmoved?" "Hardly that; but I am glad I came. We shall see what transpires with our own eyes. We are here on the spot, and none know it. Instead of amazing the curate, the clothier, and the corn-dealer with a romantic rush on the stage, we stand alone with the friendly night, its mute stars, and these whispering trees, whose report our friends will not come to gather." "Shirley, Shirley, the gates are down! That crash was like the felling of great trees. Now they are pouring through. They will break down the mill doors as they have broken the gate. What can Robert do against so many? Would to God I were a little nearer him--could hear him speak--could speak to him! With my will--my longing to serve him--I could not be a useless burden in his way; I could be turned to some account." "They come on!" cried Shirley. "How steadily they march in! There is discipline in their ranks. I will not say there is courage--hundreds against tens are no proof of that quality--but" (she dropped her voice) "there is suffering and desperation enough amongst them. These goads will urge them forwards." "Forwards against Robert; and they hate him. Shirley, is there much danger they will win the day?" "We shall see. Moore and Helstone are of 'earth's first blood'--no bunglers--no cravens----" A crash--smash--shiver--stopped their whispers. A simultaneously hurled volley of stones had saluted the broad front of the mill, with all its windows; and now every pane of every lattice lay in shattered and pounded fragments. A yell followed this demonstration--a rioters' yell--a north-of-England, a Yorkshire, a West-Riding, a West-Riding-clothing-district-of-Yorkshire rioters' yell. You never heard that sound, perhaps, reader? So much the better for your ears--perhaps for your heart, since, if it rends the air in hate to yourself, or to the men or principles you approve, the interests to which you wish well, wrath wakens to the cry of hate; the lion shakes his mane, and rises to the howl of the hyena; caste stands up, ireful against caste; and the indignant, wronged spirit of the middle rank bears down in zeal and scorn on the famished and furious mass of the operative class. It is difficult to be tolerant, difficult to be just, in such moments. Caroline rose; Shirley put her arm round her: they stood together as still as the straight stems of two trees. That yell was a long one, and when it ceased the night was yet full of the swaying and murmuring of a crowd. "What next?" was the question of the listeners. Nothing came yet. The mill remained mute as a mausoleum. "He _cannot_ be alone!" whispered Caroline. "I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed," responded Shirley. Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this signal? It seemed so. The hitherto inert and passive mill woke; fire flashed from its empty window-frames; a volley of musketry pealed sharp through the Hollow. "Moore speaks at last!" said Shirley, "and he seems to have the gift of tongues. That was not a single voice." "He has been forbearing. No one can accuse him of rashness," alleged Caroline. "Their discharge preceded his. They broke his gates and his windows. They fired at his garrison before he repelled them." What was going on now? It seemed difficult, in the darkness, to distinguish; but something terrible, a still-renewing tumult, was obvious--fierce attacks, desperate repulses. The mill-yard, the mill itself, was full of battle movement. There was scarcely any cessation now of the discharge of firearms; and there was struggling, rushing, trampling, and shouting between. The aim of the assailants seemed to be to enter the mill, that of the defenders to beat them off. They heard the rebel leader cry, "To the back, lads!" They heard a voice retort, "Come round; we will meet you." "To the counting-house!" was the order again. "Welcome! we shall have you there!" was the response. And accordingly the fiercest blaze that had yet glowed, the loudest rattle that had yet been heard, burst from the counting-house front when the mass of rioters rushed up to it. The voice that had spoken was Moore's own voice. They could tell by its tones that his soul was now warm with the conflict; they could guess that the fighting animal was roused in every one of those men there struggling together, and was for the time quite paramount above the rational human being. Both the girls felt their faces glow and their pulses throb; both knew they would do no good by rushing down into the _mle_. They desired neither to deal nor to receive blows; but they could not have run away--Caroline no more than Shirley; they could not have fainted; they could not have taken their eyes from the dim, terrible scene--from the mass of cloud, of smoke, the musket-lightning--for the world. "How and when would it end?" was the demand throbbing in their throbbing pulses. "Would a juncture arise in which they could be useful?" was what they waited to see; for though Shirley put off their too-late arrival with a jest, and was ever ready to satirize her own or any other person's enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a chance of rendering good service. The chance was not vouchsafed her; the looked-for juncture never came. It was not likely. Moore had expected this attack for days, perhaps weeks; he was prepared for it at every point. He had fortified and garrisoned his mill, which in itself was a strong building. He was a cool, brave man; he stood to the defence with unflinching firmness. Those who were with him caught his spirit, and copied his demeanour. The rioters had never been so met before. At other mills they had attacked they had found no resistance; an organized, resolute defence was what they never dreamed of encountering. When their leaders saw the steady fire kept up from the mill, witnessed the composure and determination of its owner, heard themselves coolly defied and invited on to death, and beheld their men falling wounded round them, they felt that nothing was to be done here. In haste they mustered their forces, drew them away from the building. A roll was called over, in which the men answered to figures instead of names. They dispersed wide over the fields, leaving silence and ruin behind them. The attack, from its commencement to its termination, had not occupied an hour. Day was by this time approaching; the west was dim, the east beginning to gleam. It would have seemed that the girls who had watched this conflict would now wish to hasten to the victors, on whose side all their interest had been enlisted; but they only very cautiously approached the now battered mill, and when suddenly a number of soldiers and gentlemen appeared at the great door opening into the yard, they quickly stepped aside into a shed, the deposit of old iron and timber, whence they could see without being seen. It was no cheering spectacle. These premises were now a mere blot of desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn. All the copse up the Hollow was shady and dewy, the hill at its head was green; but just here, in the centre of the sweet glen, Discord, broken loose in the night from control, had beaten the ground with his stamping hoofs, and left it waste and pulverized. The mill yawned all ruinous with unglazed frames; the yard was thickly bestrewn with stones and brickbats; and close under the mill, with the glittering fragments of the shattered windows, muskets and other weapons lay here and there. More than one deep crimson stain was visible on the gravel, a human body lay quiet on its face near the gates, and five or six wounded men writhed and moaned in the bloody dust. Miss Keeldar's countenance changed at this view. It was the after-taste of the battle, death and pain replacing excitement and exertion. It was the blackness the bright fire leaves when its blaze is sunk, its warmth failed, and its glow faded. "This is what I wished to prevent," she said, in a voice whose cadence betrayed the altered impulse of her heart. "But you could not prevent it; you did your best--it was in vain," said Caroline comfortingly. "Don't grieve, Shirley." "I am sorry for those poor fellows," was the answer, while the spark in her glance dissolved to dew. "Are any within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is that your uncle?" "It is, and there is Mr. Malone; and, O Shirley, there is Robert!" "Well" (resuming her former tone), "don't squeeze your fingers quite into my hand. I see. There is nothing wonderful in that. We knew he, at least, was here, whoever might be absent." "He is coming here towards us, Shirley!" "Towards the pump, that is to say, for the purpose of washing his hands and his forehead, which has got a scratch, I perceive." "He bleeds, Shirley. Don't hold me. I must go." "Not a step." "He is hurt, Shirley!" "Fiddlestick!" "But I _must_ go to him. I wish to go so much. I cannot bear to be restrained." "What for?" "To speak to him, to ask how he is, and what I can do for him." "To tease and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself and him before those soldiers, Mr. Malone, your uncle, et cetera. Would he like it, think you? Would you like to remember it a week hence?" "Am I always to be curbed and kept down?" demanded Caroline, a little passionately. "For his sake, yes; and still more for your own. I tell you, if you showed yourself now you would repent it an hour hence, and so would Robert." "You think he would not like it, Shirley?" "Far less than he would like our stopping him to say good-night, which you were so sore about." "But that was all play; there was no danger." "And this is serious work; he must be unmolested." "I only wish to go to him because he is my cousin--you understand?" "I quite understand. But now, watch him. He has bathed his forehead, and the blood has ceased trickling. His hurt is really a mere graze; I can see it from hence. He is going to look after the wounded men." Accordingly Mr. Moore and Mr. Helstone went round the yard, examining each prostrate form. They then gave directions to have the wounded taken up and carried into the mill. This duty being performed, Joe Scott was ordered to saddle his master's horse and Mr. Helstone's pony, and the two gentlemen rode away full gallop, to seek surgical aid in different directions. Caroline was not yet pacified. "Shirley, Shirley, I should have liked to speak one word to him before he went," she murmured, while the tears gathered glittering in her eyes. "Why do you cry, Lina?" asked Miss Keeldar a little sternly. "You ought to be glad instead of sorry. Robert has escaped any serious harm; he is victorious; he has been cool and brave in combat; he is now considerate in triumph. Is this a time--are these causes for weeping?" "You do not know what I have in my heart," pleaded the other--"what pain, what distraction--nor whence it arises. I can understand that you should exult in Robert's greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense, but in another I feel _so_ miserable. I am too far removed from him. I used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me cry a few minutes; it relieves me." Miss Keeldar, feeling her tremble in every limb, ceased to expostulate with her. She went out of the shed, and left her to weep in peace. It was the best plan. In a few minutes Caroline rejoined her, much calmer. She said, with her natural, docile, gentle manner, "Come, Shirley, we will go home now. I promise not to try to see Robert again till he asks for me. I never will try to push myself on him. I thank you for restraining me just now." "I did it with a good intention," returned Miss Keeldar. "Now, dear Lina," she continued, "let us turn our faces to the cool morning breeze, and walk very quietly back to the rectory. We will steal in as we stole out. None shall know where we have been or what we have seen to-night; neither taunt nor misconstruction can consequently molest us. To-morrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer; but I will say no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I seem hard towards you, but I am not so."

It was now dusk; the stars were kindling. "There will be just light enough to show me the way home," said Miss Keeldar. "You must not go alone, Shirley; Fanny shall accompany you." "That she shall not. Of what need I be afraid in my own parish? I would walk from Fieldhead to the church any fine midsummer night, for the mere pleasure of seeing the stars and the chance of meeting a fairy." "But just wait till the crowd is cleared away." "Agreed. I don't wish to go through the ceremony of bidding them all good-bye, so we will step into the garden and take shelter." The rectors, their curates, and their churchwardens now issued from the church porch. There was a great shaking of hands, congratulation on speeches, recommendation to be careful of the night air, etc. By degrees the throng dispersed; the carriages drove off. Miss Keeldar was just emerging from her flowery refuge when Mr. Helstone entered the garden. "Oh, I want you!" he said to Shirley. "I was afraid you were already gone. - Caroline, come here." Caroline came, expecting a lecture on not having been in church. Other subjects, however, occupied the rector's mind. "I shall not sleep at home tonight," he continued. "I have just met with an old friend, and promised to accompany him. I shall return probably about noon tomorrow. Thomas, the clerk, is engaged, and cannot sleep in the house as usual when I am absent for a night. Now-" "Now," interrupted Shirley, "you want me, as the first gentleman in Briarfield, to supply your place, be master of the rectory and guardian of your niece and maids while you are away?" "Exactly, captain. I thought the post would suit you. Will you be Caroline's guest for one night, instead of going back to Fieldhead?" "Mrs. Pryor expects me home." "I will send her word. Come, make up your mind to stay. You and Caroline will enjoy each other's society." "I promise, then, to stay with Caroline," replied Shirley. "We will not be separated tonight." "If there should chance to be any disturbance in the night, captain; if you should hear the picking of a lock, a stealthy tread of steps about the house (and I need not fear to tell you, who bear a mettlesome heart, that such incidents are very possible at present), what would you do?" "Don't know; faint, perhaps - fall down, and have to be picked up again. But, doctor, you must give me arms. What weapons are there in your stronghold?" "You could not wield a sword?" "No; I could manage the carving-knife better." "You will find a good one in the dining-room sideboard - light and sharp." "It will suit Caroline. But you must give me a brace of pistols. I know you have pistols." "You will find a pair hanging over the mantelpiece of my study." "Loaded?" "Yes, but not on the cock. Cock them before you go to bed. It is paying you a great compliment, captain, to lend you these." "I will take care. You need delay no longer, Mr. Helstone. - He is gracious to me to lend me his pistols," she remarked, as the rector departed. "But come, Lina, let us go in and have supper." Entering the house, they went to the darkened dining-room. Through the open windows stole the evening air, bearing the perfume of flowers, and a soft, vague murmur. Caroline said, "I hear the beck in the Hollow." She rang the bell, and asked for a candle, and bread and milk for supper. They ate their meal in silence. Caroline rose once, half opened a drawer, and took from it something that glittered clear and keen in her hand. "You assigned this to me, then, Shirley, did you? It is dangerous-looking. I never yet felt the impulse to wound a fellow-creature." "I should hate to do it," replied Shirley, "but I think I could, if goaded sufficiently." And Miss Keeldar quietly sipped her glass of milk, looking somewhat thoughtful and a little pale; though, indeed, when did she not look pale? The milk sipped and the bread eaten, Fanny was again summoned. She and Eliza were recommended to go to bed, which they were quite willing to do, being weary of the day's exertions. Caroline took a candle and went quietly all over the house, seeing that every window was fast and every door barred. "It is now near eleven o'clock," she said on her return, "yet I would rather sit up a little longer, if you do not object, Shirley. I have brought the pistols from my uncle's study." She placed them on the table before her friend. "Why would you rather sit up longer?" asked Miss Keeldar, taking up the firearms, examining them, and laying them down. "Because I have a strange, excited feeling in my heart." "So have I." "Is this restlessness caused by something electrical in the air, I wonder?" "No; the sky is clear. It is a fine night." "But very still." "I am glad of that," said Shirley, "because I want to listen towards the Hollow." They both sat near the window, and leaned their arms on the sill by the open lattice. They saw each other's young faces by the starlight and that dim June twilight which does not wholly fade from the west till dawn begins to break in the east. "Mr. Helstone thinks we have no idea where he is gone," murmured Miss Keeldar, "nor on what errand. But I guess; do not you?" "I guess something." "All those gentlemen - your cousin Moore included - think that we are now asleep in our beds." "Caring nothing about them," added Caroline. Both kept silent for full half an hour. The night was silent too; only the church clock measured its course by quarters. They wrapped their scarves closer round them in the chill air, and again watched. Towards midnight the bark of the house-dog disturbed their vigil. Caroline rose, and made her way noiselessly through the dark passages to the kitchen to appease him with a piece of bread. On returning to the dining-room she found it dark, Miss Keeldar having extinguished the candle. The outline of her shape was visible near the open window, leaning out. Miss Helstone stole to her side. The dog recommenced barking furiously. Suddenly he stopped, and seemed to listen. The occupants of the dining-room listened too. There was a muffled sound on the road below the churchyard - a measured, beating tramp of marching feet. It drew near. It was not the tread of two, nor of a dozen men; it was the tread of hundreds. They could see nothing; the high shrubs of the garden formed a leafy screen between them and the road. The troop marched forwards, and seemed actually passing the rectory when a voice broke the hush of the night. "Halt!" The march stopped. Then came a low conference, of which no word was distinguishable from the dining-room. "We must hear this," said Shirley. She took her pistols from the table, silently passed out through the full-length French window of the dining-room, stole down the walk to the garden wall, and stood listening under the lilacs. Where Shirley went, Caroline would go. She glanced at the knife, but left it behind her, and presently stood at her friend's side. Crouching behind the wall, they heard these words: "It looks a rambling old building. Who lives in it besides the damned parson?" "Only three women - his niece and two servants." "Do you know where they sleep?" "The lasses behind; the niece in a front room." "And Helstone?" "Yonder is his chamber. I see no light." "Where would you get in?" "I'd try t' long window; it opens to the dining-room. I could grope my way upstairs, and I know his chamber." "How would you manage about the women folk?" "Let 'em alone except they shrieked, and then I'd soon quieten 'em. If the old chap waked, he'd be dangerous." "Has he arms?" "Firearms, and allus loaded." "Then you're a fool to bring us here. A shot would give the alarm. Moore would be on us before we could turn round. We should miss our main object." "You can go on. I'd engage Helstone alone." A pause. One of the party dropped some weapon, which rang on the stone causeway. At this sound the rectory dog barked again, furiously. "That spoils all!" said the voice. "He'll awake. You did not say there was a dog. Damn you! Forward!" Forward they went - tramp, tramp - until they were gone. Shirley stood up and looked over the wall, along the road. "Not a soul remains," she said. "Thank God!" Caroline repeated, "Thank God," not in so steady a tone. She was trembling. Her heart was beating fast; her face was cold, her forehead damp. "But what will happen elsewhere?" she asked. "They have passed us so that they may make sure of others." "The others will defend themselves," returned Shirley. "They are prepared for them. My finger was on the trigger; but I could not have protected us against three hundred men. Therefore I again earnestly thank God for insult and peril escaped." After a second pause she continued: "What is it my duty and wisdom to do next? Not to stay here inactive, but to walk over to the Hollow. Will you go with me?" "Where those men are gone?" "They have taken the highway; we should not meet them. The road over the fields is as safe and solitary as a path through the air. Will you go?" "Yes," was the answer, given mechanically, not because Caroline wished to go, but because she felt she could not abandon Shirley. "Then we must fasten up these windows, and leave all secure behind us. Do you know why we are going, Cary?" "Yes - no - because you wish it." "Is that all? What a docile wife you would make! The moon's face is not whiter than yours at this moment; and so, terror-struck and devoted, you would follow me into the thick of danger! Cary, we are going for Moore's sake - to try to warn him of what is coming." "To be sure! I am a fool, Shirley. I will gladly go with you!" Caroline rapidly closed shutter and window. "I can run as fast as you can, Shirley. Let us go straight across the fields." "But you cannot climb walls?" "Tonight I can." They started; they ran. Many a wall checked but did not baffle them. Shirley was surefooted and agile. Caroline fell once or twice, and bruised herself; but she rose again directly, saying she was not hurt. A quickset hedge surrounded the last field; they lost time in seeking a gap, and worked their way through. The long hair, the tender skin, the silks and the muslins suffered; but what was chiefly regretted was the loss of speed. On the other side they met the beck, flowing deep, a narrow plank the only bridge across it. Shirley had trodden the plank fearlessly many a time; Caroline had never yet dared. "I will carry you across," said Miss Keeldar. "You are light, and I am not weak." "If I fall in, you may fish me out," was the answer. Caroline, without pausing, walked across the trembling plank as if it were firm ground. Shirley, who followed, did not cross it more resolutely. In their present mood, all Stilbro' Moor alight with bonfires would not have stopped them, nor would the river Aire thundering in flood. Yet one sound made them pause. A shot split the air from the north. One second elapsed; another shot burst further off in the south. Within three minutes, similar signals boomed in the east and west. "Those are signals," observed Shirley. "The attack must be near. We should have had wings. Our feet have not been swift enough." They now emerged from the copse; the mill lay just below them, with the road beyond. And the first glance told Shirley she was right. They were already too late to give warning. The road, which should have been white, was dark with a moving mass. The rioters were assembled in front of the closed yard gates, and a single figure stood within, apparently addressing them. The mill itself was perfectly black and still. "Surely that is not Moore meeting them alone?" whispered Shirley. "It is. We must go to him. I will go to him." "That you will not." "Why did I come, then? I came only for him. I shall join him." "Fortunately you cannot. There is no entrance to the yard." "There is a small entrance at the back. I will try it." "Not with my leave." Miss Keeldar clasped her round the waist with both arms and held her. "Not one step shall you stir. Moore would be both shocked and embarrassed if he saw either you or me. Men never want women near them in time of real danger." "I would help him," was the reply. "How? by inspiring him with heroism? Pooh! it is not a tilt at a tournament, but a struggle about money and food, and life." "It is natural that I should be at his side." "As queen of his heart? His mill is his lady-love, Cary! It is not for love or beauty, but for ledger and broadcloth that he is going to fight. Don't be sentimental; Robert is not so." "I could help him." "Off you go then - seek Moore. You'll not find him." She loosened her hold. Caroline sped away; but then she paused, gazing. The figure had retreated from the gate, and was running back to the mill. She slowly returned. "It is not Robert," she said. "I saw that when I let you go. It is a soldier, posted as sentinel. He is safe in the mill now. My mind grows easier. Robert is prepared. Our warning would have been superfluous; and now I am thankful we came too late to give it. It has saved us the trouble of a scene. How fine to have entered the counting-house, and to have found oneself in the presence of Malone swaggering, your uncle sneering, Mr. Sykes sipping a cordial, and Moore himself in his cold man-of-business vein! I am glad we missed it." "I wonder if there are many in the mill, Shirley!" "Plenty to defend it. The soldiers we have twice seen today were going there, no doubt. The crowd is trying to force the gates, using hatchets and crowbars. Are you afraid?" "No; but my heart throbs fast. I have difficulty in standing. Do you feel unmoved?" "Hardly that; but I am glad I came. We are here on the spot, and none know it." "Shirley, the gates are down! Now they are pouring through. They will break down the mill doors as they have broken the gate. What can Robert do against so many? Would to God I were nearer him - could speak to him! I long to serve him - surely I could be of some use." "How steadily they march in!" cried Shirley. "There is discipline in their ranks. I will not say there is courage, but there is desperation enough to urge them forwards." "Forwards against Robert; and they hate him." A crash stopped their whispers. A volley of stones had saluted the broad front of the mill, with all its windows; and now every pane lay in shattered fragments. A yell followed - a rioters' yell. Caroline rose; Shirley put her arm round her: they stood together like two straight trees. When the yell ceased, the night was yet full of the murmuring of a crowd. The mill remained mute as a mausoleum. "He cannot be alone!" whispered Caroline. "He is neither alone nor alarmed," responded Shirley. Shots were fired by the rioters. And now the mill awoke; fire flashed from its empty window-frames; a volley of musketry pealed through the Hollow. "Moore speaks at last!" said Shirley. "He has been forbearing. No-one can accuse him of rashness," said Caroline. "They attacked first." What was going on now? It seemed difficult, in the darkness, to distinguish; but a tumult was obvious - fierce attacks, desperate repulses. The mill-yard was full of battle movement. There were frequent shots; there was struggling, rushing, trampling, and shouting. They heard the rebel leader cry, "To the back, lads!" They heard a voice retort, "Come round; we will meet you." "To the counting-house!" "Welcome! we shall have you there!" was the response. And accordingly the fiercest blaze that had yet glowed, the loudest rattle that had yet been heard, burst from the counting-house when the mass of rioters rushed up to it. The voice that had spoken was Moore's, warm with the conflict; they could tell that the fighting animal was roused in every one of those men there struggling. The girls felt their faces glow and their pulses throb; but knew they would do no good by rushing down into the mle. They could not take their eyes from the dim, terrible scene - from the mass of cloud, of smoke, the musket-lightning. They wondered both how it would end, and whether they could yet be useful; for Shirley would have given a farm of her best land for a chance of rendering good service. The chance never came. Moore had expected this attack, and was prepared for it. He had fortified and garrisoned his mill, which in itself was a strong building. He was a cool, brave man; he stood to the defence with unflinching firmness. Those who were with him caught his spirit. The rioters had never been so met before. At other mills they had attacked they had found no resistance. When their leaders saw the steady fire kept up from the mill, witnessed the composure and determination of its owner, heard themselves coolly invited on to death, and beheld their men falling wounded, they hastily mustered their forces and drew them away. They dispersed wide over the fields, leaving silence and ruin behind. The attack had not lasted an hour. Day was by this time approaching; the east was beginning to gleam. The girls very cautiously approached the now battered mill. When soldiers suddenly appeared at the great door opening into the yard, they quickly stepped aside into a shed, where they could see without being seen. It was no cheering spectacle. The mill yawned ruinous with broken windows; the yard was thickly strewn with stones; and close under the mill, with the glittering fragments of glass, lay muskets and other weapons. More than one deep crimson stain was visible on the gravel, a human body lay quiet on its face near the gates, and five or six wounded men writhed and moaned in the bloody dust. Miss Keeldar's face changed. "This is what I wished to prevent," she said, in a low voice. "But you could not prevent it; you did your best," said Caroline. "Don't grieve, Shirley." "I am sorry for those poor fellows," was the answer. "Are any within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is that your uncle?" "It is, and there is Mr. Malone; and, O Shirley, there is Robert!" "Well, there is nothing wonderful in that. We knew he, at least, was here." "He is coming towards us, Shirley!" "Towards the pump, rather, to wash his hands and his forehead, which has got a scratch, I perceive." "He bleeds, Shirley. Don't hold me. I must go." "Not a step." "But I must go to him, to ask how he is, and see what I can do." "To tease and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself before those soldiers, Mr. Malone, and your uncle. Would he like it? Would you like to remember it a week hence?" "Am I always to be curbed and kept down?" demanded Caroline passionately. "For his sake, yes; and still more for your own. I tell you, if you showed yourself now you would repent it an hour hence, and so would Robert." "I only wish to go to him because he is my cousin - you understand?" "I quite understand. But now, look: he has bathed his forehead, and the blood has ceased trickling. It is a mere graze. He is going to look after the wounded men." Mr. Moore and Mr. Helstone went round the yard, examining each prostrate form. They gave directions to have the wounded taken up and carried into the mill. Horses were saddled, and Moore and Mr. Helstone rode away full gallop, in different directions, to seek surgical aid. Caroline was not yet pacified. "Shirley, Shirley, I should have liked to speak one word to him before he went," she murmured, while tears gathered glittering in her eyes. "Why do you cry, Lina?" asked Miss Keeldar a little sternly. "You ought to be glad. Robert has escaped any serious harm; he is victorious; he has been brave in combat; he is now considerate in triumph. Are these causes for weeping?" "You do not know what I have in my heart," pleaded the other. "I understand that you exult in Robert's greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense, but in another I feel so miserable. I am too far removed from him. I used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me cry a few minutes." Miss Keeldar, feeling her tremble in every limb, went out of the shed, and left her to weep in peace. It was the best plan. In a few minutes Caroline rejoined her, much calmer. She said, with her natural, gentle manner, "Come, Shirley, we will go home now. I promise not to try to see Robert again till he asks for me. I never will try to push myself on him. I thank you for restraining me just now." "Now, dear Lina," returned Shirley, "let us walk very quietly back to the rectory. We will steal in as we stole out. None shall know where we have been. Tomorrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer; but I will say no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I seem hard towards you, but I am not so."

Shirley

Chapter 19: A SUMMER NIGHT

Caroline Helstone was just eighteen years old, and at eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to be commenced. Before that time we sit listening to a tale, a marvellous fiction, delightful sometimes, and sad sometimes, almost always unreal. Before that time our world is heroic, its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dream-scenes; darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters, sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts at her aspect bears witness to its unutterable beauty! As to our sun, it is a burning heaven--the world of gods. At that time, at eighteen, drawing near the confines of illusive, void dreams, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise in front. These shores are yet distant; they look so blue, soft, gentle, we long to reach them. In sunshine we see a greenness beneath the azure, as of spring meadows; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we think to hunger and thirst no more; whereas many a wilderness, and often the flood of death, or some stream of sorrow as cold and almost as black as death, is to be crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be earned ere it is secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who have wrestled for great prizes. The heart's blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it. At eighteen we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and promises happiness to-morrow, is implicitly believed; Love, when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison, none of the barb which no leech's hand can extract. That perilous passion--an agony ever in some of its phases; with many, an agony throughout--is believed to be an unqualified good. In short, at eighteen the school of experience is to be entered, and her humbling, crushing, grinding, but yet purifying and invigorating lessons are yet to be learned. Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy, none with hand so inexorable draws the novice so sternly to his task, and forces him with authority so resistless to its acquirement. It is by your instructions alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track through life's wilds; without it, how they stumble, how they stray! On what forbidden grounds do they intrude, down what dread declivities are they hurled! Caroline, having been convoyed home by Robert, had no wish to pass what remained of the evening with her uncle. The room in which he sat was very sacred ground to her; she seldom intruded on it; and to-night she kept aloof till the bell rang for prayers. Part of the evening church service was the form of worship observed in Mr. Helstone's household. He read it in his usual nasal voice, clear, loud, and monotonous. The rite over, his niece, according to her wont, stepped up to him. "Good-night, uncle." "Hey! You've been gadding abroad all day--visiting, dining out, and what not!" "Only at the cottage." "And have you learned your lessons?" "Yes." "And made a shirt?" "Only part of one." "Well, that will do. Stick to the needle, learn shirt-making and gown-making and piecrust-making, and you'll be a clever woman some day. Go to bed now. I'm busy with a pamphlet here." Presently the niece was enclosed in her small bedroom, the door bolted, her white dressing-gown assumed, her long hair loosened and falling thick, soft, and wavy to her waist; and as, resting from the task of combing it out, she leaned her check on her hand and fixed her eyes on the carpet, before her rose, and close around her drew, the visions we see at eighteen years. Her thoughts were speaking with her, speaking pleasantly, as it seemed, for she smiled as she listened. She looked pretty meditating thus; but a brighter thing than she was in that apartment--the spirit of youthful Hope. According to this flattering prophet, she was to know disappointment, to feel chill no more; she had entered on the dawn of a summer day--no false dawn, but the true spring of morning--and her sun would quickly rise. Impossible for her now to suspect that she was the sport of delusion; her expectations seemed warranted, the foundation on which they rested appeared solid. "When people love, the next step is they marry," was her argument. "Now, I love Robert, and I feel sure that Robert loves me. I have thought so many a time before; to-day I _felt_ it. When I looked up at him after repeating Chnier's poem, his eyes (what handsome eyes he has!) sent the truth through my heart. Sometimes I am afraid to speak to him, lest I should be too frank, lest I should seem forward--for I have more than once regretted bitterly overflowing, superfluous words, and feared I had said more than he expected me to say, and that he would disapprove what he might deem my indiscretion; now, to-night I could have ventured to express any thought, he was so indulgent. How kind he was as we walked up the lane! He does not flatter or say foolish things; his love-making (friendship, I mean; of course I don't yet account him my lover, but I hope he will be so some day) is not like what we read of in books,--it is far better--original, quiet, manly, sincere. I _do_ like him; I would be an excellent wife to him if he did marry me; I would tell him of his faults (for he has a few faults), but I would study his comfort, and cherish him, and do my best to make him happy. Now, I am sure he will not be cold to-morrow. I feel almost certain that to-morrow evening he will either come here, or ask me to go there." She recommenced combing her hair, long as a mermaid's. Turning her head as she arranged it she saw her own face and form in the glass. Such reflections are soberizing to plain people: their own eyes are not enchanted with the image; they are confident then that the eyes of others can see in it no fascination. But the fair must naturally draw other conclusions: the picture is charming, and must charm. Caroline saw a shape, a head, that, daguerreotyped in that attitude and with that expression, would have been lovely. She could not choose but derive from the spectacle confirmation to her hopes. It was then in undiminished gladness she sought her couch. And in undiminished gladness she rose the next day. As she entered her uncle's breakfast-room, and with soft cheerfulness wished him good-morning, even that little man of bronze himself thought, for an instant, his niece was growing "a fine girl." Generally she was quiet and timid with him--very docile, but not communicative; this morning, however, she found many things to say. Slight topics alone might be discussed between them; for with a woman--a girl--Mr. Helstone would touch on no other. She had taken an early walk in the garden, and she told him what flowers were beginning to spring there; she inquired when the gardener was to come and trim the borders; she informed him that certain starlings were beginning to build their nests in the church-tower (Briarfield church was close to Briarfield rectory); she wondered the tolling of the bells in the belfry did not scare them. Mr. Helstone opined that "they were like other fools who had just paired--insensible to inconvenience just for the moment." Caroline, made perhaps a little too courageous by her temporary good spirits, here hazarded a remark of a kind she had never before ventured to make on observations dropped by her revered relative. "Uncle," said she, "whenever you speak of marriage you speak of it scornfully. Do you think people shouldn't marry?" "It is decidedly the wisest plan to remain single, especially for women." "Are all marriages unhappy?" "Millions of marriages are unhappy. If everybody confessed the truth, perhaps all are more or less so." "You are always vexed when you are asked to come and marry a couple. Why?" "Because one does not like to act as accessory to the commission of a piece of pure folly." Mr. Helstone spoke so readily, he seemed rather glad of the opportunity to give his niece a piece of his mind on this point. Emboldened by the impunity which had hitherto attended her questions, she went a little further. "But why," said she, "should it be pure folly? If two people like each other, why shouldn't they consent to live together?" "They tire of each other--they tire of each other in a month. A yokefellow is not a companion; he or she is a fellow-sufferer." It was by no means nave simplicity which inspired Caroline's next remark; it was a sense of antipathy to such opinions, and of displeasure at him who held them. "One would think you had never been married, uncle. One would think you were an old bachelor." "Practically, I am so." "But you have been married. Why were you so inconsistent as to marry?" "Every man is mad once or twice in his life." "So you tired of my aunt, and my aunt of you, and you were miserable together?" Mr. Helstone pushed out his cynical lip, wrinkled his brown forehead, and gave an inarticulate grunt. "Did she not suit you? Was she not good-tempered? Did you not get used to her? Were you not sorry when she died?" "Caroline," said Mr. Helstone, bringing his hand slowly down to within an inch or two of the table, and then smiting it suddenly on the mahogany, "understand this: it is vulgar and puerile to confound generals with particulars. In every case there is the rule and there are the exceptions. Your questions are stupid and babyish. Ring the bell, if you have done breakfast." The breakfast was taken away, and that meal over, it was the general custom of uncle and niece to separate, and not to meet again till dinner; but to-day the niece, instead of quitting the room, went to the window-seat, and sat down there. Mr. Helstone looked round uneasily once or twice, as if he wished her away; but she was gazing from the window, and did not seem to mind him: so he continued the perusal of his morning paper--a particularly interesting one it chanced to be, as new movements had just taken place in the Peninsula, and certain columns of the journal were rich in long dispatches from General Lord Wellington. He little knew, meantime, what thoughts were busy in his niece's mind--thoughts the conversation of the past half-hour had revived but not generated; tumultuous were they now, as disturbed bees in a hive, but it was years since they had first made their cells in her brain. She was reviewing his character, his disposition, repeating his sentiments on marriage. Many a time had she reviewed them before, and sounded the gulf between her own mind and his; and then, on the other side of the wide and deep chasm, she had seen, and she now saw, another figure standing beside her uncle's--a strange shape, dim, sinister, scarcely earthly--the half-remembered image of her own father, James Helstone, Matthewson Helstone's brother. Rumours had reached her ear of what that father's character was; old servants had dropped hints; she knew, too, that he was not a good man, and that he was never kind to her. She recollected--a dark recollection it was--some weeks that she had spent with him in a great town somewhere, when she had had no maid to dress her or take care of her; when she had been shut up, day and night, in a high garret-room, without a carpet, with a bare uncurtained bed, and scarcely any other furniture; when he went out early every morning, and often forgot to return and give her her dinner during the day, and at night, when he came back, was like a madman, furious, terrible, or--still more painful--like an idiot, imbecile, senseless. She knew she had fallen ill in this place, and that one night, when she was very sick he had come raving into the room, and said he would kill her, for she was a burden to him. Her screams had brought aid; and from the moment she was then rescued from him she had never seen him, except as a dead man in his coffin. That was her father. Also she had a mother, though Mr. Helstone never spoke to her of that mother, though she could not remember having seen her; but that she was alive she knew. This mother was then the drunkard's wife. What had _their_ marriage been? Caroline, turning from the lattice, whence she had been watching the starlings (though without seeing them), in a low voice, and with a sad, bitter tone, thus broke the silence of the room,-- "You term marriage miserable, I suppose, from what you saw of my father and mother's. If my mother suffered what I suffered when I was with papa, she must have had a dreadful life." Mr. Helstone, thus addressed, wheeled about in his chair, and looked over his spectacles at his niece. He was taken aback. Her father and mother! What had put it into her head to mention her father and mother, of whom he had never, during the twelve years she had lived with him, spoken to her? That the thoughts were self-matured, that she had any recollections or speculations about her parents, he could not fancy. "Your father and mother? Who has been talking to you about them?" "Nobody; but I remember something of what papa was, and I pity mamma. Where is she?" This "Where is she?" had been on Caroline's lips hundreds of times before, but till now she had never uttered it. "I hardly know," returned Mr. Helstone; "I was little acquainted with her. I have not heard from her for years: but wherever she is, she thinks nothing of you; she never inquires about you. I have reason to believe she does not wish to see you. Come, it is school-time. You go to your cousin at ten, don't you? The clock has struck." Perhaps Caroline would have said more; but Fanny, coming in, informed her master that the churchwardens wanted to speak to him in the vestry. He hastened to join them, and his niece presently set out for the cottage. The road from the rectory to Hollow's Mill inclined downwards; she ran, therefore, almost all the way. Exercise, the fresh air, the thought of seeing Robert, at least of being on his premises, in his vicinage, revived her somewhat depressed spirits quickly. Arriving in sight of the white house, and within hearing of the thundering mill and its rushing watercourse, the first thing she saw was Moore at his garden gate. There he stood, in his belted Holland blouse, a light cap covering his head, which undress costume suited him. He was looking down the lane, not in the direction of his cousin's approach. She stopped, withdrawing a little behind a willow, and studied his appearance. "He has not his peer," she thought. "He is as handsome as he is intelligent. What a keen eye he has! What clearly-cut, spirited features--thin and serious, but graceful! I do like his face, I do like his aspect, I do like him so much--better than any of those shuffling curates, for instance--better than anybody; bonny Robert!" She sought "bonny Robert's" presence speedily. For his part, when she challenged his sight, I believe he would have passed from before her eyes like a phantom, if he could; but being a tall fact, and no fiction, he was obliged to stand the greeting. He made it brief. It was cousin-like, brother-like, friend-like, anything but lover-like. The nameless charm of last night had left his manner: he was no longer the same man: or, at any rate, the same heart did not beat in his breast. Rude disappointment, sharp cross! At first the eager girl would not believe in the change, though she saw and felt it. It was difficult to withdraw her hand from his, till he had bestowed at least something like a kind pressure; it was difficult to turn her eyes from his eyes, till his looks had expressed something more and fonder than that cool welcome. A lover masculine so disappointed can speak and urge explanation, a lover feminine can say nothing; if she did, the result would be shame and anguish, inward remorse for self-treachery. Nature would brand such demonstration as a rebellion against her instincts, and would vindictively repay it afterwards by the thunderbolt of self-contempt smiting suddenly in secret. Take the matter as you find it: ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread, and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyrized; do not doubt that your mental stomach--if you have such a thing--is strong as an ostrich's; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation: close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob. For the whole remnant of your life, if you survive the test--some, it is said, die under it--you will be stronger, wiser, less sensitive. This you are not aware of, perhaps, at the time, and so cannot borrow courage of that hope. Nature, however, as has been intimated, is an excellent friend in such cases, sealing the lips, interdicting utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation--a dissimulation often wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down to sorrow and paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a convenient stoicism, not the less fortifying because it is half-bitter. Half-bitter! Is that wrong? No; it should be bitter: bitterness is strength--it is a tonic. Sweet, mild force following acute suffering you find nowhere; to talk of it is delusion. There may be apathetic exhaustion after the rack. If energy remains, it will be rather a dangerous energy--deadly when confronted with injustice. Who has read the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee"--that old Scotch ballad, written I know not in what generation nor by what hand? Mary had been ill-used--probably in being made to believe that truth which was falsehood. She is not complaining, but she is sitting alone in the snowstorm, and you hear her thoughts. They are not the thoughts of a model heroine under her circumstances, but they are those of a deeply-feeling, strongly-resentful peasant-girl. Anguish has driven her from the ingle-nook of home to the white-shrouded and icy hills. Crouched under the "cauld drift," she recalls every image of horror--"the yellow-wymed ask," "the hairy adder," "the auld moon-bowing tyke," "the ghaist at e'en,", "the sour bullister," "the milk on the taed's back." She hates these, but "waur she hates Robin-a-Ree." "Oh, ance I lived happily by yon bonny burn-- The warld was in love wi' me; But now I maun sit 'neath the cauld drift and mourn, And curse black Robin-a-Ree! "Then whudder awa, thou bitter biting blast, And sough through the scrunty tree, And smoor me up in the snaw fu' fast, And n'er let the sun me see! "Oh, never melt awa, thou wreath o' snaw, That's sae kind in graving me; But hide me frae the scorn and guffaw O' villains like Robin-a-Ree!" But what has been said in the last page or two is not germane to Caroline Helstone's feelings, or to the state of things between her and Robert Moore. Robert had done her no wrong; he had told her no lie; it was she that was to blame, if any one was. What bitterness her mind distilled should and would be poured on her own head. She had loved without being asked to love--a natural, sometimes an inevitable chance, but big with misery. Robert, indeed, had sometimes seemed to be fond of her; but why? Because she had made herself so pleasing to him, he could not, in spite of all his efforts, help testifying a state of feeling his judgment did not approve nor his will sanction. He was about to withdraw decidedly from intimate communication with her, because he did not choose to have his affections inextricably entangled, nor to be drawn, despite his reason, into a marriage he believed imprudent. Now, what was she to do? To give way to her feelings, or to vanquish them? To pursue him, or to turn upon herself? If she is weak, she will try the first expedient--will lose his esteem and win his aversion; if she has sense, she will be her own governor, and resolve to subdue and bring under guidance the disturbed realm of her emotions. She will determine to look on life steadily, as it is; to begin to learn its severe truths seriously, and to study its knotty problems closely, conscientiously. It appeared she had a little sense, for she quitted Robert quietly, without complaint or question, without the alteration of a muscle or the shedding of a tear, betook herself to her studies under Hortense as usual, and at dinner-time went home without lingering. When she had dined, and found herself in the rectory drawing-room alone, having left her uncle over his temperate glass of port wine, the difficulty that occurred to and embarrassed her was, "How am I to get through this day?" Last night she had hoped it would be spent as yesterday was, that the evening would be again passed with happiness and Robert. She had learned her mistake this morning; and yet she could not settle down, convinced that no chance would occur to recall her to Hollow's Cottage, or to bring Moore again into her society. He had walked up after tea more than once to pass an hour with her uncle. The door-bell had rung, his voice had been heard in the passage just at twilight, when she little expected such a pleasure; and this had happened twice after he had treated her with peculiar reserve; and though he rarely talked to her in her uncle's presence, he had looked at her relentingly as he sat opposite her work-table during his stay. The few words he had spoken to her were comforting; his manner on bidding her good-night was genial. Now, he might come this evening, said False Hope. She almost knew it was False Hope which breathed the whisper, and yet she listened. She tried to read--her thoughts wandered; she tried to sew--every stitch she put in was an _ennui_, the occupation was insufferably tedious; she opened her desk and attempted to write a French composition--she wrote nothing but mistakes. Suddenly the door-bell sharply rang; her heart leaped; she sprang to the drawing-room door, opened it softly, peeped through the aperture. Fanny was admitting a visitor--a gentleman--a tall man--just the height of Robert. For one second she thought it was Robert--for one second she exulted; but the voice asking for Mr. Helstone undeceived her. That voice was an Irish voice, consequently not Moore's, but the curate's--Malone's. He was ushered into the dining-room, where, doubtless, he speedily helped his rector to empty the decanters. It was a fact to be noted, that at whatever house in Briarfield, Whinbury, or Nunnely one curate dropped in to a meal--dinner or tea, as, the case might be--another presently followed, often two more. Not that they gave each other the rendezvous, but they were usually all on the run at the same time; and when Donne, for instance, sought Malone at his lodgings and found him not, he inquired whither he had posted, and having learned of the landlady his destination, hastened with all speed after him. The same causes operated in the same way with Sweeting. Thus it chanced on that afternoon that Caroline's ears were three times tortured with the ringing of the bell and the advent of undesired guests; for Donne followed Malone, and Sweeting followed Donne; and more wine was ordered up from the cellar into the dining-room (for though old Helstone chid the inferior priesthood when he found them "carousing," as he called it, in their own tents, yet at his hierarchical table he ever liked to treat them to a glass of his best), and through the closed doors Caroline heard their boyish laughter, and the vacant cackle of their voices. Her fear was lest they should stay to tea, for she had no pleasure in making tea for that particular trio. What distinctions people draw! These three were men--young men--educated men, like Moore; yet, for her, how great the difference! Their society was a bore--his a delight. Not only was she destined to be favoured with their clerical company, but Fortune was at this moment bringing her four other guests--lady guests, all packed in a pony-phaeton now rolling somewhat heavily along the road from Whinbury: an elderly lady and three of her buxom daughters were coming to see her "in a friendly way," as the custom of that neighbourhood was. Yes, a fourth time the bell clanged. Fanny brought the present announcement to the drawing-room,-- "Mrs. Sykes and the three Misses Sykes." When Caroline was going to receive company, her habit was to wring her hands very nervously, to flush a little, and come forward hurriedly yet hesitatingly, wishing herself meantime at Jericho. She was, at such crises, sadly deficient in finished manner, though she had once been at school a year. Accordingly, on this occasion, her small white hands sadly maltreated each other, while she stood up, waiting the entrance of Mrs. Sykes. In stalked that lady, a tall, bilious gentlewoman, who made an ample and not altogether insincere profession of piety, and was greatly given to hospitality towards the clergy. In sailed her three daughters, a showy trio, being all three well-grown, and more or less handsome. In English country ladies there is this point to be remarked. Whether young or old, pretty or plain, dull or sprightly, they all (or almost all) have a certain expression stamped on their features, which seems to say, "I know--I do not boast of it, but I _know_ that I am the standard of what is proper; let every one therefore whom I approach, or who approaches me, keep a sharp lookout, for wherein they differ from me--be the same in dress, manner, opinion, principle, or practice--therein they are wrong." Mrs. and Misses Sykes, far from being exceptions to this observation, were pointed illustrations of its truth. Miss Mary--a well-looked, well-meant, and, on the whole, well-dispositioned girl--wore her complacency with some state, though without harshness. Miss Harriet--a beauty--carried it more overbearingly; she looked high and cold. Miss Hannah, who was conceited, dashing, pushing, flourished hers consciously and openly. The mother evinced it with the gravity proper to her age and religious fame. The reception was got through somehow. Caroline "was glad to see them" (an unmitigated fib), hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes's cough was better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the Misses Sykes had left their sisters at home well; to which inquiry the Misses Sykes, sitting on three chairs opposite the music-stool, whereon Caroline had undesignedly come to anchor, after wavering for some seconds between it and a large arm-chair, into which she at length recollected she ought to induct Mrs. Sykes--and indeed that lady saved her the trouble by depositing herself therein--the Misses Sykes replied to Caroline by one simultaneous bow, very majestic and mighty awful. A pause followed. This bow was of a character to ensure silence for the next five minutes, and it did. Mrs. Sykes then inquired after Mr. Helstone, and whether he had had any return of rheumatism, and whether preaching twice on a Sunday fatigued him, and if he was capable of taking a full service now; and on being assured he was, she and all her daughters, combining in chorus, expressed their opinion that he was "a wonderful man of his years." Pause second. Miss Mary, getting up the steam in her turn, asked whether Caroline had attended the Bible Society meeting which had been held at Nunnely last Thursday night. The negative answer which truth compelled Caroline to utter--for last Thursday evening she had been sitting at home, reading a novel which Robert had lent her--elicited a simultaneous expression of surprise from the lips of the four ladies. "We were all there," said Miss Mary--"mamma and all of us. We even persuaded papa to go. Hannah would insist upon it. But he fell asleep while Mr. Langweilig, the German Moravian minister, was speaking. I felt quite ashamed, he nodded so." "And there was Dr. Broadbent," cried Hannah--"such a beautiful speaker! You couldn't expect it of him, for he is almost a vulgar-looking man." "But such a dear man," interrupted Mary. "And such a good man, such a useful man," added her mother. "Only like a butcher in appearance," interposed the fair, proud Harriet. "I couldn't bear to look at him. I listened with my eyes shut." Miss Helstone felt her ignorance and incompetency. Not having seen Dr. Broadbent, she could not give her opinion. Pause third came on. During its continuance, Caroline was feeling at her heart's core what a dreaming fool she was, what an unpractical life she led, how little fitness there was in her for ordinary intercourse with the ordinary world. She was feeling how exclusively she had attached herself to the white cottage in the Hollow, how in the existence of one inmate of that cottage she had pent all her universe. She was sensible that this would not do, and that some day she would be forced to make an alteration. It could not be said that she exactly wished to resemble the ladies before her, but she wished to become superior to her present self, so as to feel less scared by their dignity. The sole means she found of reviving the flagging discourse was by asking them if they would all stay to tea; and a cruel struggle it cost her to perform this piece of civility. Mrs. Sykes had begun, "We are much obliged to you, but----" when in came Fanny once more. "The gentlemen will stay the evening, ma'am," was the message she brought from Mr. Helstone. "What gentlemen have you?" now inquired Mrs. Sykes. Their names were specified; she and her daughters interchanged glances. The curates were not to them what they were to Caroline. Mr. Sweeting was quite a favourite with them; even Mr. Malone rather so, because he was a clergyman. "Really, since you have company already, I think we will stay," remarked Mrs. Sykes. "We shall be quite a pleasant little party. I always like to meet the clergy." And now Caroline had to usher them upstairs, to help them to unshawl, smooth their hair, and make themselves smart; to reconduct them to the drawing-room, to distribute amongst them books of engravings, or odd things purchased from the Jew-basket. She was obliged to be a purchaser, though she was but a slack contributor; and if she had possessed plenty of money, she would rather, when it was brought to the rectory--an awful incubus!--have purchased the whole stock than contributed a single pin-cushion. It ought perhaps to be explained in passing, for the benefit of those who are not _au fait_ to the mysteries of the "Jew-basket" and "missionary-basket," that these _meubles_ are willow repositories, of the capacity of a good-sized family clothes-basket, dedicated to the purpose of conveying from house to house a monster collection of pin-cushions, needle-books, card-racks, workbags, articles of infant wear, etc., etc., etc., made by the willing or reluctant hands of the Christian ladies of a parish, and sold perforce to the heathenish gentlemen thereof, at prices unblushingly exorbitant. The proceeds of such compulsory sales are applied to the conversion of the Jews, the seeking up of the ten missing tribes, or to the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe. Each lady contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket a month, to sew for it, and to foist off its contents on a shrinking male public. An exciting time it is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded woman, with a good trading spirit, like it, and enjoy exceedingly the fun of making hard-handed worsted-spinners cash up, to the tune of four or five hundred per cent. above cost price, for articles quite useless to them; other feebler souls object to it, and would rather see the prince of darkness himself at their door any morning than that phantom basket, brought with "Mrs. Rouse's compliments; and please, ma'am, she says it's your turn now." Miss Helstone's duties of hostess performed, more anxiously than cheerily, she betook herself to the kitchen, to hold a brief privy-council with Fanny and Eliza about the tea. "What a lot on 'em!" cried Eliza, who was cook. "And I put off the baking to-day because I thought there would be bread plenty to fit while morning. We shall never have enow." "Are there any tea-cakes?" asked the young mistress. "Only three and a loaf. I wish these fine folk would stay at home till they're asked; and I want to finish trimming my hat" (bonnet she meant). "Then," suggested Caroline, to whom the importance of the emergency gave a certain energy, "Fanny must run down to Briarfield and buy some muffins and crumpets and some biscuits. And don't be cross, Eliza; we can't help it now." "And which tea-things are we to have?" "Oh, the best, I suppose. I'll get out the silver service." And she ran upstairs to the plate-closet, and presently brought down teapot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin. "And mun we have th' urn?" "Yes; and now get it ready as quickly as you can, for the sooner we have tea over the sooner they will go--at least, I hope so. Heigh-ho! I wish they were gone," she sighed, as she returned to the drawing-room. "Still," she thought, as she paused at the door ere opening it, "if Robert would but come even now how bright all would be! How comparatively easy the task of amusing these people if he were present! There would be an interest in hearing him talk (though he never says much in company) and in talking in his presence. There can be no interest in hearing any of them, or in speaking to them. How they will gabble when the curates come in, and how weary I shall grow with listening to them! But I suppose I am a selfish fool. These are very respectable gentlefolks. I ought, no doubt, to be proud of their countenance. I don't say they are not as good as I am--far from it--but they are different from me." She went in. Yorkshire people in those days took their tea round the table, sitting well into it, with their knees duly introduced under the mahogany. It was essential to have a multitude of plates of bread and butter, varied in sorts and plentiful in quantity. It was thought proper, too, that on the centre plate should stand a glass dish of marmalade. Among the viands was expected to be found a small assortment of cheesecakes and tarts. If there was also a plate of thin slices of pink ham garnished with green parsley, so much the better. Eliza, the rector's cook, fortunately knew her business as provider. She had been put out of humour a little at first, when the invaders came so unexpectedly in such strength; but it appeared that she regained her cheerfulness with action, for in due time the tea was spread forth in handsome style, and neither ham, tarts, nor marmalade were wanting among its accompaniments. The curates, summoned to this bounteous repast, entered joyous; but at once, on seeing the ladies, of whose presence they had not been forewarned, they came to a stand in the doorway. Malone headed the party; he stopped short and fell back, almost capsizing Donne, who was behind him. Donne, staggering three paces in retreat, sent little Sweeting into the arms of old Helstone, who brought up the rear. There was some expostulation, some tittering. Malone was desired to mind what he was about, and urged to push forward, which at last he did, though colouring to the top of his peaked forehead a bluish purple. Helstone, advancing, set the shy curates aside, welcomed all his fair guests, shook hands and passed a jest with each, and seated himself snugly between the lovely Harriet and the dashing Hannah. Miss Mary he requested to move to the seat opposite to him, that he might see her if he couldn't be near her. Perfectly easy and gallant, in his way, were his manners always to young ladies, and most popular was he amongst them; yet at heart he neither respected nor liked the sex, and such of them as circumstances had brought into intimate relation with him had ever feared rather than loved him. The curates were left to shift for themselves. Sweeting, who was the least embarrassed of the three, took refuge beside Mrs. Sykes, who, he knew, was almost as fond of him as if he had been her son. Donne, after making his general bow with a grace all his own, and saying in a high, pragmatical voice, "How d'ye do, Miss Helstone?" dropped into a seat at Caroline's elbow, to her unmitigated annoyance, for she had a peculiar antipathy to Donne, on account of his stultified and immovable self-conceit and his incurable narrowness of mind. Malone, grinning most unmeaningly, inducted himself into the corresponding seat on the other side. She was thus blessed in a pair of supporters, neither of whom, she knew, would be of any mortal use, whether for keeping up the conversation, handing cups, circulating the muffins, or even lifting the plate from the slop-basin. Little Sweeting, small and boyish as he was, would have been worth twenty of them. Malone, though a ceaseless talker when there were only men present, was usually tongue-tied in the presence of ladies. Three phrases, however, he had ready cut and dried, which he never failed to produce:-- 1stly. "Have you had a walk to-day, Miss Helstone?" 2ndly. "Have you seen your cousin Moore lately?" 3rdly. "Does your class at the Sunday school keep up its number?" These three questions being put and responded to, between Caroline and Malone reigned silence. With Donne it was otherwise; he was troublesome, exasperating. He had a stock of small-talk on hand, at once the most trite and perverse that can well be imagined--abuse of the people of Briarfield; of the natives of Yorkshire generally; complaints of the want of high society; of the backward state of civilization in these districts; murmurings against the disrespectful conduct of the lower orders in the north toward their betters; silly ridicule of the manner of living in these parts--the want of style, the absence of elegance, as if he, Donne, had been accustomed to very great doings indeed, an insinuation which his somewhat underbred manner and aspect failed to bear out. These strictures, he seemed to think, must raise him in the estimation of Miss Helstone or of any other lady who heard him; whereas with her, at least, they brought him to a level below contempt, though sometimes, indeed, they incensed her; for, a Yorkshire girl herself, she hated to hear Yorkshire abused by such a pitiful prater; and when wrought up to a certain pitch, she would turn and say something of which neither the matter nor the manner recommended her to Mr. Donne's good-will. She would tell him it was no proof of refinement to be ever scolding others for vulgarity, and no sign of a good pastor to be eternally censuring his flock. She would ask him what he had entered the church for, since he complained there were only cottages to visit, and poor people to preach to--whether he had been ordained to the ministry merely to wear soft clothing and sit in king's houses. These questions were considered by all the curates as, to the last degree, audacious and impious. Tea was a long time in progress; all the guests gabbled as their hostess had expected they would. Mr. Helstone, being in excellent spirits--when, indeed, was he ever otherwise in society, attractive female society? it being only with the one lady of his own family that he maintained a grim taciturnity--kept up a brilliant flow of easy prattle with his right-hand and left-hand neighbours, and even with his _vis--vis_, Miss Mary; though, as Mary was the most sensible, the least coquettish, of the three, to her the elderly widower was the least attentive. At heart he could not abide sense in women. He liked to see them as silly, as light-headed, as vain, as open to ridicule as possible, because they were then in reality what he held them to be, and wished them to be--inferior, toys to play with, to amuse a vacant hour, and to be thrown away. Hannah was his favourite. Harriet, though beautiful, egotistical, and self-satisfied, was not quite weak enough for him. She had some genuine self-respect amidst much false pride, and if she did not talk like an oracle, neither would she babble like one crazy; she would not permit herself to be treated quite as a doll, a child, a plaything; she expected to be bent to like a queen. Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect, only flattery. If her admirers only _told_ her that she was an angel, she would let them _treat_ her like an idiot. So very credulous and frivolous was she, so very silly did she become when besieged with attention, flattered and admired to the proper degree, that there were moments when Helstone actually felt tempted to commit matrimony a second time, and to try the experiment of taking her for his second helpmeet; but fortunately the salutary recollection of the _ennuis_ of his first marriage, the impression still left on him of the weight of the millstone he had once worn round his neck, the fixity of his feelings respecting the insufferable evils of conjugal existence, operated as a check to his tenderness, suppressed the sigh heaving his old iron lungs, and restrained him from whispering to Hannah proposals it would have been high fun and great satisfaction to her to hear. It is probable she would have married him if he had asked her; her parents would have quite approved the match. To them his fifty-five years, his bend-leather heart, could have presented no obstacles; and as he was a rector, held an excellent living, occupied a good house, and was supposed even to have private property (though in that the world was mistaken; every penny of the 5,000 inherited by him from his father had been devoted to the building and endowing of a new church at his native village in Lancashire--for he could show a lordly munificence when he pleased, and if the end was to his liking, never hesitated about making a grand sacrifice to attain it)--her parents, I say, would have delivered Hannah over to his lovingkindness and his tender mercies without one scruple; and the second Mrs. Helstone, inverting the natural order of insect existence, would have fluttered through the honeymoon a bright, admired butterfly, and crawled the rest of her days a sordid, trampled worm. Little Mr. Sweeting, seated between Mrs. Sykes and Miss Mary, both of whom were very kind to him, and having a dish of tarts before him, and marmalade and crumpet upon his plate, looked and felt more content than any monarch. He was fond of all the Misses Sykes; they were all fond of him. He thought them magnificent girls, quite proper to mate with one of his inches. If he had a cause of regret at this blissful moment, it was that Miss Dora happened to be absent--Dora being the one whom he secretly hoped one day to call Mrs. David Sweeting, with whom he dreamt of taking stately walks, leading her like an empress through the village of Nunnely; and an empress she would have been, if size could make an empress. She was vast, ponderous. Seen from behind, she had the air of a very stout lady of forty; but withal she possessed a good face, and no unkindly character. The meal at last drew to a close. It would have been over long ago if Mr. Donne had not persisted in sitting with his cup half full of cold tea before him, long after the rest had finished and after he himself had discussed such allowance of viands as he felt competent to swallow--long, indeed, after signs of impatience had been manifested all round the board, till chairs were pushed back, till the talk flagged, till silence fell. Vainly did Caroline inquire repeatedly if he would have another cup, if he would take a little hot tea, as that must be cold, etc.; he would neither drink it nor leave it. He seemed to think that this isolated position of his gave him somehow a certain importance, that it was dignified and stately to be the last, that it was grand to keep all the others waiting. So long did he linger, that the very urn died; it ceased to hiss. At length, however, the old rector himself, who had hitherto been too pleasantly engaged with Hannah to care for the delay, got impatient. "For whom are we waiting?" he asked. "For me, I believe," returned Donne complacently, appearing to think it much to his credit that a party should thus be kept dependent on his movements. "Tut!" cried Helstone. Then standing up, "Let us return thanks," said he; which he did forthwith, and all quitted the table. Donne, nothing abashed, still sat ten minutes quite alone, whereupon Mr. Helstone rang the bell for the things to be removed. The curate at length saw himself forced to empty his cup, and to relinquish the _rle_ which, he thought, had given him such a felicitous distinction, drawing upon him such flattering general notice. And now, in the natural course of events (Caroline, knowing how it would be, had opened the piano, and produced music-books in readiness), music was asked for. This was Mr. Sweeting's chance for showing off. He was eager to commence. He undertook, therefore, the arduous task of persuading the young ladies to favour the company with an air--a song. _Con amore_ he went through the whole business of begging, praying, resisting excuses, explaining away difficulties, and at last succeeded in persuading Miss Harriet to allow herself to be led to the instrument. Then out came the pieces of his flute (he always carried them in his pocket, as unfailingly as he carried his handkerchief). They were screwed and arranged, Malone and Donne meanwhile herding together and sneering at him, which the little man, glancing over his shoulder, saw, but did not heed at all. He was persuaded their sarcasm all arose from envy. They could not accompany the ladies as he could; he was about to enjoy a triumph over them. The triumph began. Malone, much chagrined at hearing him pipe up in most superior style, determined to earn distinction too, if possible, and all at once assuming the character of a swain (which character he had endeavoured to enact once or twice before, but in which he had not hitherto met with the success he doubtless opined his merits deserved), approached a sofa on which Miss Helstone was seated, and depositing his great Irish frame near her, tried his hand (or rather tongue) at a fine speech or two, accompanied by grins the most extraordinary and incomprehensible. In the course of his efforts to render himself agreeable, he contrived to possess himself of the two long sofa cushions and a square one; with which, after rolling them about for some time with strange gestures, he managed to erect a sort of barrier between himself and the object of his attentions. Caroline, quite willing that they should be sundered, soon devised an excuse for stepping over to the opposite side of the room, and taking up a position beside Mrs. Sykes, of which good lady she entreated some instruction in a new stitch in ornamental knitting, a favour readily granted; and thus Peter Augustus was thrown out. Very sullenly did his countenance lower when he saw himself abandoned--left entirely to his own resources, on a large sofa, with the charge of three small cushions on his hands. The fact was, he felt disposed seriously to cultivate acquaintance with Miss Helstone, because he thought, in common with others, that her uncle possessed money, and concluded that, since he had no children, he would probably leave it to his niece. Grard Moore was better instructed on this point: he had seen the neat church that owed its origin to the rector's zeal and cash, and more than once, in his inmost soul, had cursed an expensive caprice which crossed his wishes. The evening seemed long to one person in that room. Caroline at intervals dropped her knitting on her lap, and gave herself up to a sort of brain-lethargy--closing her eyes and depressing her head--caused by what seemed to her the unmeaning hum around her,--the inharmonious, tasteless rattle of the piano keys, the squeaking and gasping notes of the flute, the laughter and mirth of her uncle, and Hannah, and Mary, she could not tell whence originating, for she heard nothing comic or gleeful in their discourse; and more than all, by the interminable gossip of Mrs. Sykes murmured close at her ear, gossip which rang the changes on four subjects--her own health and that of the various members of her family; the missionary and Jew baskets and their contents; the late meeting at Nunnely, and one which was expected to come off next week at Whinbury. Tired at length to exhaustion, she embraced the opportunity of Mr. Sweeting coming up to speak to Mrs. Sykes to slip quietly out of the apartment, and seek a moment's respite in solitude. She repaired to the dining-room, where the clear but now low remnant of a fire still burned in the grate. The place was empty and quiet, glasses and decanters were cleared from the table, the chairs were put back in their places, all was orderly. Caroline sank into her uncle's large easy-chair, half shut her eyes, and rested herself--rested at least her limbs, her senses, her hearing, her vision--weary with listening to nothing, and gazing on vacancy. As to her mind, that flew directly to the Hollow. It stood on the threshold of the parlour there, then it passed to the counting-house, and wondered which spot was blessed by the presence of Robert. It so happened that neither locality had that honour; for Robert was half a mile away from both, and much nearer to Caroline than her deadened spirit suspected. He was at this moment crossing the churchyard, approaching the rectory garden-gate--not, however, coming to see his cousin, but intent solely on communicating a brief piece of intelligence to the rector. Yes, Caroline; you hear the wire of the bell vibrate; it rings again for the fifth time this afternoon. You start, and you are certain now that this must be he of whom you dream. Why you are so certain you cannot explain to yourself, but you know it. You lean forward, listening eagerly as Fanny opens the door. Right! That is _the_ voice--low, with the slight foreign accent, but so sweet, as you fancy. You half rise. "Fanny will tell him Mr. Helstone is with company, and then he will go away." Oh! she cannot let him go. In spite of herself, in spite of her reason, she walks half across the room; she stands ready to dart out in case the step should retreat; but he enters the passage. "Since your master is engaged," he says, "just show me into the dining-room. Bring me pen and ink. I will write a short note and leave it for him." Now, having caught these words, and hearing him advance, Caroline, if there was a door within the dining-room, would glide through it and disappear. She feels caught, hemmed in; she dreads her unexpected presence may annoy him. A second since she would have flown to him; that second past, she would flee from him. She cannot. There is no way of escape. The dining-room has but one door, through which now enters her cousin. The look of troubled surprise she expected to see in his face has appeared there, has shocked her, and is gone. She has stammered a sort of apology:-- "I only left the drawing-room a minute for a little quiet." There was something so diffident and downcast in the air and tone with which she said this, any one might perceive that some saddening change had lately passed over her prospects, and that the faculty of cheerful self-possession had left her. Mr. Moore, probably, remembered how she had formerly been accustomed to meet him with gentle ardour and hopeful confidence. He must have seen how the check of this morning had operated. Here was an opportunity for carrying out his new system with effect, if he chose to improve it. Perhaps he found it easier to practise that system in broad daylight, in his mill-yard, amidst busy occupations, than in a quiet parlour, disengaged, at the hour of eventide. Fanny lit the candles, which before had stood unlit on the table, brought writing materials, and left the room. Caroline was about to follow her. Moore, to act consistently, should have let her go; whereas he stood in the doorway, and, holding out his hand, gently kept her back. He did not ask her to stay, but he would not let her go. "Shall I tell my uncle you are here?" asked she, still in the same subdued voice. "No; I can say to you all I had to say to him. You will be my messenger?" "Yes, Robert." "Then you may just inform him that I have got a clue to the identity of one, at least, of the men who broke my frames; that he belongs to the same gang who attacked Sykes and Pearson's dressing-shop, and that I hope to have him in custody to-morrow. You can remember that?" "Oh yes!" These two monosyllables were uttered in a sadder tone than ever; and as she said them she shook her head slightly and sighed. "Will you prosecute him?" "Doubtless." "No, Robert." "And why no, Caroline?" "Because it will set all the neighbourhood against you more than ever." "That is no reason why I should not do my duty, and defend my property. This fellow is a great scoundrel, and ought to be incapacitated from perpetrating further mischief." "But his accomplices will take revenge on you. You do not know how the people of this country bear malice. It is the boast of some of them that they can keep a stone in their pocket seven years, turn it at the end of that time, keep it seven years longer, and hurl it and hit their mark 'at last.'" Moore laughed. "A most pithy vaunt," said he--"one that redounds vastly to the credit of your dear Yorkshire friends. But don't fear for me, Lina. I am on my guard against these lamb-like compatriots of yours. Don't make yourself uneasy about me." "How can I help it? You are my cousin. If anything happened----" She stopped. "Nothing will happen, Lina. To speak in your own language, there is a Providence above all--is there not?" "Yes, dear Robert. May He guard you!" "And if prayers have efficacy, yours will benefit me. You pray for me sometimes?" "Not _sometimes_, Robert. You, and Louis, and Hortense are _always_ remembered." "So I have often imagined. It has occurred to me when, weary and vexed, I have myself gone to bed like a heathen, that another had asked forgiveness for my day, and safety for my night. I don't suppose such vicarial piety will avail much, but the petitions come out of a sincere breast, from innocent lips. They should be acceptable as Abel's offering; and doubtless would be, if the object deserved them." "Annihilate that doubt. It is groundless." "When a man has been brought up only to make money, and lives to make it, and for nothing else, and scarcely breathes any other air than that of mills and markets, it seems odd to utter his name in a prayer, or to mix his idea with anything divine; and very strange it seems that a good, pure heart should take him in and harbour him, as if he had any claim to that sort of nest. If I could guide that benignant heart, I believe I should counsel it to exclude one who does not profess to have any higher aim in life than that of patching up his broken fortune, and wiping clean from his _bourgeois_ scutcheon the foul stain of bankruptcy." The hint, though conveyed thus tenderly and modestly (as Caroline thought), was felt keenly and comprehended clearly. "Indeed, I only think--or I _will only_ think--of you as my cousin," was the quick answer. "I am beginning to understand things better than I did, Robert, when you first came to England--better than I did a week, a day ago. I know it is your duty to try to get on, and that it won't do for you to be romantic; but in future you must not misunderstand me if I seem friendly. You misunderstood me this morning, did you not?" "What made you think so?" "Your look--your manner." "But look at me now----" "Oh! you are different now. At present I dare speak to you." "Yet I am the same, except that I have left the tradesman behind me in the Hollow. Your kinsman alone stands before you." "My cousin Robert--not Mr. Moore." "Not a bit of Mr. Moore. Caroline----" Here the company was heard rising in the other room. The door was opened; the pony-carriage was ordered; shawls and bonnets were demanded; Mr. Helstone called for his niece. "I must go, Robert." "Yes, you must go, or they will come in and find us here; and I, rather than meet all that host in the passage, will take my departure through the window. Luckily it opens like a door. One minute only--put down the candle an instant--good-night. I kiss you because we are cousins, and, being cousins, one--two--three kisses are allowable. Caroline, good-night."

Caroline Helstone was just eighteen years old, and at eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to begin. Before that age we sit listening to a tale, a marvellous fiction: our world is heroic, its scenes are dream-scenes, with darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters, wider plains, and sunnier fields than are found in nature. At eighteen, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise ahead. These shores are still distant; they look so blue, soft, and gentle, we long to reach them. There, we think, we would hunger and thirst no more; whereas many a wilderness or stream of sorrow is to be crossed before true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be earned; and earned with hardship. At eighteen we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and promises happiness, is believed; Love, when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once welcomed and embraced. If his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life. That perilous passion - even agony - is believed to be an unqualified good. In short, at eighteen the school of experience is yet to be entered, and her humbling, crushing, grinding, but purifying lessons are yet to be learned. Alas, Experience! No other teacher has so wasted and frozen a face as yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy. It is by your lessons alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track through life's wilds. Caroline, having walked home with Robert, had no wish to pass the rest of the evening with her uncle, and kept aloof till the bell rang for prayers. Mr. Helstone read part of the evening church service in his clear, nasal voice. Afterwards, his niece, as usual, stepped up to him. "Good-night, uncle." "Hey! You've been gadding abroad all day - visiting, dining out, and what not!" "Only at the cottage." "And have you learned your lessons?" "Yes." "And made a shirt?" "Part of one." "Well, that will do. Stick to the needle, and you'll be a clever woman some day. Go to bed now. I'm busy with a pamphlet here." Presently the niece was in her small bedroom, in her white dressing-gown, her long hair loosened and falling thick and soft to her waist. As she leaned her cheek on her hand and fixed her eyes on the carpet, before her rose the visions we see at eighteen years. Her thoughts were pleasant, it seemed, for she smiled. The flattering prophet Hope told her that she had entered on the dawn of a summer day, and her sun would quickly rise. Her expectations seemed based on a solid foundation. "When people love, the next step is they marry," she thought. "Now, I love Robert, and I feel sure that Robert loves me. When I looked up at him after repeating Chnier's poem, his handsome eyes sent the truth through my heart. Sometimes I am afraid to speak to him, lest I should be too frank and forward; but tonight I could have dared to express any thought, he was so indulgent. How kind he was as we walked up the lane! He does not flatter or say foolish things; his love-making (friendship, I mean; I don't account him my lover, but I hope he will be so some day) is not like what we read of in books. It is quiet, manly, sincere. I do like him; I would be an excellent wife to him; I would tell him of his faults (for he has a few faults), but I would study his comfort, and cherish him, and do my best to make him happy. Now, I feel almost certain that tomorrow evening he will either come here, or ask me to go there." She began combing her hair. Turning her head she saw herself in the glass. She made a charming picture; and in undiminished gladness she sought her bed. And in undiminished gladness she rose the next day. As she entered her uncle's breakfast-room, and with soft cheerfulness wished him good-morning, even that little man of bronze thought, for an instant, that his niece was growing "a fine girl." Generally she was quiet and timid with him, but this morning she found many things to say. Only slight topics might be discussed; for with a woman Mr. Helstone would touch on no other. She had taken an early walk in the garden, and she told him what flowers were beginning to spring there; she inquired when the gardener was to trim the borders; she informed him that starlings were beginning to build their nests in the nearby church-tower, and she wondered that the tolling of the church bells did not scare them. Mr. Helstone opined that "they were like other fools who had just paired - insensible." Caroline, made perhaps a little too courageous by her good spirits, here hazarded a remark of a kind she had never before ventured to make. "Uncle," said she, "you always speak of marriage scornfully. Do you think people shouldn't marry?" "It is decidedly the wisest plan to remain single." "Are all marriages unhappy?" "Millions of marriages are unhappy. If everybody confessed the truth, perhaps all are more or less so." "You are always vexed when you are asked to marry a couple. Why?" "Because one does not like to act as accessory to a piece of pure folly." Mr. Helstone seemed rather glad of the opportunity to give his niece a piece of his mind on this point. Emboldened, she went a little further. "But why," said she, "should it be pure folly? If two people like each other, why shouldn't they live together?" "They tire of each other in a month. They are not companions, but fellow-sufferers." It was not navet which inspired Caroline's next remark; it was a sense of antipathy to such opinions, and displeasure. "One would think you had never been married, uncle. Why were you so inconsistent as to marry?" "Every man is mad once or twice in his life." "So you tired of my aunt, and my aunt of you, and you were miserable together?" Mr. Helstone pushed out his cynical lip, wrinkled his forehead, and gave an inarticulate grunt. "Did she not suit you? Was she not good-tempered? Were you not sorry when she died?" "Caroline," said Mr. Helstone, bringing his hand slowly down to within an inch of the table, and then smiting it suddenly on the mahogany, "in every case there is the rule and there are exceptions. Your questions are stupid and babyish. Ring the bell." The breakfast was taken away. Usually uncle and niece would now separate until dinner; but today the niece, instead of quitting the room, went to the window-seat, and sat there. Mr. Helstone looked round uneasily once or twice, as if he wished her away; but she was gazing from the window, and did not seem to mind him. So he continued reading his morning paper - a particularly interesting one, as it contained long dispatches from General Lord Wellington. He little knew what tumultuous thoughts were busy in his niece's mind, like disturbed bees in a hive. She was reviewing his character and his sentiments on marriage. Many a time had she reviewed them before, and sounded the gulf between her own mind and his; and then, on the other side of the chasm, she had seen, and now saw, another figure standing beside her uncle: a strange, sinister shape - the half-remembered image of her own father, James Helstone, Matthewson Helstone's brother. She had heard rumours of that father's character; old servants had dropped hints; she knew that he was not a good man, and that he was never kind to her. She recollected some dismal weeks that she had spent with him in a great town somewhere, with no maid to take care of her. She had been shut up, day and night, in a high garret-room, without a carpet, with a bare bed, and scarcely any other furniture. He went out early every morning, and often forgot to return and give her dinner during the day; and at night, when he came back, was like a madman, furious, terrible, or - still more painful - like an idiot, senseless. She knew she had fallen ill in this place, and that one night, when she was very sick, he had come raving into the room, and said he would kill her, for she was a burden to him. Her screams had brought aid; and from the moment she was rescued from him she had never seen him again, except as a dead man in his coffin. That was her father. Also she had a mother, of whom Mr. Helstone never spoke. Caroline could not remember having seen her; but she knew that she was alive. This mother was then the drunkard's wife. What had their marriage been? Turning from the window, she said in a low, sad voice: "You call marriage miserable, I suppose, from what you saw of my father and mother's. If my mother suffered what I suffered when I was with papa, she must have had a dreadful life." Mr. Helstone wheeled about in his chair, and looked over his spectacles at his niece. He was taken aback. Her father and mother! What had put them into her head? During the twelve years she had lived with him, he had never mentioned them. That she had any recollections or ideas about her parents, he could not imagine. "Your father and mother? Who has been talking to you about them?" "Nobody; but I remember something of what papa was, and I pity mamma. Where is she?" This "Where is she?" had been on Caroline's lips hundreds of times before, but till now she had never uttered it. "I hardly know," returned Mr. Helstone. "I have not heard from her for years: but wherever she is, she thinks nothing of you; she never inquires about you. I have reason to believe she does not wish to see you. Come, it is school-time. You go to your cousin at ten, don't you?" Perhaps Caroline would have said more, but Fanny came in with a message for the rector; and his niece set out for the cottage. The road from the rectory to Hollow's Mill led downwards; she ran almost all the way. Exercise, the fresh air, and the thought of seeing Robert revived her somewhat depressed spirits. Arriving in sight of the white house, the first thing she saw was Moore at his garden gate. He stood in his belted Holland shirt, a light cap on, looking the other way down the lane. She stopped behind a willow, and studied him. "He has no equal," she thought. "He is as handsome as he is intelligent. What a keen eye he has! What clearly-cut, thin and serious features! I do like his face. I do like him so much - better that those shuffling curates - better than anybody; bonny Robert!" She greeted "bonny Robert". For his part, I believe he would have disappeared like a phantom, if he could; but he was obliged to stay. He made his greeting brief and cousin-like. The charm of last night had left his manner: he was no longer the same man. Such sharp disappointment! At first the eager girl would not believe in the change. It was difficult to withdraw her hand from his; it was difficult to turn her eyes from his eyes, till he had expressed something fonder than that cool welcome. A masculine lover can urge explanation: a feminine lover can say nothing - if she did, the result would be shame and anguish. Take the matter as you find it: ask no questions, utter no remonstrance. You expected bread, and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek. You held out your hand for an egg, and you were given a scorpion. Show no consternation: close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting you. Never mind; in time, after your hand has quivered long with torture, the scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson - how to endure without a sob. For the rest of your life, if you survive the test - some, it is said, die under it - you will be stronger, wiser, less sensitive. You will pretend an easy and placid manner at first, settling down to sorrow and paleness in time, and then a half-bitter stoicism. Half-bitter? No; it should be bitter: bitterness is strength - it is a tonic. Caroline felt that Robert had done her no wrong; he had told her no lie. It was she that was to blame, if anyone was. Any bitterness should be poured on her own head. She had loved without being asked to love. Robert, indeed, had sometimes seemed to be fond of her; but why? He could not help finding her pleasing - but his judgment did not approve the feeling, nor did he wish it. He withdrew because he did not choose to have his affections entangled, nor to be drawn into a marriage he believed imprudent. Now, what was she to do? To give way to her feelings, or to vanquish them? To pursue him, or to turn upon herself? If she is weak, she will try the first and will lose his esteem; if she has any sense, she will govern her emotions. She will determine to look on life steadily, as it is; to begin to learn its severe truths. It appeared she had a little sense, for she quitted Robert quietly, without complaint, without moving a muscle or shedding a tear, betook herself to her studies under Hortense as usual, and at dinner-time went home without lingering. When she had dined, and found herself alone, the difficulty that occurred to her was, "How am I to get through this day?" Last night she had hoped that the evening would be again passed happily with Robert. She had learned her mistake; and yet she could not settle down. More than once, Robert had walked up after tea to spend an hour with her uncle. The door-bell had rung, his voice had been heard in the passage at twilight; and this had happened twice after he had treated her with peculiar reserve. Though he rarely talked to her in her uncle's presence, he had looked at her relentingly, and had bid her good-night kindly. Now, he might come this evening, False Hope whispered. She almost knew it was False Hope, and yet she listened. She tried to read - her thoughts wandered; she tried to sew - but it was unbearably tedious; she opened her desk and attempted to write a French composition - she wrote nothing but mistakes. Suddenly the door-bell rang. Her heart leaped; she sprang to the door, and peeped through. Fanny was admitting a visitor - a tall man - just the height of Robert. For one second she exulted; but the voice asking for Mr. Helstone was Irish. It was the curate, Malone. He was ushered into the dining-room. At whatever house one curate dropped in to dine, another presently followed, often two more. Not that they gave each other the rendezvous, but they were usually all on the run at the same time; so that when Donne, for instance, sought Malone at his lodgings and found him gone out, he inquired of the landlady where he was and then hastened after him. Thus it chanced on that afternoon that Caroline's ears were three times tortured with the ringing of the bell; for Donne followed Malone, and Sweeting followed Donne. More wine was ordered up from the cellar; and through the closed doors Caroline heard their boyish laughter, and the vacant cackle of their voices. She was afraid they would stay to tea, for she had no pleasure in making tea for that trio. Yet not only was she destined to be favoured with their company, but also with four other guests - ladies packed in a phaeton now rolling heavily along the road from Whinbury: an elderly lady and three of her buxom daughters were coming to see her. Yes, a fourth time the bell clanged. Fanny announced: "Mrs. Sykes and the three Misses Sykes." Caroline wrung her hands, and stood up nervously, awaiting their entrance. In stalked a tall, bilious gentlewoman. In sailed her three daughters, a showy trio, all well-grown, and more or less handsome. English country ladies, whether young or old, pretty or plain, almost all have a certain expression stamped on their features, which seems to say, "I know - I do not boast of it, but I know that I am the standard of what is proper; let everyone else, therefore, keep a sharp lookout, for if they differ from me in dress, opinion or anything else, then they are wrong." Mrs. and Misses Sykes were illustrations of this. Miss Mary - a well-looking, well-meaning girl - wore her complacency with some state, though without harshness. Miss Harriet - a beauty - carried it more overbearingly; she looked high and cold. Miss Hannah, who was conceited, dashing and pushing, flourished hers openly. The mother showed it with the gravity proper to her age. The reception was got through somehow. Caroline "was glad to see them", hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes's cough was better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the younger sisters at home were well; to which inquiry the Misses Sykes replied by one simultaneous bow, very majestic and mighty awful. A pause followed. Mrs. Sykes then inquired after Mr. Helstone, and his rheumatism; and she and all her daughters, combining in chorus, expressed their opinion that he was "a wonderful man for his years." Pause second. Miss Mary, getting up steam in her turn, asked whether Caroline had attended the Bible Society meeting at Nunnely last Thursday night. Caroline's negative answer brought a simultaneous expression of surprise from the lips of the four ladies. "We were all there," said Miss Mary. "We even persuaded papa to go. But he fell asleep while the German Moravian minister was speaking. I felt quite ashamed." "And there was Dr. Broadbent," cried Hannah, "such a beautiful speaker! Yet he is almost a vulgar-looking man." "But such a dear man," interrupted Mary. "And such a good man, such a useful man," added her mother. "Only like a butcher in appearance," interposed the fair, proud Harriet. "I couldn't bear to look at him. I listened with my eyes shut." Miss Helstone felt her ignorance. Not having seen Dr. Broadbent, she could not give her opinion. Pause third came on. During it, Caroline was feeling what a dreaming fool she was, and how unfit to mix with the ordinary world. She was conscious of how exclusively she had attached herself to the white cottage in the Hollow, and one inmate of that cottage. She was aware that this would not do, and that some day she would be forced to change. She did not exactly wish to resemble the ladies before her, but she wished to become superior to her present self, so as to feel less scared by their dignity. The sole means she found of reviving the flagging discourse was by asking them if they would stay to tea. Mrs. Sykes had begun, "We are much obliged to you, but-" when in came Fanny. "The gentlemen will stay the evening, ma'am," was the message she brought. "What gentlemen have you?" inquired Mrs. Sykes. At their names, she and her daughters exchanged glances. The curates were not to them what they were to Caroline. Mr. Sweeting was quite a favourite with them; even Mr. Malone rather so, because he was a clergyman. "Really, since you have company already, I think we will stay," remarked Mrs. Sykes. "I always like to meet the clergy." And now Caroline had to usher them upstairs, help them to unshawl, smooth their hair and make themselves smart; to lead them to the drawing-room, to distribute amongst them books of engravings, or odd things purchased from the Jew-basket. It ought perhaps to be explained, for the benefit of those who are not au fait with the mysteries of the "Jew-basket" and "missionary-basket," that these are the size of a clothes-basket, dedicated to the purpose of conveying from house to house a monster collection of pin-cushions, needle-books, card-racks, articles of infant wear, etc., made by the willing or reluctant hands of the Christian ladies of a parish, and sold to the heathenish gentlemen thereof, at exorbitant prices. The proceeds are applied to the conversion of the Jews, or to the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe. Each lady contributor keeps the basket a month, to sew for it, and to foist off its contents on a shrinking male public. Some active-minded women like it; other feebler souls object to it, and would rather see the prince of darkness at their door than that basket, brought with "Mrs. Rouse's compliments; and please, ma'am, she says it's your turn now." After Miss Helstone had performed the duties of a hostess, she betook herself to the kitchen, to consult with Fanny and Eliza about the tea. "What a lot of 'em!" cried Eliza, the cook. "And I put off the baking today because I thought there would be plenty of bread till morning. We shall never have enow." "Are there any tea-cakes?" asked Caroline. "Only three and a loaf. I wish these fine folk would stay at home till they're asked; and I want to finish trimming my hat." "Fanny must run down to Briarfield and buy some muffins and crumpets and biscuits. And don't be cross, Eliza; we can't help it now." "And which tea-things are we to have?" "Oh, the best, I suppose. I'll get out the silver service. Get it ready as quickly as you can, for the sooner we have tea the sooner they will go - at least, I hope so." She sighed as she returned to the drawing-room. "Still," she thought, "if Robert would come even now, how bright all would be! There would be an interest in hearing him talk. There can be no interest in hearing any of them. How they will gabble when the curates come in! But I suppose I am a selfish fool. These are very respectable gentlefolks. They are just different from me." She went in. Yorkshire people in those days took their tea round the table, sitting with their knees under the mahogany. It was essential to have a multitude of plates of bread and butter. It was thought proper, too, that on the centre plate should stand a glass dish of marmalade. They expected to find an assortment of cheesecakes and tarts. If there was also a plate of thin slices of pink ham garnished with parsley, so much the better. Eliza, the rector's cook, fortunately knew her business. She had been put out of humour at first, but in due time the tea was spread forth in handsome style, and neither ham, tarts, nor marmalade were lacking. The curates, summoned to this repast, entered joyous; but at once, on seeing the ladies, of whose presence they had not been warned, they came to a halt in the doorway. Malone, in front, stopped short and fell back, almost capsizing Donne behind him. Donne, staggering three paces in retreat, sent little Sweeting into the arms of old Helstone, who brought up the rear. There was some expostulation, some tittering. Malone was requested to mind what he was doing, and pushed forward at last, blushing. Helstone welcomed his fair guests, shook hands and passed a jest with each, and seated himself snugly between the lovely Harriet and the dashing Hannah. Miss Mary he requested to move to the seat opposite him, so that he might see her if he couldn't be near her. He was always perfectly easy and gallant to young ladies, and popular amongst them; yet at heart he neither respected nor liked the sex, and those who had been brought into close relation with him had ever feared rather than loved him. Sweeting, the least embarrassed of the curates, took refuge beside Mrs. Sykes, who he knew was fond of him. Donne, after bowing and saying in a high voice, "How d'ye do, Miss Helstone?" dropped into a seat at Caroline's elbow, to her annoyance, for she had a peculiar antipathy to Donne, on account of his immovable self-conceit and narrowness of mind. Malone, grinning meaninglessly, sat on her other side. She knew neither man would be of any mortal use in keeping up the conversation, handing round cups, or even passing the muffins. Little Sweeting, small and boyish as he was, would have been worth twenty of them. Malone, though a ceaseless talker when there were only men present, was usually tongue-tied in the presence of ladies. Three phrases, however, he had ready, which he never failed to produce: 1st. "Have you had a walk today, Miss Helstone?" 2nd. "Have you seen your cousin Moore lately?" 3rd. "Does your class at the Sunday school keep up its number?" These three questions being put and answered, between Caroline and Malone silence reigned. With Donne it was otherwise; he was exasperating. He had a stock of the most trite small-talk that can be imagined - abuse of the people of Briarfield; of the natives of Yorkshire generally; complaints of the lack of high society; of the backward state of civilization in these districts; and ridicule of the want of style and elegance in the area, as if he, Donne, had been accustomed to very great doings, an insinuation which his underbred manner failed to bear out. These comments, he seemed to think, must raise him in Miss Helstone's estimation; whereas they brought him to a level below contempt. A Yorkshire girl herself, she hated to hear Yorkshire abused by such a pitiful prater. Then, incensed, she would turn and say it was no proof of refinement to be forever scolding others for vulgarity, and no sign of a good pastor to be eternally censuring his flock. She would ask him what he had entered the church for, since he complained there were only poor people to preach to. Had he been ordained merely to sit in king's houses? These questions were considered by all the curates as bold and impious. Tea was a long time in progress; the guests gabbled as their hostess had expected. Mr. Helstone kept up a brilliant flow of easy prattle with his neighbours, and even with Miss Mary; though, as Mary was the most sensible and least coquettish of the three, to her the rector was the least attentive. He could not abide sense in women. He liked to see them as silly, as light-headed, as vain, as open to ridicule as possible, because that was what he held them to be, and wished them to be - inferior, toys to play with, to amuse a vacant hour, and to be thrown away. Hannah was his favourite. Harriet, though beautiful, egotistical, and self-satisfied, was not quite weak enough for him. She had some genuine self-respect amidst much false pride, and she did not babble like one crazy; she would not permit herself to be treated as a doll or a child; she expected to be bent to like a queen. Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect, only flattery. If her admirers told her that she was an angel, she would let them treat her like an idiot. So very credulous was she, so very silly when flattered and admired, that there were moments when Helstone actually felt tempted to commit matrimony a second time, and to try the experiment of taking her for his wife; but fortunately the boredom of his first marriage, the memory of the weight of the millstone he had once worn round his neck, checked his tenderness, and restrained him from whispering any proposals to Hannah. She would probably have married him if he had asked her; her parents would have quite approved the match. To them his fifty-five years and leathery heart would have been no obstacles; and as he was a rector, with an excellent living and a good house, and was supposed to have private property (though in that the world was mistaken; every penny of the 5,000 inherited by him from his father had been devoted to the building of a new church at his native village in Lancashire) - her parents, I say, would have delivered Hannah over to his tender mercies without one scruple; and the second Mrs. Helstone would have fluttered through the honeymoon a bright, admired butterfly, and crawled the rest of her days a sordid, trampled worm. Little Mr. Sweeting, seated between Mrs. Sykes and Miss Mary, looked and felt more content than any monarch. He was fond of all the Misses Sykes; he thought them magnificent girls. He only regretted that Miss Dora happened to be absent - Dora being the one whom he secretly hoped one day to call Mrs. David Sweeting. The meal at last drew to a close. It would have been over long ago if Mr. Donne had not persisted in sitting with his cup half full of cold tea before him, long after the rest had finished - long, indeed, after chairs were impatiently pushed back, talk flagged, and silence fell. Vainly did Caroline inquire if he would take a little hot tea, as that must be cold, etc.; he would neither drink it nor leave it. He seemed to think that this isolated position gave him importance, that it was dignified and stately to keep all the others waiting. At length, however, the old rector himself got impatient. "For whom are we waiting?" he asked. "For me, I believe," returned Donne complacently. "Tut!" cried Helstone. Standing up, he said grace, and all quitted the table. Donne, unabashed, still sat ten minutes quite alone, until Mr. Helstone rang the bell for the tea-things to be removed. The curate was at last forced to empty his cup, and to relinquish the role which, he thought, had given him such distinction. And now music was asked for. This was Mr. Sweeting's chance to show off. He began, therefore, to persuade the young ladies to favour the company with a song. He went through the whole business of begging, praying, and resisting excuses, and at last succeeded in leading Miss Harriet to the piano. Then out came the pieces of his flute (he always carried them in his pocket). These were screwed together, Malone and Donne meanwhile sneering at him, which the little man did not heed at all. He was convinced they were envious because they could not accompany the ladies as he could. His triumph began. Malone, chagrined at hearing him pipe up in most superior style, determined to earn distinction too, and approached a sofa on which Miss Helstone was seated. Depositing his great Irish frame near her, he tried a fine speech or two, accompanied by extraordinary and incomprehensible grins. In his efforts to make himself agreeable, he contrived to possess himself of the two long sofa cushions and a square one; with which, after rolling them about for some time, he managed to erect a sort of barrier between himself and the object of his attentions. Caroline soon made an excuse for moving to the opposite side of the room, and sat next to Mrs. Sykes, with whom she began to discuss ornamental knitting; and thus Peter Augustus was thrown out. Very sullen he looked when he found himself abandoned on a large sofa, with the charge of three small cushions on his hands. He wanted seriously to cultivate acquaintance with Miss Helstone, because he thought that her uncle possessed money which he would probably leave to his niece. (Grard Moore knew better: he had seen the neat church that owed its origin to the rector's zeal and cash, and had cursed the expensive caprice which crossed his wishes.) The evening seemed long to Caroline. She dropped her knitting on her lap, and gave herself up to a sort of brain-lethargy, caused by the unmeaning hum around her - the rattle of the piano keys, the squeaking and gasping of the flute, her uncle's laughter; and more than all, the interminable gossip of Mrs. Sykes murmured close at her ear. At length, when Mr. Sweeting came up to speak to Mrs. Sykes, she took the opportunity to slip quietly out of the room, and seek a moment's solitude. She went to the dining-room, where the low remnant of a fire still burned in the grate. The place was empty and quiet. Caroline sank into her uncle's large easy-chair, half shut her eyes, and rested her limbs. As to her mind, however, that flew directly to the Hollow. It stood on the threshold of the parlour there, then it passed to the counting-house, and wondered which spot was blessed by the presence of Robert. It so happened that Robert was much nearer to Caroline than she suspected. He was at this moment crossing the churchyard, approaching the rectory garden-gate - not, however, coming to see his cousin, but intent solely on giving a piece of news to the rector. Yes, Caroline; you hear the bell ring for the fifth time this afternoon. You start, and you are certain now that this must be he. You lean forward, listening eagerly as Fanny opens the door. Right! That is the voice - low, with the slight foreign accent, but so sweet. You half rise, thinking, "Fanny will tell him Mr. Helstone is with company, and he will go away." Oh! she cannot let him go. In spite of herself, she walks half across the room, ready to dart out in case he should retreat; but he enters the passage. "Since your master is engaged," he says, "just show me into the dining-room. Bring me pen and ink. I will write a short note for him." Now, hearing him advance, Caroline would leave the dining room and disappear if she could. She feels caught; she dreads her unexpected presence may annoy him. But there is no way of escape. Her cousin enters: the look of troubled surprise she expected has appeared on his face, has shocked her, and is gone. She has stammered, "I only left the drawing-room a minute for a little quiet." There was something so diffident in the way she said this, that anyone might see some saddening change had passed over her prospects. Mr. Moore probably remembered how she had used to meet him with hopeful confidence. He must have seen how the check of this morning had operated. Here was an opportunity for carrying out his new system with effect. Perhaps he found it easier to practise that system in broad daylight, in his busy mill-yard, than in a quiet parlour in the evening. Fanny lit the candles, brought writing materials, and left the room. Caroline was about to follow her. Moore, if consistent, should have let her go; whereas he stood in the doorway, and gently kept her back. "Shall I tell my uncle you are here?" asked she, in the same subdued voice. "No; I can say to you all I had to say to him. You will be my messenger?" "Yes, Robert." "Then you may inform him that I have got a clue to the identity of one, at least, of the men who broke my frames; and that I hope to have him in custody tomorrow. You can remember that?" "Oh yes!" These two monosyllables were uttered in a sadder tone than ever; and she sighed. "Will you prosecute him?" "Doubtless." "No, Robert. It will set the neighbourhood against you more than ever." "That is no reason why I should not do my duty, and defend my property. This fellow is a scoundrel." "But his accomplices will take revenge on you. You do not know how the people of this country bear malice. Some of them boast that they can keep a stone in their pocket for years, before they hurl it and hit their mark." Moore laughed. "Don't fear for me, Lina. I am on my guard. Don't make yourself uneasy about me." "How can I help it? You are my cousin. If anything happened-" She stopped. "Nothing will happen, Lina. To speak in your own language, there is a Providence above all - and if prayers work, yours will benefit me. You pray for me sometimes?" "You, Louis, and Hortense are always remembered in my prayers." "So I have often imagined," he said. "When, weary and vexed, I have gone to bed without praying, it has occurred to me that another had asked forgiveness for my day, and safety for my night. I hope your prayers for me are acceptable to God; they doubtless would be, if I deserved them." "Annihilate that doubt. It is groundless." "When a man has been brought up only to make money, and scarcely breathes any other air than that of mills and markets, it seems odd to utter his name in a prayer; and very strange it seems that a good, pure heart should take him in and harbour him. If I could guide that heart, I believe I should counsel it to exclude one who has no higher aim in life than that of patching up his broken fortune." The hint, though conveyed tenderly, was understood and felt keenly by Caroline. "Indeed, I only think - or I will only think - of you as my cousin," was the quick answer. "I am beginning to understand things better than I did, Robert. I know it is your duty to try to get on, and that it won't do for you to be romantic; but you must not misunderstand me if I seem friendly. You misunderstood me this morning, did you not?" "What made you think so?" "Your look - your manner." "But look at me now-" "Oh! you are different now. At present I dare speak to you." "Yet I am the same, except that I have left the tradesman behind me, and am your kinsman now. Caroline-" Here the company was heard rising in the other room. The carriage was ordered; shawls and bonnets were demanded. "I must go, Robert." "Yes, you must, or they will come in and find us here; and rather than meet all that host in the passage, I will leave through the French window. One minute only - put down the candle - good-night. I kiss you because we are cousins, and so one - two - three kisses are allowable. Caroline, good-night."

Shirley

Chapter 7: The Curates at Tea

The next day Moore had risen before the sun, and had taken a ride to Whinbury and back ere his sister had made the caf au lait or cut the tartines for his breakfast. What business he transacted there he kept to himself. Hortense asked no questions: it was not her wont to comment on his movements, nor his to render an account of them. The secrets of business--complicated and often dismal mysteries--were buried in his breast, and never came out of their sepulchre save now and then to scare Joe Scott, or give a start to some foreign correspondent. Indeed, a general habit of reserve on whatever was important seemed bred in his mercantile blood. Breakfast over, he went to his counting-house. Henry, Joe Scott's boy, brought in the letters and the daily papers; Moore seated himself at his desk, broke the seals of the documents, and glanced them over. They were all short, but not, it seemed, sweet--probably rather sour, on the contrary, for as Moore laid down the last, his nostrils emitted a derisive and defiant snuff, and though he burst into no soliloquy, there was a glance in his eye which seemed to invoke the devil, and lay charges on him to sweep the whole concern to Gehenna. However, having chosen a pen and stripped away the feathered top in a brief spasm of finger-fury (only finger-fury--his face was placid), he dashed off a batch of answers, sealed them, and then went out and walked through the mill. On coming back he sat down to read his newspaper. The contents seemed not absorbingly interesting; he more than once laid it across his knee, folded his arms, and gazed into the fire; he occasionally turned his head towards the window; he looked at intervals at his watch; in short, his mind appeared preoccupied. Perhaps he was thinking of the beauty of the weather--for it was a fine and mild morning for the season--and wishing to be out in the fields enjoying it. The door of his counting-house stood wide open. The breeze and sunshine entered freely; but the first visitant brought no spring perfume on its wings, only an occasional sulphur-puff from the soot-thick column of smoke rushing sable from the gaunt mill-chimney. A dark-blue apparition (that of Joe Scott, fresh from a dyeing vat) appeared momentarily at the open door, uttered the words "He's comed, sir," and vanished. Mr. Moore raised not his eyes from the paper. A large man, broad-shouldered and massive-limbed, clad in fustian garments and gray worsted stockings, entered, who was received with a nod, and desired to take a seat, which he did, making the remark, as he removed his hat (a very bad one), stowed it away under his chair, and wiped his forehead with a spotted cotton handkerchief extracted from the hat-crown, that it was "raight dahn warm for Febewerry." Mr. Moore assented--at least he uttered some slight sound, which, though inarticulate, might pass for an assent. The visitor now carefully deposited in the corner beside him an official-looking staff which he bore in his hand; this done, he whistled, probably by way of appearing at his ease. "You have what is necessary, I suppose?" said Mr. Moore. "Ay, ay! all's right." He renewed his whistling, Mr. Moore his reading. The paper apparently had become more interesting. Presently, however, he turned to his cupboard, which was within reach of his long arm, opened it without rising, took out a black bottle--the same he had produced for Malone's benefit--a tumbler, and a jug, placed them on the table, and said to his guest,-- "Help yourself; there's water in that jar in the corner." "I dunnut knaw that there's mich need, for all a body is dry (thirsty) in a morning," said the fustian gentleman, rising and doing as requested. "Will you tak naught yourseln, Mr. Moore?" he inquired, as with skilled hand he mixed a portion, and having tested it by a deep draught, sank back satisfied and bland in his seat. Moore, chary of words, replied by a negative movement and murmur. "Yah'd as good," continued his visitor; "it 'uld set ye up wald a sup o' this stuff. Uncommon good hollands. Ye get it fro' furrin parts, I'se think?" "Ay!" "Tak my advice and try a glass on't. Them lads 'at's coming 'll keep ye talking, nob'dy knows how long. Ye'll need propping." "Have you seen Mr. Sykes this morning?" inquired Moore. "I seed him a hauf an hour--nay, happen a quarter of an hour sin', just afore I set off. He said he aimed to come here, and I sudn't wonder but ye'll have old Helstone too. I seed 'em saddling his little nag as I passed at back o' t' rectory." The speaker was a true prophet, for the trot of a little nag's hoofs was, five minutes after, heard in the yard. It stopped, and a well-known nasal voice cried aloud, "Boy" (probably addressing Harry Scott, who usually hung about the premises from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), "take my horse and lead him into the stable." Helstone came in marching nimbly and erect, looking browner, keener, and livelier than usual. "Beautiful morning, Moore. How do, my boy? Ha! whom have we here?" (turning to the personage with the staff). "Sugden! What! you're going to work directly? On my word, you lose no time. But I come to ask explanations. Your message was delivered to me. Are you sure you are on the right scent? How do you mean to set about the business? Have you got a warrant?" "Sugden has." "Then you are going to seek him now? I'll accompany you." "You will be spared that trouble, sir; he is coming to seek me. I'm just now sitting in state waiting his arrival." "And who is it? One of my parishioners?" Joe Scott had entered unobserved. He now stood, a most sinister phantom, half his person being dyed of the deepest tint of indigo, leaning on the desk. His master's answer to the rector's question was a smile. Joe took the word. Putting on a quiet but pawky look, he said,-- "It's a friend of yours, Mr. Helstone, a gentleman you often speak of." "Indeed! His name, Joe? You look well this morning." "Only the Rev. Moses Barraclough; t' tub orator you call him sometimes, I think." "Ah!" said the rector, taking out his snuff-box, and administering to himself a very long pinch--"ah! couldn't have supposed it. Why, the pious man never was a workman of yours, Moore. He's a tailor by trade." "And so much the worse grudge I owe him, for interfering and setting my discarded men against me." "And Moses was actually present at the battle of Stilbro' Moor? He went there, wooden leg and all?" "Ay, sir," said Joe; "he went there on horseback, that his leg mightn't be noticed. He was the captain, and wore a mask. The rest only had their faces blackened." "And how was he found out?" "I'll tell you, sir," said Joe. "T' maister's not so fond of talking. I've no objections. He courted Sarah, Mr. Moore's sarvant lass, and so it seems she would have nothing to say to him; she either didn't like his wooden leg or she'd some notion about his being a hypocrite. Happen (for women is queer hands; we may say that amang werseln when there's none of 'em nigh) she'd have encouraged him, in spite of his leg and his deceit, just to pass time like. I've known some on 'em do as mich, and some o' t' bonniest and mimmest-looking, too--ay, I've seen clean, trim young things, that looked as denty and pure as daisies, and wi' time a body fun' 'em out to be nowt but stinging, venomed nettles." "Joe's a sensible fellow," interjected Helstone. "Howsiver, Sarah had another string to her bow. Fred Murgatroyd, one of our lads, is for her; and as women judge men by their faces--and Fred has a middling face, while Moses is none so handsome, as we all knaw--the lass took on wi' Fred. A two-three months sin', Murgatroyd and Moses chanced to meet one Sunday night; they'd both come lurking about these premises wi' the notion of counselling Sarah to tak a bit of a walk wi' them. They fell out, had a tussle, and Fred was worsted, for he's young and small, and Barraclough, for all he has only one leg, is almost as strong as Sugden there--indeed, anybody that hears him roaring at a revival or a love-feast may be sure he's no weakling." "Joe, you're insupportable," here broke in Mr. Moore. "You spin out your explanation as Moses spins out his sermons. The long and short of it is, Murgatroyd was jealous of Barraclough; and last night, as he and a friend took shelter in a barn from a shower, they heard and saw Moses conferring with some associates within. From their discourse it was plain he had been the leader, not only at Stilbro' Moor, but in the attack on Sykes's property. Moreover they planned a deputation to wait on me this morning, which the tailor is to head, and which, in the most religious and peaceful spirit, is to entreat me to put the accursed thing out of my tent. I rode over to Whinbury this morning, got a constable and a warrant, and I am now waiting to give my friend the reception he deserves. Here, meantime, comes Sykes. Mr. Helstone, you must spirit him up. He feels timid at the thoughts of prosecuting." A gig was heard to roll into the yard. Mr. Sykes entered--a tall stout man of about fifty, comely of feature, but feeble of physiognomy. He looked anxious. "Have they been? Are they gone? Have you got him? Is it over?" he asked. "Not yet," returned Moore with phlegm. "We are waiting for them." "They'll not come; it's near noon. Better give it up. It will excite bad feeling--make a stir--cause perhaps fatal consequences." "_You_ need not appear," said Moore. "I shall meet them in the yard when they come; _you_ can stay here." "But my name must be seen in the law proceedings. A wife and family, Mr. Moore--a wife and family make a man cautious." Moore looked disgusted. "Give way, if you please," said he; "leave me to myself. I have no objection to act alone; only be assured you will not find safety in submission. Your partner Pearson gave way, and conceded, and forbore. Well, that did not prevent them from attempting to shoot him in his own house." "My dear sir, take a little wine and water," recommended Mr. Helstone. The wine and water was hollands and water, as Mr. Sykes discovered when he had compounded and swallowed a brimming tumbler thereof. It transfigured him in two minutes, brought the colour back to his face, and made him at least _word_-valiant. He now announced that he hoped he was above being trampled on by the common people; he was determined to endure the insolence of the working-classes no longer; he had considered of it, and made up his mind to go all lengths; if money and spirit could put down these rioters, they should be put down; Mr. Moore might do as he liked, but _he_--Christie Sykes--would spend his last penny in law before he would be beaten; he'd settle them, or he'd see. "Take another glass," urged Moore. Mr. Sykes didn't mind if he did. This was a cold morning (Sugden had found it a warm one); it was necessary to be careful at this season of the year--it was proper to take something to keep the damp out; he had a little cough already (here he coughed in attestation of the fact); something of this sort (lifting the black bottle) was excellent, taken medicinally (he poured the physic into his tumbler); he didn't make a practice of drinking spirits in a morning, but occasionally it really was prudent to take precautions. "Quite prudent, and take them by all means," urged the host. Mr. Sykes now addressed Mr. Helstone, who stood on the hearth, his shovel-hat on his head, watching him significantly with his little, keen eyes. "You, sir, as a clergyman," said he, "may feel it disagreeable to be present amidst scenes of hurry and flurry, and, I may say, peril. I dare say your nerves won't stand it. You're a man of peace, sir; but we manufacturers, living in the world, and always in turmoil, get quite belligerent. Really, there's an ardour excited by the thoughts of danger that makes my heart pant. When Mrs. Sykes is afraid of the house being attacked and broke open--as she is every night--I get quite excited. I couldn't describe to you, sir, my feelings. Really, if anybody was to come--thieves or anything--I believe I should enjoy it, such is my spirit." The hardest of laughs, though brief and low, and by no means insulting, was the response of the rector. Moore would have pressed upon the heroic mill-owner a third tumbler, but the clergyman, who never transgressed, nor would suffer others in his presence to transgress, the bounds of decorum, checked him. "Enough is as good as a feast, is it not, Mr. Sykes?" he said; and Mr. Sykes assented, and then sat and watched Joe Scott remove the bottle at a sign from Helstone, with a self-satisfied simper on his lips and a regretful glisten in his eye. Moore looked as if he should have liked to fool him to the top of his bent. What would a certain young kinswoman of his have said could she have seen her dear, good, great Robert--her Coriolanus--just now? Would she have acknowledged in that mischievous, sardonic visage the same face to which she had looked up with such love, which had bent over her with such gentleness last night? Was that the man who had spent so quiet an evening with his sister and his cousin--so suave to one, so tender to the other--reading Shakespeare and listening to Chnier? Yes, it was the same man, only seen on a different side--a side Caroline had not yet fairly beheld, though perhaps she had enough sagacity faintly to suspect its existence. Well, Caroline had, doubtless, her defective side too. She was human. She must, then, have been very imperfect; and had she seen Moore on his very worst side, she would probably have said this to herself and excused him. Love can excuse anything except meanness; but meanness kills love, cripples even natural affection; without esteem true love cannot exist. Moore, with all his faults, might be esteemed; for he had no moral scrofula in his mind, no hopeless polluting taint--such, for instance, as that of falsehood; neither was he the slave of his appetites. The active life to which he had been born and bred had given him something else to do than to join the futile chase of the pleasure-hunter. He was a man undegraded, the disciple of reason, _not_ the votary of sense. The same might be said of old Helstone. Neither of these two would look, think, or speak a lie; for neither of them had the wretched black bottle, which had just been put away, any charms. Both might boast a valid claim to the proud title of "lord of the creation," for no animal vice was lord of them; they looked and were superior beings to poor Sykes. A sort of gathering and trampling sound was heard in the yard, and then a pause. Moore walked to the window; Helstone followed. Both stood on one side, the tall junior behind the under-sized senior, looking forth carefully, so that they might not be visible from without. Their sole comment on what they saw was a cynical smile flashed into each other's stern eyes. A flourishing oratorical cough was now heard, followed by the interjection "Whisht!" designed, as it seemed, to still the hum of several voices. Moore opened his casement an inch or two to admit sound more freely. "Joseph Scott," began a snuffling voice--Scott was standing sentinel at the counting-house door--"might we inquire if your master be within, and is to be spoken to?" "He's within, ay," said Joe nonchalantly. "Would you then, if _you_ please" (emphasis on "you"), "have the goodness to tell _him_ that twelve gentlemen wants to see him." "He'd happen ax what for," suggested Joe. "I mught as weel tell him that at t' same time." "For a purpose," was the answer. Joe entered. "Please, sir, there's twelve gentlemen wants to see ye, 'for a purpose.'" "Good, Joe; I'm their man.--Sugden, come when I whistle." Moore went out, chuckling dryly. He advanced into the yard, one hand in his pocket, the other in his waistcoat, his cap brim over his eyes, shading in some measure their deep dancing ray of scorn. Twelve men waited in the yard, some in their shirt-sleeves, some in blue aprons. Two figured conspicuously in the van of the party. One, a little dapper strutting man with a turned-up nose; the other a broad-shouldered fellow, distinguished no less by his demure face and cat like, trustless eyes than by a wooden leg and stout crutch. There was a kind of leer about his lips; he seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing; his whole air was anything but that of a true man. "Good-morning, Mr. Barraclough," said Moore debonairly, for him. "Peace be unto you!" was the answer, Mr. Barraclough entirely closing his naturally half-shut eyes as he delivered it. "I'm obliged to you. Peace is an excellent thing; there's nothing I more wish for myself. But that is not all you have to say to me, I suppose? I imagine peace is not your purpose?" "As to our purpose," began Barraclough, "it's one that may sound strange and perhaps foolish to ears like yours, for the childer of this world is wiser in their generation than the childer of light." "To the point, if you please, and let me hear what it is." "Ye'se hear, sir. If I cannot get it off, there's eleven behint can help me. It is a grand purpose, and" (changing his voice from a half-sneer to a whine) "it's the Looard's own purpose, and that's better." "Do you want a subscription to a new Ranter's chapel, Mr. Barraclough? Unless your errand be something of that sort, I cannot see what you have to do with it." "I hadn't that duty on my mind, sir; but as Providence has led ye to mention the subject, I'll make it i' my way to tak ony trifle ye may have to spare; the smallest contribution will be acceptable." With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box, a brazen grin at the same time crossing his countenance. "If I gave you sixpence you would drink it." Barraclough uplifted the palms of his hands and the whites of his eyes, evincing in the gesture a mere burlesque of hypocrisy. "You seem a fine fellow," said Moore, quite coolly and dryly; "you don't care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your trade is fraud. You expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness with which you play your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time you think you are deceiving the men behind you." Moses' countenance lowered. He saw he had gone too far. He was going to answer, when the second leader, impatient of being hitherto kept in the background, stepped forward. This man did not look like a traitor, though he had an exceedingly self-confident and conceited air. "Mr. Moore," commenced he, speaking also in his throat and nose, and enunciating each word very slowly, as if with a view to giving his audience time to appreciate fully the uncommon elegance of the phraseology, "it might, perhaps, justly be said that reason rather than peace is our purpose. We come, in the first place, to request you to hear reason; and should _you_ refuse, it is my duty to warn _you_, in very decided terms, that measures will be had resort to" (he meant recourse) "which will probably terminate in--in bringing _you_ to a sense of the unwisdom, of the--the foolishness which seems to guide and guard your proceedings as a tradesman in this manufacturing part of the country. Hem! Sir, I would beg to allude that as a furriner, coming from a distant coast, another quarter and hemisphere of this globe, thrown, as I may say, a perfect outcast on these shores--the cliffs of Albion--you have not that understanding of huz and wer ways which might conduce to the benefit of the working-classes. If, to come at once to partic'lars, you'd consider to give up this here miln, and go without further protractions straight home to where you belong, it 'ud happen be as well. I can see naught ageean such a plan.--What hev ye to say tull't, lads?" turning round to the other members of the deputation, who responded unanimously, "Hear, hear!" "Brayvo, Noah o' Tim's!" murmured Joe Scott, who stood behind Mr. Moore. "Moses'll niver beat that. Cliffs o' Albion, and t' other hemisphere! My certy! Did ye come fro' th' Antarctic Zone, maister? Moses is dished." Moses, however, refused to be dished. He thought he would try again. Casting a somewhat ireful glance at "Noah o' Tim's," he launched out in his turn; and now he spoke in a serious tone, relinquishing the sarcasm which he found had not answered. "Or iver you set up the pole o' your tent amang us, Mr. Moore, we lived i' peace and quietness--yea, I may say, in all loving-kindness. I am not myself an aged person as yet, but I can remember as far back as maybe some twenty year, when hand-labour were encouraged and respected, and no mischief-maker had ventured to introduce these here machines which is so pernicious. Now, I'm not a cloth-dresser myself, but by trade a tailor. Howsiver, my heart is of a softish nature. I'm a very feeling man, and when I see my brethren oppressed, like my great namesake of old, I stand up for 'em; for which intent I this day speak with you face to face, and advises you to part wi' your infernal machinery, and tak on more hands." "What if I don't follow your advice, Mr. Barraclough?" "The Looard pardon you! The Looard soften your heart, sir!" "Are you in connection with the Wesleyans now, Mr. Barraclough?" "Praise God! Bless His name! I'm a joined Methody!" "Which in no respect prevents you from being at the same time a drunkard and a swindler. I saw you one night a week ago laid dead-drunk by the roadside, as I returned from Stilbro' market; and while you preach peace, you make it the business of your life to stir up dissension. You no more sympathize with the poor who are in distress than you sympathize with me. You incite them to outrage for bad purposes of your own; so does the individual called Noah of Tim's. You two are restless, meddling, impudent scoundrels, whose chief motive-principle is a selfish ambition, as dangerous as it is puerile. The persons behind you are some of them honest though misguided men; but you two I count altogether bad." Barraclough was going to speak. "Silence! You have had your say, and now I will have mine. As to being dictated to by you, or any Jack, Jem, or Jonathan on earth, I shall not suffer it for a moment. You desire me to quit the country; you request me to part with my machinery. In case I refuse, you threaten me. I _do_ refuse--point-blank! Here I stay, and by this mill I stand, and into it will I convey the best machinery inventors can furnish. What will you do? The utmost you _can_ do--and this you will never _dare_ to do--is to burn down my mill, destroy its contents, and shoot me. What then? Suppose that building was a ruin and I was a corpse--what then, you lads behind these two scamps? Would that stop invention or exhaust science? Not for the fraction of a second of time! Another and better gig-mill would rise on the ruins of this, and perhaps a more enterprising owner come in my place. Hear me! I'll make my cloth as I please, and according to the best lights I have. In its manufacture I will employ what means I choose. Whoever, after hearing this, shall dare to interfere with me may just take the consequences. An example shall prove I'm in earnest." He whistled shrill and loud. Sugden, his staff and warrant, came on the scene. Moore turned sharply to Barraclough. "You were at Stilbro'," said he; "I have proof of that. You were on the moor, you wore a mask, you knocked down one of my men with your own hand--you! a preacher of the gospel!--Sugden, arrest him!" Moses was captured. There was a cry and a rush to rescue, but the right hand which all this while had lain hidden in Moore's breast, reappearing, held out a pistol. "Both barrels are loaded," said he. "I'm quite determined! Keep off!" Stepping backwards, facing the foe as he went, he guarded his prey to the counting-house. He ordered Joe Scott to pass in with Sugden and the prisoner, and to bolt the door inside. For himself, he walked backwards and forwards along the front of the mill, looking meditatively on the ground, his hand hanging carelessly by his side, but still holding the pistol. The eleven remaining deputies watched him some time, talking under their breath to each other. At length one of them approached. This man looked very different from either of the two who had previously spoken; he was hard-favoured, but modest and manly-looking. "I've not much faith i' Moses Barraclough," said he, "and I would speak a word to you myseln, Mr. Moore. It's out o' no ill-will that I'm here, for my part; it's just to mak a effort to get things straightened, for they're sorely a-crooked. Ye see we're ill off--varry ill off; wer families is poor and pined. We're thrown out o' work wi' these frames; we can get nought to do; we can earn nought. What is to be done? Mun we say, wisht! and lig us down and dee? Nay; I've no grand words at my tongue's end, Mr. Moore, but I feel that it wad be a low principle for a reasonable man to starve to death like a dumb cratur. I willn't do't. I'm not for shedding blood: I'd neither kill a man nor hurt a man; and I'm not for pulling down mills and breaking machines--for, as ye say, that way o' going on'll niver stop invention; but I'll talk--I'll mak as big a din as ever I can. Invention may be all right, but I know it isn't right for poor folks to starve. Them that governs mun find a way to help us; they mun make fresh orderations. Ye'll say that's hard to do. So mich louder mun we shout out then, for so much slacker will t' Parliament-men be to set on to a tough job." "Worry the Parliament-men as much as you please," said Moore; "but to worry the mill-owners is absurd, and I for one won't stand it." "Ye're a raight hard un!" returned the workman. "Willn't ye gie us a bit o' time? Willn't ye consent to mak your changes rather more slowly?" "Am I the whole body of clothiers in Yorkshire? Answer me that." "Ye're yourseln." "And only myself. And if I stopped by the way an instant, while others are rushing on, I should be trodden down. If I did as you wish me to do, I should be bankrupt in a month; and would my bankruptcy put bread into your hungry children's mouths? William Farren, neither to your dictation nor to that of any other will I submit. Talk to me no more about machinery. I will have my own way. I shall get new frames in to-morrow. If you broke these, I would still get more. _I'll never give in._" Here the mill-bell rang twelve o'clock. It was the dinner-hour. Moore abruptly turned from the deputation and re-entered his counting-house. His last words had left a bad, harsh impression; he, at least, had "failed in the disposing of a chance he was lord of." By speaking kindly to William Farren--who was a very honest man, without envy or hatred of those more happily circumstanced than himself, thinking it no hardship and no injustice to be forced to live by labour, disposed to be honourably content if he could but get work to do--Moore might have made a friend. It seemed wonderful how he could turn from such a man without a conciliatory or a sympathizing expression. The poor fellow's face looked haggard with want; he had the aspect of a man who had not known what it was to live in comfort and plenty for weeks, perhaps months, past, and yet there was no ferocity, no malignity in his countenance; it was worn, dejected, austere, but still patient. How could Moore leave him thus, with the words, "I'll never give in," and not a whisper of good-will, or hope, or aid? Farren, as he went home to his cottage--once, in better times, a decent, clean, pleasant place, but now, though still clean, very dreary, because so poor--asked himself this question. He concluded that the foreign mill-owner was a selfish, an unfeeling, and, he thought, too, a foolish man. It appeared to him that emigration, had he only the means to emigrate, would be preferable to service under such a master. He felt much cast down--almost hopeless. On his entrance his wife served out, in orderly sort, such dinner as she had to give him and the bairns. It was only porridge, and too little of that. Some of the younger children asked for more when they had done their portion--an application which disturbed William much. While his wife quieted them as well as she could, he left his seat and went to the door. He whistled a cheery stave, which did not, however, prevent a broad drop or two (much more like the "first of a thunder-shower" than those which oozed from the wound of the gladiator) from gathering on the lids of his gray eyes, and plashing thence to the threshold. He cleared his vision with his sleeve, and the melting mood over, a very stern one followed. He still stood brooding in silence, when a gentleman in black came up--a clergyman, it might be seen at once, but neither Helstone, nor Malone, nor Donne, nor Sweeting. He might be forty years old; he was plain-looking, dark-complexioned, and already rather gray-haired. He stooped a little in walking. His countenance, as he came on, wore an abstracted and somewhat doleful air; but in approaching Farren he looked up, and then a hearty expression illuminated the preoccupied, serious face. "Is it you, William? How are you?" he asked. "Middling, Mr. Hall. How are _ye_? Will ye step in and rest ye?" Mr. Hall, whose name the reader has seen mentioned before (and who, indeed, was vicar of Nunnely, of which parish Farren was a native, and from whence he had removed but three years ago to reside in Briarfield, for the convenience of being near Hollow's Mill, where he had obtained work), entered the cottage, and having greeted the good-wife and the children, sat down. He proceeded to talk very cheerfully about the length of time that had elapsed since the family quitted his parish, the changes which had occurred since; he answered questions touching his sister Margaret, who was inquired after with much interest; he asked questions in his turn, and at last, glancing hastily and anxiously round through his spectacles (he wore spectacles, for he was short-sighted) at the bare room, and at the meagre and wan faces of the circle about him--for the children had come round his knee, and the father and mother stood before him--he said abruptly,-- "And how are you all? How do you get on?" Mr. Hall, be it remarked, though an accomplished scholar, not only spoke with a strong northern accent, but, on occasion, used freely north-country expressions. "We get on poorly," said William; "we're all out of work. I've selled most o' t' household stuff, as ye may see; and what we're to do next, God knows." "Has Mr. Moore turned you off?" "He has turned us off; and I've sich an opinion of him now that I think if he'd tak me on again to-morrow I wouldn't work for him." "It is not like you to say so, William." "I know it isn't; but I'm getting different to mysel'; I feel I am changing. I wadn't heed if t' bairns and t' wife had enough to live on; but they're pinched--they're pined----" "Well, my lad, and so are you; I see you are. These are grievous times; I see suffering wherever I turn. William, sit down. Grace, sit down. Let us talk it over." And in order the better to talk it over, Mr. Hall lifted the least of the children on to his knee, and placed his hand on the head of the next least; but when the small things began to chatter to him he bade them "Whisht!" and fixing his eyes on the grate, he regarded the handful of embers which burned there very gravely. "Sad times," he said, "and they last long. It is the will of God. His will be done. But He tries us to the utmost." Again he reflected. "You've no money, William, and you've nothing you could sell to raise a small sum?" "No. I've selled t' chest o' drawers, and t' clock, and t' bit of a mahogany stand, and t' wife's bonny tea-tray and set o' cheeney 'at she brought for a portion when we were wed." "And if somebody lent you a pound or two, could you make any good use of it? Could you get into a new way of doing something?" Farren did not answer, but his wife said quickly, "Ay, I'm sure he could, sir. He's a very contriving chap is our William. If he'd two or three pounds he could begin selling stuff." "Could you, William?" "Please God," returned William deliberately, "I could buy groceries, and bits o' tapes, and thread, and what I thought would sell, and I could begin hawking at first." "And you know, sir," interposed Grace, "you're sure William would neither drink, nor idle, nor waste, in any way. He's my husband, and I shouldn't praise him; but I _will_ say there's not a soberer, honester man i' England nor he is." "Well, I'll speak to one or two friends, and I think I can promise to let him have 5 in a day or two--as a loan, ye mind, not a gift. He must pay it back." "I understand, sir. I'm quite agreeable to that." "Meantime, there's a few shillings for you, Grace, just to keep the pot boiling till custom comes.--Now, bairns, stand up in a row and say your catechism, while your mother goes and buys some dinner; for you've not had much to-day, I'll be bound.--You begin, Ben. What is your name?" Mr. Hall stayed till Grace came back; then he hastily took his leave, shaking hands with both Farren and his wife. Just at the door he said to them a few brief but very earnest words of religious consolation and exhortation. With a mutual "God bless you, sir!" "God bless you, my friends!" they separated.

The next day Moore had risen before the sun, and had ridden to Whinbury and back before his sister had made his coffee and breakfast. What business he did there he kept to himself. Hortense asked no questions. Breakfast over, he went to his counting-house. Henry, Joe Scott's boy, brought in the letters; Moore sat down and glanced them over. They were all short, but not, it seemed, sweet - probably rather sour, on the contrary; for as Moore laid down the last, he sniffed derisively, and his eye glittered in anger. He dashed off a batch of answers, sealed them, and then went to walk through the mill. On coming back he sat down to read his newspaper. The contents seemed not to absorb him; he turned his head towards the window; he looked at his watch, and appeared preoccupied. It was a fine, mild morning; perhaps he wished to be out in the fields. The door of his counting-house stood wide open, and the breeze and sunshine entered freely. A dark-blue apparition - Joe Scott, fresh from a dyeing vat - appeared at the open door, uttered the words "He's comed, sir," and vanished. A large man, broad-shouldered and massive-limbed, clad in fustian garments and grey woollen stockings, entered, was received with a nod, and told to take a seat. He removed his hat (a very bad one), stowed it away under his chair, and wiped his forehead with a spotted cotton handkerchief, saying that it was "raight dahn warm for Febewerry." Mr. Moore uttered some slight sound of agreement. The visitor carefully deposited an official-looking staff in the corner; then he began to whistle. "You have what is necessary, I suppose?" said Mr. Moore. "Ay, ay! all's right." He renewed his whistling, Mr. Moore his reading. Presently, however, Moore turned to his cupboard, opened it without rising, took out a black bottle - the same he had produced for Malone's benefit - a tumbler, and a jug, placed them on the table, and said: "Help yourself; there's water in that jar over there." "Will you tak naught yourseln, Mr. Moore?" inquired his guest, as he mixed a portion, tasted it, and sank back satisfied in his seat. Moore shook his head. "Yah'd as good," continued his visitor; "it'd set ye up. Tak my advice and try a glass. Them lads that's coming 'll keep ye talking. Ye'll need propping." "Have you seen Mr. Sykes this morning?" inquired Moore. "I seed him just afore I set off. He said he aimed to come here, and I sudn't wonder but ye'll have old Helstone too. I seed 'em saddling his little nag as I passed t' rectory." The trot of the little nag's hoofs was, five minutes after, heard in the yard. A well-known nasal voice cried aloud, "Boy, lead my horse into the stable." Then Helstone came marching in, looking keener and livelier than usual. "Beautiful morning, Moore. How do? Ha! whom have we here? Sugden! On my word, you lose no time. Your message was delivered to me, Moore. Are you sure you are on the right scent? Have you got a warrant?" "Sugden has." "Then you are going to seek him now? I'll accompany you." "You will be spared that trouble, sir; he is coming to seek me. I'm awaiting his arrival." "And who is it?" Joe Scott had entered, like a sinister indigo phantom. He said: "It's a friend of yours, Mr. Helstone: the Rev. Moses Barraclough. The tub orator you call him sometimes, I think." "Ah!" said the rector, taking out his snuff-box, and helping himself to a long pinch. "Why, he never was a workman of yours, Moore. He's a tailor." "And so much the worse grudge I owe him, for interfering and setting my men against me." "And Moses was actually present at the battle of Stilbro' Moor, wooden leg and all?" "Ay, sir," said Joe; "he went there on horseback. He was the captain, and wore a mask." "And how was he found out?" "He courted Sarah, Mr. Moore's sarvant lass," said Joe, "and she would have nothing to say to him. Happen she'd have encouraged him, in spite of his leg and his deceit, just to pass time like. I've known some on 'em do as much - ay, I've seen trim young women, that looked as pure as daisies, turn out to be nowt but stinging nettles." "Sensible fellow," said Helstone. "Howsiver, Sarah had another string to her bow. Fred Murgatroyd, one of our lads, is for her; and two-three months ago, Murgatroyd and Moses chanced to meet one Sunday night. They'd both come to ax Sarah to tak a walk wi' them. They fell out, had a tussle, and Fred was worsted, for he's young and small, and Barraclough, for all he has only one leg, is almost as strong as Sugden there." "In short," broke in Mr. Moore, "Murgatroyd was jealous of Barraclough; and last night, as he and a friend took shelter in a barn from a shower, they heard Moses talking with some associates within. From their talk it was plain he had been the leader, not only at Stilbro' Moor, but in the attack on Sykes's property. Moreover they planned to send a deputation to me this morning, which Barraclough is to head, and which, in the most religious and peaceful spirit, is to entreat me to give up my frames. I rode over to Whinbury this morning, got a constable and a warrant, and I am now waiting for the group. Here comes Sykes." Mr. Sykes entered - a tall stout man of about fifty, who looked anxious. "Have they been? Have you got him? Is it over?" he asked. "Not yet," returned Moore. "We are waiting for them." "They'll not come; it's near noon. Better give it up. It will make a stir - may have fatal consequences." "You need not appear," said Moore. "I shall meet them in the yard; you can stay here." "But my name will be seen in the law proceedings. A wife and family make a man cautious." Moore looked disgusted. "I have no objection to act alone," he said; "only you will not find safety in yielding. Your partner Pearson gave way, but that did not prevent them from trying to shoot him in his own house." "My dear sir, take a little wine and water," recommended Mr. Helstone. A brimming tumbler transfigured Mr. Sykes in two minutes. He now announced that he would endure the insolence of the working-classes no longer; he had made up his mind to put them down. "Take another glass," urged Moore. Mr. Sykes didn't mind if he did - just to keep the damp out; he had a little cough (here he coughed to prove the fact), and it really was prudent to take precautions. "Quite prudent, and take them by all means," urged the host. Mr. Sykes now addressed Mr. Helstone, who stood watching him keenly. "You, sir, as a clergyman," said he, "may feel it disagreeable to be present amidst scenes of peril. I dare say your nerves won't stand it. You're a man of peace, sir; but we manufacturers, living in the world, and always in turmoil, get quite belligerent. Really, if anybody was to attack my house - thieves or anything - I believe I should enjoy it, such is my spirit." The rector laughed. Moore would have pressed a third tumbler upon the heroic mill-owner, but Helstone, for the sake of decorum, prevented him. "Enough is as good as a feast, is it not, Mr. Sykes?" he said; and Mr. Sykes assented regretfully. Moore looked mischievous and sardonic. What would a certain young kinswoman of his have said if she could have seen her dear, good, great Robert just now? Yes, it was the same man, only seen on a different side - a side Caroline had not yet beheld, though perhaps she suspected its existence. Well, Caroline had, doubtless, her defective side too. And Moore, with all his faults, might be respected, as might old Helstone. Neither of these two would look, think, or speak a lie; the wretched black bottle had no charms for either of them. Both of them looked and were superior beings to poor Sykes. A trampling sound was heard in the yard. Moore walked to the window; Helstone followed. They looked forth carefully, so that they might not be visible from outside. A flourishing oratorical cough was now heard, followed by "Whisht!" Moore opened his window an inch or two to admit sound. "Joseph Scott," began a snuffling voice - Scott was standing sentinel at the counting-house door - "might we inquire if your master be within?" "He's within, ay," said Joe. "Would you then, if you please, tell him that twelve gentlemen wants to see him." "He'd happen ax what for," suggested Joe. "For a purpose," was the answer. Joe entered. "Please, sir, there's twelve gentlemen wants to see ye, 'for a purpose.'" "Good. Sugden, come when I whistle." Moore went out, chuckling dryly. He advanced into the yard, one hand in his pocket, the other in his waistcoat, his cap brim over his eyes, shading their deep dancing ray of scorn. Twelve men waited in the yard, with two in front: one, a little dapper strutting man with a turned-up nose; the other a broad-shouldered fellow, with demure, cat like, trustless eyes, and a wooden leg and crutch. He seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing. "Good-morning, Mr. Barraclough," said Moore to him. "Peace be unto you!" answered Mr. Barraclough, entirely closing his naturally half-shut eyes. "I'm obliged to you. Peace is an excellent thing; but I imagine peace is not your purpose?" "As to our purpose," began Barraclough, "it's one that may sound strange and perhaps foolish to ears like yours, for the childer of this world is wiser in their generation than the childer of light." "To the point, if you please." "Ye'se hear, sir. It is a grand purpose, and" (changing his voice to a whine) "it's the Looard's own purpose." "Do you want a subscription to a new Ranter's chapel, Mr. Barraclough?" "I hadn't that duty on my mind, sir; but since ye mention the subject, I'll tak ony small trifle ye may have to spare." With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box with a brazen grin. "If I gave you sixpence you would drink it. You seem a fine fellow," said Moore dryly; "you don't mind showing me that your trade is hypocrisy and fraud. You expect to make me laugh at your cleverness, while at the same time you think you are deceiving the men behind you." Moses Barraclough's countenance lowered. He was going to answer, when the second leader stepped forward impatiently, with a self-confident and conceited air. "Mr. Moore," commenced he, enunciating each word very slowly, "it might, perhaps, be said that reason rather than peace is our purpose. We come, in the first place, to request you to hear reason; and should you refuse, it is my duty to warn you that measures will be had resort to which will bring you to a sense of the foolishness which seems to guide your proceedings as a tradesman. Hem! Sir, I would beg to allude that as a furriner, coming from a distant quarter of this globe, thrown, as I may say, a perfect outcast on these cliffs of Albion, you have not that understanding of the ways which might conduce to the benefit of the working-classes. If you'd consider to give up this here mill, and go straight home to where you belong, it 'ud happen be as well." The other members of the deputation responded: "Hear, hear!" "Brayvo, Noah!" murmured Joe Scott, who stood behind Mr. Moore. "Moses'll niver beat that. Cliffs o' Albion! Moses is dished." Moses, however, refused to be dished. Casting a somewhat ireful glance at Noah, he launched out in a more serious tone. "Before you set up your tent among us, Mr. Moore, we lived i' peace and quietness - yea, in loving-kindness. I can remember some twenty year back, when hand-labour were respected, and no mischief-maker had ventured to introduce these here machines. Now, I'm a tailor myself. Howsiver, my heart is of a softish nature. I'm a very feeling man, and when I see my brethren oppressed, I stand up for 'em. Therefore I advise you to part wi' your infernal machinery, and tak on more hands." "What if I don't follow your advice, Mr. Barraclough?" "The Looard pardon you!" "Are you a Wesleyan now, Mr. Barraclough?" "Praise God! Bless His name! I'm a joined Methody!" "Which does not prevent you from being a drunkard and a swindler. I saw you a week ago laid dead-drunk by the roadside, as I returned from Stilbro' market; and while you preach peace, you spend your life stirring up dissension. You no more sympathize with the poor than you do with me. You incite them to outrage for bad purposes of your own; so does this Noah. You two are restless, meddling, impudent scoundrels, whose motive is selfish ambition. Behind you are some honest though misguided men; but you two I count altogether bad." Barraclough was going to speak. "Silence! You have had your say, and now I will have mine. I will not be dictated to by you. You want me to quit the country, and to part with my machinery. If I refuse, you threaten me. I do refuse. Here I stay, and by this mill I stand, and into it will I convey the best machinery invented. What will you do? Burn down my mill and shoot me? What then? Suppose that building was a ruin and I was a corpse - would that stop invention? Not for a second! Another mill would rise on the ruins of this, and perhaps a more enterprising owner come in my place. Hear me! I'll make my cloth as I please, and using what means I choose. Whoever interferes with me may take the consequences. I'll prove I'm in earnest." He whistled shrilly and loud. Sugden came out with his staff and warrant. Moore turned sharply to Barraclough. "You were on Stilbro' moor," said he; "I have proof of that. You wore a mask, you knocked down one of my men with your own hand - you! a preacher of the gospel! Sugden, arrest him!" Moses was captured. There was a cry and a rush to rescue him, but Moore's right hand, which had lain hidden in his breast, reappeared holding a pistol. "Both barrels are loaded," said he. "Keep off!" He guarded his prey to the counting-house. He ordered Joe Scott to enter with Sugden and the prisoner, and to bolt the door from inside. Then he walked backwards and forwards along the front of the mill, looking meditatively on the ground, but still holding the pistol. The eleven remaining deputies watched him, talking under their breath to each other. At length one of them approached. "I've not much faith i' Moses Barraclough," said he, "and I would speak a word to you myseln, Mr. Moore. It's out o' no ill-will that I'm here; it's just to try to get things straightened. Ye see we're ill off; our families is poor and pined. We're thrown out o' work wi' these frames; we can earn nought. What is to be done? Mun we lay us down and dee? I've no grand words, Mr. Moore, but I feel that a reasonable man should not starve to death. I'm not for shedding blood, and I'm not for pulling down mills and breaking machines - for as ye say, that niver stops invention; but I'll mak as big a din as ever I can. I know it isn't right for poor folks to starve. Them that governs mun find a way to help us. Ye'll say that's hard to do. So much louder mun we shout out then, to set t' Parliament-men on to the job." "Worry the Parliament-men as much as you please," said Moore; "but to worry the mill-owners is absurd, and I won't stand it." "Ye're a raight hard un!" returned the workman. "Won't ye gie us a bit o' time? Won't ye mak your changes more slowly?" "Others won't stop. If I did, I should be bankrupt in a month; and would that put bread into your hungry children's mouths? William Farren, talk to me no more about machinery. I shall get new frames in tomorrow. If you broke these, I would still get more. I'll never give in." Here the mill-bell rang twelve o'clock. Moore abruptly turned away and re-entered his counting-house. His last words had left a harsh impression. By speaking kindly to William Farren, who was a very honest, hard-working man, Moore might have made a friend. It seemed extraordinary that he could turn from such a man without any sympathy. The poor fellow looked haggard with want and hunger; yet there was no malignity in his face; it was worn, dejected, but still patient. How could Moore leave him thus, with the words, "I'll never give in," and not a whisper of good-will, or aid? Farren, as he went home to his cottage - once a decent, pleasant place, but now, though still clean, very dreary, because so poor - asked himself this question. He concluded that the foreign mill-owner was a selfish, unfeeling, and foolish man. He felt cast down - almost hopeless. On his entrance his wife served out such dinner as she had to give him and the bairns. It was only porridge, and too little of that. Some of the younger children asked for more, which disturbed William much. While his wife quieted them as well as she could, he went to the doorway to conceal from his family the tears which were gathering in his grey eyes. He cleared his vision with his sleeve, and the melting mood over, a very stern one followed. He stood brooding in silence, when a gentleman in black came up - a clergyman, but not one we have met before. He was about forty years old; plain-looking, and rather grey-haired. He wore an abstracted and somewhat doleful air; but on approaching Farren he looked up with a hearty expression. "Is it you, William? How are you?" he asked. "Middling, Mr. Hall. How are ye? Will ye step in and rest ye?" Mr. Hall was vicar of Nunnely, from which parish Farren originally came, before he had moved to Briarfield to work in the mill. He entered the cottage, and having greeted the wife and children, sat down. He talked very cheerfully about events in his parish since the family had left; he answered questions about his sister Margaret; he asked questions in his turn, and at last, glancing anxiously round at the bare room, and at the faces of the children by his knee, he said abruptly: "How are you all? How do you get on?" "We get on poorly," said William; "we're all out of work. I've selled most o' t' household stuff, as ye may see; and what we're to do next, God knows." "Has Mr. Moore turned you off?" "He has turned us off; and if he'd tak me on again tomorrow I wouldn't work for him." "That is not like you, William." "I know; but I feel I am changing. T' bairns and t' wife are that pinched-" "Well, my lad, and so are you. These are grievous times; I see suffering wherever I turn. Sit down, and let us talk it over." Mr. Hall lifted the smallest child on to his knee, and placed his hand on the head of the next smallest. "Sad times," he said, "and they last long. It is the will of God. His will be done. But He tries us to the utmost." Again he reflected. "You've no money, William, and you've nothing you could sell to raise any?" "No. I've selled t' chest o' drawers, and t' clock, and a mahogany stand, and t' wife's bonny tea-tray and set o' wedding chiney." "If somebody lent you a pound or two, could you make any good use of it? Could you get into a new way of doing something?" Farren did not answer, but his wife said quickly, "Ay, I'm sure he could, sir. He's a very contriving chap, is our William. If he'd two or three pounds he could begin selling stuff." "Please God," returned William deliberately, "I could buy groceries, and bits o' tapes, and thread, and I could begin hawking at first." "And you know, sir," interposed Grace, "William would neither drink, nor idle, nor waste, in any way. He's my husband, and I shouldn't praise him; but I will say there's not a soberer, honester man i' England." "Well, I'll speak to one or two friends, and I think I can promise to let him have five pounds in a day or two - as a loan, mind, not a gift. He must pay it back." "I understand, sir. I'm quite agreeable to that." "Meantime, there's a few shillings for you, Grace, just to keep the pot boiling. - Now, bairns, stand in a row and say your catechism, while your mother goes and buys some dinner; for you've not had much today, I'll be bound. You begin, Ben." Mr. Hall stayed till Grace came back; then he took his leave, shaking hands with both Farren and his wife, and saying a few brief but very earnest words of religious consolation. With a mutual "God bless you, sir!" "God bless you, my friends!" they separated.

Shirley

Chapter 8: NOAH AND MOSES

"Of course, I know he will marry Shirley," were her first words when she rose in the morning. "And he ought to marry her. She can help him," she added firmly. "But I shall be forgotten when they _are_ married," was the cruel succeeding thought. "Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten! And what--_what_ shall I do when Robert is taken quite from me? Where shall I turn? _My_ Robert! I wish I could justly call him mine. But I am poverty and incapacity; Shirley is wealth and power. And she is beauty too, and love. I cannot deny it. This is no sordid suit. She loves him--not with inferior feelings. She loves, or _will_ love, as he must feel proud to be loved. Not a valid objection can be made. Let them be married, then. But afterwards I shall be nothing to him. As for being his sister, and all that stuff, I despise it. I will either be all or nothing to a man like Robert; no feeble shuffling or false cant is endurable. Once let that pair be united, and I will certainly leave them. As for lingering about, playing the hypocrite, and pretending to calm sentiments of friendship, when my soul will be wrung with other feelings, I shall not descend to such degradation. As little could I fill the place of their mutual friend as that of their deadly foe; as little could I stand between them as trample over them. Robert is a first-rate man--in my eyes. I _have_ loved, _do_ love, and _must___ love him. I would be his wife if I could; as I cannot, I must go where I shall never see him. There is but one alternative--to cleave to him as if I were a part of him, or to be sundered from him wide as the two poles of a sphere.--Sunder me then, Providence. Part us speedily." Some such aspirations as these were again working in her mind late in the afternoon, when the apparition of one of the personages haunting her thoughts passed the parlour window. Miss Keeldar sauntered slowly by, her gait, her countenance, wearing that mixture of wistfulness and carelessness which, when quiescent, was the wonted cast of her look and character of her bearing. When animated, the carelessness quite vanished, the wistfulness became blent with a genial gaiety, seasoning the laugh, the smile, the glance, with a unique flavour of sentiment, so that mirth from her never resembled "the crackling of thorns under a pot." "What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you promised?" was her address to Caroline as she entered the room. "I was not in the humour," replied Miss Helstone, very truly. Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye. "No," she said; "I see you are not in the humour for loving me. You are in one of your sunless, inclement moods, when one feels a fellow-creature's presence is not welcome to you. You have such moods. Are you aware of it?" "Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?" "Yes. I am come to have my tea, and must have it before I go. I shall take the liberty, then, of removing my bonnet, without being asked." And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her hands behind her. "A pretty expression you have in your countenance," she went on, still gazing keenly, though not inimically--rather indeed pityingly--at Caroline. "Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking, wounded deer. Are you afraid Shirley will worry you if she discovers that you are hurt, and that you bleed?" "I never do fear Shirley." "But sometimes you dislike her; often you avoid her. Shirley can feel when she is slighted and shunned. If you had not walked home in the company you did last night, you would have been a different girl to-day. What time did you reach the rectory?" "By ten." "Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you, or Moore, who lingered so?" "Shirley, you talk nonsense." "_He_ talked nonsense--that I doubt not; or he looked it, which is a thousand times worse. I see the reflection of his eyes on your forehead at this moment. I feel disposed to call him out, if I could only get a trustworthy second. I feel desperately irritated. I felt so last night, and have felt it all day." "You don't ask me why," she proceeded, after a pause, "you little silent, over-modest thing; and you don't deserve that I should pour out my secrets into your lap without an invitation. Upon my word, I could have found it in my heart to have dogged Moore yesterday evening with dire intent. I have pistols, and can use them." "Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot--me or Robert?" "Neither, perhaps. Perhaps myself--more likely a bat or a tree-bough. He is a puppy, your cousin--a quiet, serious, sensible, judicious, ambitious puppy. I see him standing before me, talking his half-stern, half-gentle talk, bearing me down (as I am very conscious he does) with his fixity of purpose, etc.; and then--I have no patience with him!" Miss Keeldar started off on a rapid walk through the room, repeating energetically that she had no patience with men in general, and with her tenant in particular. "You are mistaken," urged Caroline, in some anxiety. "Robert is no puppy or male flirt; I can vouch for that." "_You_ vouch for it! Do you think I'll take your word on the subject? There is no one's testimony I would not credit sooner than yours. To advance Moore's fortune you would cut off your right hand." "But not tell lies. And if I speak the truth, I must assure you that he was just civil to me last night--that was all." "I never asked what he was. I can guess. I saw him from the window take your hand in his long fingers, just as he went out at my gate." "That is nothing. I am not a stranger, you know. I am an old acquaintance, and his cousin." "I feel indignant, and that is the long and short of the matter," responded Miss Keeldar. "All my comfort," she added presently, "is broken up by his manuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me. Without him we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again he crosses and obscures the disc I want always to see clear; ever and anon he renders me to you a mere bore and nuisance." "No, Shirley, no." "He does. You did not want my society this afternoon, and I feel it hard. You are naturally somewhat reserved, but I am a social personage, who cannot live alone. If we were but left unmolested, I have that regard for you that I could bear you in my presence for ever, and not for the fraction of a second do I ever wish to be rid of you. You cannot say as much respecting me." "Shirley, I can say anything you wish. Shirley, I like you." "You will wish me at Jericho to-morrow, Lina." "I shall not. I am every day growing more accustomed to--fonder of you. You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once; but you are so much better than common--you are so different to every-day young ladies--I esteem you, I value you; you are never a burden to me--never. Do you believe what I say?" "Partly," replied Miss Keeldar, smiling rather incredulously; "but you are a peculiar personage. Quiet as you look, there is both a force and a depth somewhere within not easily reached or appreciated. Then you certainly are not happy." "And unhappy people are rarely good. Is that what you mean?" "Not at all. I mean rather that unhappy people are often preoccupied, and not in the mood for discoursing with companions of my nature. Moreover, there is a sort of unhappiness which not only depresses, but corrodes; and that, I fear, is your portion. Will pity do you any good, Lina? If it will, take some from Shirley; she offers largely, and warrants the article genuine." "Shirley, I never had a sister--you never had a sister; but it flashes on me at this moment how sisters feel towards each other--affection twined with their life, which no shocks of feeling can uproot, which little quarrels only trample an instant, that it may spring more freshly when the pressure is removed; affection that no passion can ultimately outrival, with which even love itself cannot do more than compete in force and truth. Love hurts us so, Shirley. It is so tormenting, so racking, and it burns away our strength with its flame. In affection is no pain and no fire, only sustenance and balm. I am supported and soothed when you--that is, _you only_--are near, Shirley. Do you believe me now?" "I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me. We really are friends, then, Lina, in spite of the black eclipse?" "We really are," returned the other, drawing Shirley towards her, and making her sit down, "chance what may." "Come, then; we will talk of something else than the Troubler." But at this moment the rector came in, and the "something else" of which Miss Keeldar was about to talk was not again alluded to till the moment of her departure. She then delayed a few minutes in the passage to say, "Caroline, I wish to tell you that I have a great weight on my mind; my conscience is quite uneasy as if I had committed, or was going to commit, a crime. It is not my _private_ conscience, you must understand, but my landed-proprietor and lord-of-the-manor conscience. I have got into the clutch of an eagle with iron talons. I have fallen under a stern influence, which I scarcely approve, but cannot resist. Something will be done ere long, I fear, which it by no means pleases me to think of. To ease my mind, and to prevent harm as far as I can, I mean to enter on a series of good works. Don't be surprised, therefore, if you see me all at once turn outrageously charitable. I have no idea how to begin, but you must give me some advice. We will talk more on the subject to-morrow; and just ask that excellent person, Miss Ainley, to step up to Fieldhead. I have some notion of putting myself under her tuition. Won't she have a precious pupil? Drop a hint to her, Lina, that, though a well-meaning, I am rather a neglected character, and then she will feel less scandalized at my ignorance about clothing societies and such things." On the morrow Caroline found Shirley sitting gravely at her desk, with an account-book, a bundle of banknotes, and a well-filled purse before her. She was looking mighty serious, but a little puzzled. She said she had been "casting an eye" over the weekly expenditure in housekeeping at the hall, trying to find out where she could retrench; that she had also just given audience to Mrs. Gill, the cook, and had sent that person away with a notion that her (Shirley's) brain was certainly crazed. "I have lectured her on the duty of being careful," said she, "in a way quite new to her. So eloquent was I on the text of economy that I surprised myself; for, you see, it is altogether a fresh idea. I never thought, much less spoke, on the subject till lately. But it is all theory; for when I came to the practical part I could retrench nothing. I had not firmness to take off a single pound of butter, or to prosecute to any clear result an inquest into the destiny of either dripping, lard, bread, cold meat, or other kitchen perquisite whatever. I know we never get up illuminations at Fieldhead, but I could not ask the meaning of sundry quite unaccountable pounds of candles. We do not wash for the parish, yet I viewed in silence items of soap and bleaching-powder calculated to satisfy the solicitude of the most anxious inquirer after our position in reference to those articles. Carnivorous I am not, nor is Mrs. Pryor, nor is Mrs. Gill herself, yet I only hemmed and opened my eyes a little wide when I saw butchers' bills whose figures seemed to prove that fact--falsehood, I mean. Caroline, you may laugh at me, but you can't change me. I am a poltroon on certain points; I feel it. There is a base alloy of moral cowardice in my composition. I blushed and hung my head before Mrs. Gill, when she ought to have been faltering confessions to me. I found it impossible to get up the spirit even to hint, much less to prove, to her that she was a cheat. I have no calm dignity, no true courage about me." "Shirley, what fit of self-injustice is this? My uncle, who is not given to speak well of women, says there are not ten thousand men in England as genuinely fearless as you." "I am fearless, physically; I am never nervous about danger. I was not startled from self-possession when Mr. Wynne's great red bull rose with a bellow before my face, as I was crossing the cowslip lea alone, stooped his begrimed, sullen head, and made a run at me; but I was afraid of seeing Mrs. Gill brought to shame and confusion of face. You have twice--ten times--my strength of mind on certain subjects, Caroline. You, whom no persuasion can induce to pass a bull, however quiet he looks, would have firmly shown my housekeeper she had done wrong; then you would have gently and wisely admonished her; and at last, I dare say, provided she had seemed penitent, you would have very sweetly forgiven her. Of this conduct I am incapable. However, in spite of exaggerated imposition, I still find we live within our means. I have money in hand, and I really must do some good with it. The Briarfield poor are badly off; they must be helped. What ought I to do, think you, Lina? Had I not better distribute the cash at once?" "No, indeed, Shirley; you will not manage properly. I have often noticed that your only notion of charity is to give shillings and half-crowns in a careless, free-handed sort of way, which is liable to continual abuse. You must have a prime minister, or you will get yourself into a series of scrapes. You suggested Miss Ainley yourself; to Miss Ainley I will apply. And, meantime, promise to keep quiet, and not begin throwing away your money. What a great deal you have, Shirley! You must feel very rich with all that?" "Yes; I feel of consequence. It is not an immense sum, but I feel responsible for its disposal; and really this responsibility weighs on my mind more heavily than I could have expected. They say that there are some families almost starving to death in Briarfield. Some of my own cottagers are in wretched circumstances. I must and will help them." "Some people say we shouldn't give alms to the poor, Shirley." "They are great fools for their pains. For those who are not hungry, it is easy to palaver about the degradation of charity, and so on: but they forget the brevity of life, as well as its bitterness. We have none of us long to live. Let us help each other through seasons of want and woe as well as we can, without heeding in the least the scruples of vain philosophy." "But you do help others, Shirley. You give a great deal as it is." "Not enough. I must give more, or, I tell you, my brother's blood will some day be crying to Heaven against me. For, after all, if political incendiaries come here to kindle conflagration in the neighbourhood, and my property is attacked, I shall defend it like a tigress--I know I shall. Let me listen to Mercy as long as she is near me. Her voice once drowned by the shout of ruffian defiance, and I shall be full of impulses to resist and quell. If once the poor gather and rise in the form of the mob, I shall turn against them as an aristocrat; if they bully me, I must defy: if they attack, I must resist, and I will." "You talk like Robert." "I feel like Robert, only more fierily. Let them meddle with Robert, or Robert's mill, or Robert's interests, and I shall hate them. At present I am no patrician, nor do I regard the poor around me as plebeians; but if once they violently wrong me or mine, and then presume to dictate to us, I shall quite forget pity for their wretchedness and respect for their poverty, in scorn of their ignorance and wrath at their insolence." "Shirley, how your eyes flash!" "Because my soul burns. Would you, any more than me, let Robert be borne down by numbers?" "If I had your power to aid Robert, I would use it as you mean to use it. If I could be such a friend to him as you can be, I would stand by him, as you mean to stand by him, till death." "And now, Lina, though your eyes don't flash, they glow. You drop your lids; but I saw a kindled spark. However, it is not yet come to fighting. What I want to do is to _prevent_ mischief. I cannot forget, either day or night, that these embittered feelings of the poor against the rich have been generated in suffering: they would neither hate nor envy us if they did not deem us so much happier than themselves. To allay this suffering, and thereby lessen this hate, let me, out of my abundance, give abundantly; and that the donation may go farther, let it be made wisely. To that intent, we must introduce some clear, calm, practical sense into our councils. So go and fetch Miss Ainley." Without another word Caroline put on her bonnet and departed. It may, perhaps, appear strange that neither she nor Shirley thought of consulting Mrs. Pryor on their scheme; but they were wise in abstaining. To have consulted her--and this they knew by instinct--would only have been to involve her in painful embarrassment. She was far better informed, better read, a deeper thinker than Miss Ainley, but of administrative energy, of executive activity, she had none. She would subscribe her own modest mite to a charitable object willingly--secret almsgiving suited her; but in public plans, on a large scale, she could take no part; as to originating them, that was out of the question. This Shirley knew, and therefore she did not trouble Mrs. Pryor by unavailing conferences, which could only remind her of her own deficiencies, and do no good. It was a bright day for Miss Ainley when she was summoned to Fieldhead to deliberate on projects so congenial to her; when she was seated with all honour and deference at a table with paper, pen, ink, and--what was best of all--cash before her, and requested to draw up a regular plan for administering relief to the destitute poor of Briarfield. She, who knew them all, had studied their wants, had again and again felt in what way they might best be succoured, could the means of succour only be found, was fully competent to the undertaking, and a meek exultation gladdened her kind heart as she felt herself able to answer clearly and promptly the eager questions put by the two young girls, as she showed them in her answers how much and what serviceable knowledge she had acquired of the condition of her fellow-creatures around her. Shirley placed at her disposal 300, and at sight of the money Miss Ainley's eyes filled with joyful tears; for she already saw the hungry fed, the naked clothed, the sick comforted thereby. She quickly drew up a simple, sensible plan for its expenditure; and she assured them brighter times would now come round, for she doubted not the lady of Fieldhead's example would be followed by others. She should try to get additional subscriptions, and to form a fund; but first she must consult the clergy. Yes, on that point she was peremptory. Mr. Helstone, Dr. Boultby, Mr. Hall, _must_ be consulted (for not only must Briarfield be relieved, but Whinbury and Nunnely). It would, she averred, be presumption in her to take a single step unauthorized by them. The clergy were sacred beings in Miss Ainley's eyes; no matter what might be the insignificance of the individual, his station made him holy. The very curates--who, in their trivial arrogance, were hardly worthy to tie her patten-strings, or carry her cotton umbrella, or check woollen shawl--she, in her pure, sincere enthusiasm, looked upon as sucking saints. No matter how clearly their little vices and enormous absurdities were pointed out to her, she could not see them; she was blind to ecclesiastical defects; the white surplice covered a multitude of sins. Shirley, knowing this harmless infatuation on the part of her recently-chosen prime minister, stipulated expressly that the curates were to have no voice in the disposal of the money, that their meddling fingers were not to be inserted into the pie. The rectors, of course, must be paramount, and they might be trusted. They had some experience, some sagacity, and Mr. Hall, at least, had sympathy and loving-kindness for his fellow-men; but as for the youth under them, they must be set aside, kept down, and taught that subordination and silence best became their years and capacity. It was with some horror Miss Ainley heard this language. Caroline, however, interposing with a mild word or two in praise of Mr Sweeting, calmed her again. Sweeting was, indeed, her own favourite. She endeavoured to respect Messrs. Malone and Donne, but the slices of sponge-cake and glasses of cowslip or primrose wine she had at different times administered to Sweeting, when he came to see her in her little cottage, were ever offered with sentiments of truly motherly regard. The same innocuous collation she had once presented to Malone; but that personage evinced such open scorn of the offering, she had never ventured to renew it. To Donne she always served the treat, and was happy to see his approbation of it proved beyond a doubt by the fact of his usually eating two pieces of cake, and putting a third in his pocket. Indefatigable in her exertions where good was to be done, Miss Ainley would immediately have set out on a walk of ten miles round to the three rectors, in order to show her plan, and humbly solicit their approval; but Miss Keeldar interdicted this, and proposed, as an amendment, to collect the clergy in a small select reunion that evening at Fieldhead. Miss Ainley was to meet them, and the plan was to be discussed in full privy council. Shirley managed to get the senior priesthood together accordingly, and before the old maid's arrival, she had, further, talked all the gentlemen into the most charming mood imaginable. She herself had taken in hand Dr. Boultby and Mr. Helstone. The first was a stubborn old Welshman, hot, opinionated, and obstinate, but withal a man who did a great deal of good, though not without making some noise about it. The latter we know. She had rather a friendly feeling for both, especially for old Helstone; and it cost her no trouble to be quite delightful to them. She took them round the garden; she gathered them flowers; she was like a kind daughter to them. Mr. Hall she left to Caroline--or rather, it was to Caroline's care Mr. Hall consigned himself. He generally sought Caroline in every party where she and he happened to be. He was not in general a lady's man, though all ladies liked him; something of a book-worm he was, near-sighted, spectacled, now and then abstracted. To old ladies he was kind as a son. To men of every occupation and grade he was acceptable. The truth, simplicity, frankness of his manners, the nobleness of his integrity, the reality and elevation of his piety, won him friends in every grade. His poor clerk and sexton delighted in him; the noble patron of his living esteemed him highly. It was only with young, handsome, fashionable, and stylish ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain man--plain in aspect, plain in manners, plain in speech--he seemed to fear their dash, elegance, and airs. But Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her native elegance was of a very quiet order--quiet as the beauty of a ground-loving hedge-flower. He was a fluent, cheerful, agreeable talker. Caroline could talk too in a _tte--tte_. She liked Mr. Hall to come and take the seat next her in a party, and thus secure her from Peter Augustus Malone, Joseph Donne, or John Sykes; and Mr. Hall never failed to avail himself of this privilege when he possibly could. Such preference shown by a single gentleman to a single lady would certainly, in ordinary cases, have set in motion the tongues of the gossips; but Cyril Hall was forty-five years old, slightly bald, and slightly gray, and nobody ever said or thought he was likely to be married to Miss Helstone. Nor did he think so himself. He was wedded already to his books and his parish. His kind sister Margaret, spectacled and learned like himself, made him happy in his single state; he considered it too late to change. Besides, he had known Caroline as a pretty little girl. She had sat on his knee many a time; he had bought her toys and given her books; he felt that her friendship for him was mixed with a sort of filial respect; he could not have brought himself to attempt to give another colour to her sentiments, and his serene mind could glass a fair image without feeling its depths troubled by the reflection. When Miss Ainley arrived, she was made kindly welcome by every one. Mrs. Pryor and Margaret Hall made room for her on the sofa between them; and when the three were seated, they formed a trio which the gay and thoughtless would have scorned, indeed, as quite worthless and unattractive--a middle-aged widow and two plain, spectacled old maids--yet which had its own quiet value, as many a suffering and friendless human being knew. Shirley opened the business and showed the plan. "I know the hand which drew up that," said Mr. Hall, glancing at Miss Ainley, and smiling benignantly. His approbation was won at once. Boultby heard and deliberated with bent brow and protruded under lip. His consent he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry. Helstone glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious expression, as if he apprehended that female craft was at work, and that something in petticoats was somehow trying underhand to acquire too much influence, and make itself of too much importance. Shirley caught and comprehended the expression. "This scheme is nothing," said she carelessly. "It is only an outline--a mere suggestion. You, gentlemen, are requested to draw up rules of your own." And she directly fetched her writing-case, smiling queerly to herself as she bent over the table where it stood. She produced a sheet of paper, a new pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and presenting her hand to old Helstone, begged permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a little stiff, and stood wrinkling his copper-coloured forehead strangely. At last he muttered, "Well, you are neither my wife nor my daughter, so I'll be led for once; but mind--I know I _am_ led. Your little female manuvres don't blind me." "Oh!" said Shirley, dipping the pen in the ink, and putting it into his hand, "you must regard me as Captain Keeldar to-day. This is quite a gentleman's affair--yours and mine entirely, doctor" (so she had dubbed the rector). "The ladies there are only to be our aides-de-camp, and at their peril they speak, till we have settled the whole business." He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He soon interrupted himself to ask questions, and consult his brethren, disdainfully lifting his glance over the curly heads of the two girls and the demure caps of the elder ladies, to meet the winking glasses and gray pates of the priests. In the discussion which ensued, all three gentlemen, to their infinite credit, showed a thorough acquaintance with the poor of their parishes--an even minute knowledge of their separate wants. Each rector knew where clothing was needed, where food would be most acceptable, where money could be bestowed with a probability of it being judiciously laid out. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall, if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care not to speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be foremost, but each sincerely desired to be useful; and useful the clergy consented to make them--with which boon they were content. Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their shoulders now and then to glance at the rules drawn up and the list of cases making out, listening to all they said, and still at intervals smiling her queer smile--a smile not ill-natured, but significant--too significant to be generally thought amiable. Men rarely like such of their fellows as read their inward nature too clearly and truly. It is good for women, especially, to be endowed with a soft blindness; to have mild, dim eyes, that never penetrate below the surface of things--that take all for what it seems. Thousands, knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped on system; but the most downcast glance has its loophole, through which it can, on occasion, take its sentinel-survey of life. I remember once seeing a pair of blue eyes, that were usually thought sleepy, secretly on the alert, and I knew by their expression--an expression which chilled my blood, it was in that quarter so wondrously unexpected--that for years they had been accustomed to silent soul-reading. The world called the owner of these blue eyes _bonne petite femme_ (she was not an Englishwoman). I learned her nature afterwards--got it off by heart--studied it in its farthest, most hidden recesses. She was the finest, deepest, subtlest schemer in Europe. When all was at length settled to Miss Keeldar's mind, and the clergy had entered so fully into the spirit of her plans as to head the subscription-list with their signatures for 50 each, she ordered supper to be served, having previously directed Mrs. Gill to exercise her utmost skill in the preparation of this repast. Mr. Hall was no _bon vivant_--he was naturally an abstemious man, indifferent to luxury; but Boultby and Helstone both liked good cookery. The _recherch_ supper consequently put them into excellent humour. They did justice to it, though in a gentlemanly way--not in the mode Mr. Donne would have done had he been present. A glass of fine wine was likewise tasted, with discerning though most decorous relish. Captain Keeldar was complimented on his taste; the compliment charmed him. It had been his aim to gratify and satisfy his priestly guests. He had succeeded, and was radiant with glee.

"Of course, I know he will marry Shirley," were her first words when she rose in the morning. "And he ought to marry her. She can help him." But the cruel next thought was, "Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten when they are married! And what shall I do when Robert is quite taken from me? Where shall I turn? My Robert! I wish I could call him mine. But I am poverty; Shirley is wealth and power, and beauty too, and love. I cannot deny it. She loves him. Let them be married, then. But afterwards I shall be nothing to him. As for being his sister, and all that stuff, I despise it. I will be all or nothing to a man like Robert. Once that pair is united, I will certainly leave them. As little could I fill the place of their mutual friend as that of their deadly foe. Robert is a first-rate man: I love him. I would be his wife if I could; as I cannot, I must go where I shall never see him. - Sunder me then, Providence. Part us speedily." Late in the afternoon, the apparition of one of the people haunting her thoughts passed the parlour window. Miss Keeldar sauntered slowly by with her usual mixture of wistfulness and carelessness. "What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you promised?" she asked Caroline as she entered. "I was not in the humour," replied Miss Helstone truthfully. Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye. "No," she said; "I see you are not in the humour for loving me. You are in one of your sunless, inclement moods, when a fellow-creature's presence is not welcome to you. You have such moods. Are you aware of it?" "Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?" "Yes. I am come for tea, and must have it before I go. I shall take the liberty of removing my bonnet without being asked." And this she did. "A pretty expression you have on your face," she went on, still gazing keenly and rather pityingly at Caroline. "Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking, wounded deer. Are you afraid Shirley will bother you if she discovers that you are hurt?" "I never do fear Shirley." "But sometimes you dislike her; often you avoid her. Shirley can feel when she is shunned. If you had not walked home in the company you did last night, you would have been a different girl today. What time did you reach the rectory?" "By ten." "Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you, or Moore, who lingered so?" "Shirley, you talk nonsense." "He talked nonsense - that I doubt not. I feel disposed to call him out - I have felt desperately irritated all day." "You don't ask me why," she went on, after a pause, "you little silent, over-modest thing; and you don't deserve that I should pour out my secrets into your lap. Upon my word, I could have duelled with Moore yesterday. I have pistols, and can use them." "Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot - me or Robert?" "Neither, perhaps. More likely a bat or a tree. He is a puppy, your cousin - a quiet, serious, ambitious puppy. I see him standing before me, talking his half-stern, half-gentle talk, bearing me down with his set purpose; and then - I have no patience with him!" Miss Keeldar started off on a rapid walk through the room. "You are mistaken," urged Caroline anxiously. "Robert is no puppy or flirt; I can vouch for that." "You vouch for it! Do you think I'll take your word on the subject? To advance Moore's fortune you would cut off your right hand." "But not tell lies. And I assure you that he was just civil to me last night - that was all." "I never asked what he was. I can guess. I saw him from the window take your hand." "That is nothing. I am his cousin, you know." "I feel indignant, and that is the long and short of the matter," responded Miss Keeldar. "All my comfort is broken up by his manuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me. Without him we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood perpetually eclipses our friendship. He makes me seem to you a mere bore and a nuisance." "No, Shirley, no." "He does. You did not want my society this afternoon, and I feel it hard. You are naturally somewhat reserved, but I am a sociable person. I have such regard for you that I could have you with me always, and not for a second do I ever wish to be rid of you. You cannot say as much about me." "Shirley, I like you. I am every day growing fonder of you. You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once; but you are so different to everyday young ladies. I esteem you, I value you; you are never a burden to me. Do you believe me?" "Partly," replied Miss Keeldar, smiling rather incredulously; "but quiet as you look, you have hidden depths. Then you are certainly not happy, and unhappy people are often preoccupied, and not in the mood for companionship. Moreover, there is a sort of unhappiness which not only depresses, but corrodes; and that, I fear, is your portion. Will pity do you any good, Lina? If it will, take some from Shirley; it is genuine." "Shirley, I never had a sister; but it flashes on me how sisters feel towards each other - affection which no shocks can uproot, which little quarrels only trample for an instant; affection that no passion can outrival, with which even love itself cannot do more than compete. Love hurts us so, Shirley. It is so tormenting, so racking, and it burns away our strength with its flame. Affection brings no pain and fire, only sustenance and balm. I am supported and soothed when you are near, Shirley. Do you believe me now?" "We really are friends, then, Lina?" "We really are," returned the other, drawing Shirley towards her, and making her sit down, "chance what may." "Come, then; we will talk of something else." But at this moment the rector came in, and the "something else" was not again alluded to till the moment of Shirley's departure. She delayed a few minutes in the passage to say: "Caroline, I wish to tell you that I have a great weight on my mind; my conscience is uneasy. Not my private conscience, you must understand, but my lord-of-the-manor conscience. I have got into the clutch of an eagle with iron talons. I have fallen under a stern influence, which I cannot resist. Something will be done soon, I fear, which it does not please me to think of. To ease my mind, I mean to enter on good works. Don't be surprised, therefore, if you see me all at once turn outrageously charitable. I have no idea how to begin, but you must give me some advice. We will talk more on the subject tomorrow; and just ask that excellent Miss Ainley to step up to Fieldhead. I have some notion of putting myself under her tuition." On the morrow Caroline found Shirley sitting gravely at her desk, with an account-book, a bundle of banknotes, and a well-filled purse before her. She was looking mighty serious, but a little puzzled. She said she had been "casting an eye" over the weekly expenditure in housekeeping at the hall, trying to find out where she could retrench; that she had also just seen Mrs. Gill, the cook, and had sent that person away with a notion that her mistress was crazed. "I have lectured her on the duty of being careful," said she, "in a way quite new to her. I surprised myself; for I never thought about the subject of economy till lately. But it is all theory; for when I came to the practical part, I could not take off a single pound of butter, lard, bread, cold meat, or other kitchen item whatever. And I could not ask the meaning of unaccountable pounds of candles. We do not wash for the parish, yet I viewed in silence bills for enough soap and bleaching-powder to run a laundry. Carnivorous I am not, nor is Mrs. Pryor, yet I only opened my eyes a little wider when I saw the vast butchers' bills. Caroline, you may laugh at me; I am a coward. I blushed and hung my head before Mrs. Gill, when she ought to have been faltering confessions to me. I found it impossible even to hint, much less to prove, that she was a cheat. I have no true courage." "Shirley, my uncle says there are not ten thousand men in England as genuinely fearless as you." "I am fearless, physically; I am never nervous about danger. I was not afraid when Mr. Wynne's great bull bellowed and made a run at me, as I was crossing the lea; but I was afraid of seeing Mrs. Gill brought to shame. You have ten times my strength of mind on certain subjects, Caroline. You, whom nothing can induce to pass a bull, however quiet he looks, would have firmly shown my housekeeper she had done wrong; then you would have gently and wisely admonished her; and at last, I dare say, you would have sweetly forgiven her. Of this I am incapable. However, I find we live within our means. I have money in hand, and I really must do some good with it. The Briarfield poor must be helped. What ought I to do, think you, Lina? Had I not better distribute the cash at once?" "No, indeed, Shirley; I have often noticed that your only notion of charity is to give shillings and half-crowns in a careless, free-handed sort of way. You suggested Miss Ainley; to Miss Ainley I will apply. And, meantime, promise to not begin throwing away your money!" "It is not an immense sum, but I feel responsible for its disposal; and really this responsibility weighs heavily on my mind. They say that there are some families starving in Briarfield. I must and will help them. We should help each other through seasons of want and woe as well as we can." "You do help others, Shirley. You give a great deal as it is." "Not enough. I must give more. Let me listen to Mercy as long as she is near me. After all, if my property is attacked, I shall defend it like a tigress. If the poor rise in the form of the mob, I shall turn against them; I must resist them, and I will." "You talk like Robert." "I feel like Robert, only more fierily. Let them meddle with Robert, or Robert's mill, and I shall hate them. If once they violently wrong me or mine, I shall quite forget pity for their wretchedness." "Shirley, how your eyes flash!" "Because my soul burns. Would you let Robert be borne down by a mob?" "If I had your power to aid Robert, I would use it as you mean to use it. If I could be such a friend to him as you can be, I would stand by him, as you mean to do, till death." "And now, Lina, your eyes glow. However, it is not yet come to fighting. I want to prevent mischief. I cannot forget that these embittered feelings of the poor have their origin in suffering. To allay this suffering, and thereby lessen their hate, I will give; and I must give wisely. We must introduce some clear, calm, practical sense into our councils. So go and fetch Miss Ainley." Caroline put on her bonnet and departed. It may, perhaps, appear strange that neither she nor Shirley thought of consulting Mrs. Pryor; but they were wise in abstaining. To have consulted her would only have caused her painful embarrassment. She was better read and a deeper thinker than Miss Ainley, but of administrative energy she had none. She would give her own modest mite to charity; but as to forming plans on a large scale, that was out of the question. It was a bright day for Miss Ainley when she was summoned to Fieldhead; when she was seated with all honour and deference at a table with paper, pen and - best of all - cash before her, and requested to draw up a plan for bringing relief to the destitute poor of Briarfield. She, who knew them all, had studied their wants, who had again and again felt how they might best be helped, was fully competent for the task, and a meek exultation gladdened her kind heart as she answered the eager questions put by the two girls. Shirley placed at her disposal 300, at which Miss Ainley's eyes filled with joyful tears. She quickly drew up a simple, sensible plan for its expenditure; and she doubted not that the lady of Fieldhead's example would be followed by others. She should try to get additional subscriptions, and to form a fund; but first she must consult the clergy. Yes, Mr. Helstone, Dr. Boultby and Mr. Hall must be consulted (for not only must Briarfield be relieved, but Whinbury and Nunnely). She would not take a single step unauthorized by them. The clergy were sacred beings in Miss Ainley's eyes; no matter how insignificant the individual, his station made him holy. The very curates - who, in their trivial arrogance, were hardly worthy to carry her umbrella - were regarded by her as infant saints. If their little vices and enormous absurdities were pointed out to her, she could not see them; the white surplice covered a multitude of sins. Shirley, knowing of this harmless infatuation, stipulated that the curates were to have no voice in the disposal of the money; their meddling fingers were not to be inserted into the pie. The rectors, of course, might be trusted. They had experience and sagacity, and Mr. Hall, at least, had sympathy for his fellow-men; but the youth under them must be kept down in subordination and silence. It was with some horror that Miss Ainley heard this language. Caroline, however, putting in a mild word or two in praise of Mr Sweeting, calmed her again. Sweeting was, indeed, Miss Ainley's own favourite. She had at times offered him sponge-cake and glasses of cowslip wine, when he came to see her in her little cottage, with truly motherly regard. The same offerings she had once presented to Malone; but he showed such open scorn that she had never repeated it. To Donne she always served the treat, and was happy to see his approbation proved by his eating two pieces of cake, and putting a third in his pocket. Miss Keeldar proposed to collect the clergy together that evening at Fieldhead. Miss Ainley was to meet them, and the plan was to be discussed. Shirley managed to get the senior priesthood together accordingly, and before the old maid's arrival, she had talked all the gentlemen into the most charming mood imaginable. She herself had taken in hand Dr. Boultby and Mr. Helstone. The first was a stubborn old Welshman, opinionated and obstinate, yet a man who did a great deal of good, though not without making some noise about it. The latter we know. She had rather a friendly feeling for both, especially for old Helstone; and it cost her no trouble to be quite delightful to them. She took them round the garden, and gathered them flowers, like a kind daughter. Mr. Hall she left to Caroline - or rather, to Caroline Mr. Hall consigned himself. He generally sought Caroline in every gathering where they both happened to be. He was not a lady's man, though all ladies liked him; he was something of a book-worm. His frankness, integrity and piety won him friends at every level. It was only with young, fashionable ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain man - plain in appearance, manners and speech - he seemed to fear their dash, elegance, and airs. But Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her elegance was of a very quiet order. Mr. Hall was a fluent, cheerful talker, and Caroline liked him to sit next to her in a party, and thus keep her safe from Peter Malone, Joseph Donne, or John Sykes; and Mr. Hall availed himself of this privilege whenever he could. Such preference shown by a single gentleman to a single lady would normally have set the gossips talking; but as Cyril Hall was forty-five, slightly bald, and slightly grey, nobody ever thought he was likely to marry Miss Helstone. Nor did he think so himself. He was wedded already to his books and his parish. His kind sister Margaret, spectacled and learned like himself, made him happy in his single state; he considered it too late to change. Besides, he had known Caroline as a little girl; he had bought her toys, and felt that her friendship for him held a daughterly respect. When Miss Ainley arrived, she was welcomed kindly by everyone. Mrs. Pryor and Margaret Hall made room for her on the sofa; they formed a trio which the gay and thoughtless would have scorned as quite worthless and unattractive - yet which had its own quiet value, as many a suffering and friendless human knew. Shirley opened the business and showed the plan. "I know the hand which drew that up," said Mr. Hall, glancing at Miss Ainley, and smiling. Boultby heard and deliberated with protruded under lip. His consent he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry. Helstone glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious expression, as if he felt that something in petticoats was somehow trying underhand to acquire too much influence, and make itself important. Shirley caught and comprehended the expression. "This scheme is nothing," said she carelessly. "It is only an outline - a mere suggestion. You, gentlemen, are requested to draw up your own rules." And she fetched her writing-case, smiling queerly to herself. She produced paper and pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and begged Helstone to sit there. For a minute he was a little stiff, wrinkling his forehead strangely. At last he muttered, "Well, you are neither my wife nor my daughter, so I'll be led for once; but mind - I know I am led. Your little female manuvres don't blind me." "Oh!" said Shirley, putting the pen into his hand, "you must regard me as Captain Keeldar today. This is quite a gentleman's affair - yours and mine entirely. The ladies there are only our aides-de-camp." He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He asked questions, and consulted his brethren, disdainfully lifting his glance over the curly heads of the two girls and the demure caps of the elder ladies. In the discussion all three gentlemen, to their credit, showed they knew the poor of their parishes, and their separate wants. Each rector knew where clothing was needed, where food would be most acceptable, where money could be safely bestowed. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall could help them out; but both ladies took care not to speak unless spoken to. Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their shoulders now and then to glance at the rules drawn up and the list of cases, listening, and at intervals smiling her queer smile - a smile not ill-natured, but significant. Men rarely like people who read their inward nature too clearly. It is good for women, especially, to have mild, dim eyes, that never penetrate below the surface of things. Thousands, knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped; but the most downcast glance can, on occasion, take its survey of life. When all was settled to Miss Keeldar's liking, and the clergy had entered so fully into the spirit of her plans as to promise 50 each, as the first subscriptions to the fund, she ordered supper to be served. She had previously directed Mrs. Gill to exercise her utmost skill. Mr. Hall was an abstemious man, indifferent to luxury; but Boultby and Helstone both liked good cookery. The supper put them into excellent humour. A glass of fine wine was tried, and Captain Keeldar was complimented on his taste. He had succeeded in gratifying his priestly guests; and was radiant with glee.

Shirley

Chapter 14: SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS

The two girls met no living soul on their way back to the rectory. They let themselves in noiselessly; they stole upstairs unheard--the breaking morning gave them what light they needed. Shirley sought her couch immediately; and though the room was strange--for she had never slept at the rectory before--and though the recent scene was one unparalleled for excitement and terror by any it had hitherto been her lot to witness, yet scarce was her head laid on the pillow ere a deep, refreshing sleep closed her eyes and calmed her senses. Perfect health was Shirley's enviable portion. Though warm-hearted and sympathetic, she was not nervous; powerful emotions could rouse and sway without exhausting her spirit. The tempest troubled and shook her while it lasted, but it left her elasticity unbent, and her freshness quite unblighted. As every day brought her stimulating emotion, so every night yielded her recreating rest. Caroline now watched her sleeping, and read the serenity of her mind in the beauty of her happy countenance. For herself, being of a different temperament, she could not sleep. The commonplace excitement of the tea-drinking and school-gathering would alone have sufficed to make her restless all night; the effect of the terrible drama which had just been enacted before her eyes was not likely to quit her for days. It was vain even to try to retain a recumbent posture; she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow minutes, and watching the June sun mount the heavens. Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had of late but too often kept--vigils during which the mind, having no pleasant food to nourish it, no manna of hope, no hived-honey of joyous memories, tries to live on the meagre diet of wishes, and failing to derive thence either delight or support, and feeling itself ready to perish with craving want, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation; calls on all these gods for aid, calls vainly--is unheard, unhelped, and languishes. Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she framed many a prayer after the Christian creed, preferred it with deep earnestness, begged for patience, strength, relief. This world, however, we all know, is the scene of trial and probation; and, for any favourable result her petitions had yet wrought, it seemed to her that they were unheard and unaccepted. She believed, sometimes, that God had turned His face from her. At moments she was a Calvinist, and, sinking into the gulf of religious despair, she saw darkening over her the doom of reprobation. Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have felt thus forsaken--when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes the rise of day--that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter and the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot thus understand the blast before which they shiver; and as little can the suffering soul recognize, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of its deliverance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and faith in God. God will never deceive, never finally desert him. "Whom He loveth, He chasteneth." These words are true, and should not be forgotten. The household was astir at last; the servants were up; the shutters were opened below. Caroline, as she quitted the couch, which had been but a thorny one to her, felt that revival of spirits which the return of day, of action, gives to all but the wholly despairing or actually dying. She dressed herself, as usual, carefully, trying so to arrange her hair and attire that nothing of the forlornness she felt at heart should be visible externally. She looked as fresh as Shirley when both were dressed, only that Miss Keeldar's eyes were lively, and Miss Helstone's languid. "To-day I shall have much to say to Moore," were Shirley's first words; and you could see in her face that life was full of interest, expectation, and occupation for her. "He will have to undergo cross-examination," she added. "I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me cleverly. And this is the way men deal with women--still concealing danger from them--thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain. They imagined we little knew where they were to-night. We _know_ they little conjectured where we were. Men, I believe, fancy women's minds something like those of children. Now, that is a mistake." This was said as she stood at the glass, training her naturally waved hair into curls, by twining it round her fingers. She took up the theme again five minutes after, as Caroline fastened her dress and clasped her girdle. "If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them, both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them fall into ecstasies with each other's creations--worshipping the heroine of such a poem, novel, drama--thinking it fine, divine! Fine and divine it may be, but often quite artificial--false as the rose in my best bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour." "Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you. Be still. And, after all, authors' heroines are almost as good as authoresses' heroes." "Not at all. Women read men more truly than men read women. I'll prove that in a magazine paper some day when I've time; only it will never be inserted. It will be 'declined with thanks,' and left for me at the publisher's." "To be sure. You could not write cleverly enough. You don't know enough. You are not learned, Shirley." "God knows I can't contradict you, Cary; I'm as ignorant as a stone. There's one comfort, however: you are not much better." They descended to breakfast. "I wonder how Mrs. Pryor and Hortense Moore have passed the night," said Caroline, as she made the coffee. "Selfish being that I am, I never thought of either of them till just now. They will have heard all the tumult, Fieldhead and the cottage are so near; and Hortense is timid in such matters--so, no doubt, is Mrs. Pryor." "Take my word for it, Lina, Moore will have contrived to get his sister out of the way. She went home with Miss Mann. He will have quartered her there for the night. As to Mrs. Pryor, I own I am uneasy about her; but in another half-hour we will be with her." By this time the news of what had happened at the Hollow was spread all over the neighbourhood. Fanny, who had been to Fieldhead to fetch the milk, returned in panting haste with tidings that there had been a battle in the night at Mr. Moore's mill, and that some said twenty men were killed. Eliza, during Fanny's absence, had been apprised by the butcher's boy that the mill was burnt to the ground. Both women rushed into the parlour to announce these terrible facts to the ladies, terminating their clear and accurate narrative by the assertion that they were sure master must have been in it all. He and Thomas, the clerk, they were confident, must have gone last night to join Mr. Moore and the soldiers. Mr. Malone, too, had not been heard of at his lodgings since yesterday afternoon; and Joe Scott's wife and family were in the greatest distress, wondering what had become of their head. Scarcely was this information imparted when a knock at the kitchen door announced the Fieldhead errand-boy, arrived in hot haste, bearing a billet from Mrs. Pryor. It was hurriedly written, and urged Miss Keeldar to return directly, as the neighbourhood and the house seemed likely to be all in confusion, and orders would have to be given which the mistress of the hall alone could regulate. In a postscript it was entreated that Miss Helstone might not be left alone at the rectory. She had better, it was suggested, accompany Miss Keeldar. "There are not two opinions on that head," said Shirley, as she tied on her own bonnet, and then ran to fetch Caroline's. "But what will Fanny and Eliza do? And if my uncle returns?" "Your uncle will not return yet; he has other fish to fry. He will be galloping backwards and forwards from Briarfield to Stilbro' all day, rousing the magistrates in the court-house and the officers at the barracks; and Fanny and Eliza can have in Joe Scott's and the clerk's wives to bear them company. Besides, of course, there is no real danger to be apprehended now. Weeks will elapse before the rioters can again rally, or plan any other attempt; and I am much mistaken if Moore and Mr. Helstone will not take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell them altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stilbro' into energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too severe--not pursue the discomfited too relentlessly." "Robert will not be cruel. We saw that last night," said Caroline. "But he will be hard," retorted Shirley; "and so will your uncle." As they hurried along the meadow and plantation path to Fieldhead, they saw the distant highway already alive with an unwonted flow of equestrians and pedestrians, tending in the direction of the usually solitary Hollow. On reaching the hall, they found the backyard gates open, and the court and kitchen seemed crowded with excited milk-fetchers--men, women, and children--whom Mrs. Gill, the housekeeper, appeared vainly persuading to take their milk-cans and depart. (It _is_, or _was_, by-the-bye, the custom in the north of England for the cottagers on a country squire's estate to receive their supplies of milk and butter from the dairy of the manor house, on whose pastures a herd of milch kine was usually fed for the convenience of the neighbourhood. Miss Keeldar owned such a herd--all deep-dewlapped, Craven cows, reared on the sweet herbage and clear waters of bonny Airedale; and very proud she was of their sleek aspect and high condition.) Seeing now the state of matters, and that it was desirable to effect a clearance of the premises, Shirley stepped in amongst the gossiping groups. She bade them good-morning with a certain frank, tranquil ease--the natural characteristic of her manner when she addressed numbers, especially if those numbers belonged to the working-class; she was cooler amongst her equals, and rather proud to those above her. She then asked them if they had all got their milk measured out; and understanding that they had, she further observed that she "wondered what they were waiting for, then." "We're just talking a bit over this battle there has been at your mill, mistress," replied a man. "Talking a bit! Just like you!" said Shirley. "It is a queer thing all the world is so fond of _talking_ over events. You _talk_ if anybody dies suddenly; you _talk_ if a fire breaks out; you _talk_ if a mill-owner fails; you _talk_ if he's murdered. What good does your talking do?" There is nothing the lower orders like better than a little downright good-humoured rating. Flattery they scorn very much; honest abuse they enjoy. They call it speaking plainly, and take a sincere delight in being the objects thereof. The homely harshness of Miss Keeldar's salutation won her the ear of the whole throng in a second. "We're no war nor some 'at is aboon us, are we?" asked a man, smiling. "Nor a whit better. You that should be models of industry are just as gossip-loving as the idle. Fine, rich people that have nothing to do may be partly excused for trifling their time away; you who have to earn your bread with the sweat of your brow are quite inexcusable." "That's queer, mistress. Suld we never have a holiday because we work hard?" "_Never_," was the prompt answer; "unless," added the "mistress," with a smile that half belied the severity of her speech--"unless you knew how to make a better use of it than to get together over rum and tea if you are women, or over beer and pipes if you are men, and _talk_ scandal at your neighbours' expense. Come, friends," she added, changing at once from bluntness to courtesy, "oblige me by taking your cans and going home. I expect several persons to call to-day, and it will be inconvenient to have the avenues to the house crowded." Yorkshire people are as yielding to persuasion as they are stubborn against compulsion. The yard was clear in five minutes. "Thank you, and good-bye to you, friends," said Shirley, as she closed the gates on a quiet court. Now, let me hear the most refined of cockneys presume to find fault with Yorkshire manners. Taken as they ought to be, the majority of the lads and lasses of the West Riding are gentlemen and ladies, every inch of them. It is only against the weak affectation and futile pomposity of a would-be aristocrat they turn mutinous. Entering by the back way, the young ladies passed through the kitchen (or _house_, as the inner kitchen is called) to the hall. Mrs. Pryor came running down the oak staircase to meet them. She was all unnerved; her naturally sanguine complexion was pale; her usually placid, though timid, blue eye was wandering, unsettled, alarmed. She did not, however, break out into any exclamations, or hurried narrative of what had happened. Her predominant feeling had been in the course of the night, and was now this morning, a sense of dissatisfaction with herself that she could not feel firmer, cooler, more equal to the demands of the occasion. "You are aware," she began with a trembling voice, and yet the most conscientious anxiety to avoid exaggeration in what she was about to say, "that a body of rioters has attacked Mr. Moore's mill to-night. We heard the firing and confusion very plainly here; we none of us slept. It was a sad night. The house has been in great bustle all the morning with people coming and going. The servants have applied to me for orders and directions, which I really did not feel warranted in giving. Mr. Moore has, I believe, sent up for refreshments for the soldiers and others engaged in the defence, for some conveniences also for the wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving orders or taking measures. I fear delay may have been injurious in some instances; but this is not my house. You were absent, my dear Miss Keeldar. What could I do?" "Were no refreshments sent?" asked Shirley, while her countenance, hitherto so clear, propitious, and quiet, even while she was rating the milk-fetchers, suddenly turned dark and warm. "I think not, my dear." "And nothing for the wounded--no linen, no wine, no bedding?" "I think not. I cannot tell what Mrs. Gill did; but it seemed impossible to me, at the moment, to venture to dispose of your property by sending supplies to soldiers. Provisions for a company of soldiers sounds formidable. How many there are I did not ask; but I could not think of allowing them to pillage the house, as it were. I intended to do what was right, yet I did not see the case quite clearly, I own." "It lies in a nutshell, notwithstanding. These soldiers have risked their lives in defence of my property: I suppose they have a right to my gratitude. The wounded are our fellow-creatures: I suppose we should aid them.--Mrs. Gill!" She turned, and called in a voice more clear than soft. It rang through the thick oak of the hall and kitchen doors more effectually than a bell's summons. Mrs. Gill, who was deep in bread-making, came with hands and apron in culinary case, not having dared to stop to rub the dough from the one or to shake the flour from the other. Her mistress had never called a servant in that voice save once before, and that was when she had seen from the window Tartar in full tug with two carriers' dogs, each of them a match for him in size, if not in courage, and their masters standing by, encouraging their animals, while hers was unbefriended. Then indeed she had summoned John as if the Day of Judgment were at hand. Nor had she waited for the said John's coming, but had walked out into the lane bonnetless, and after informing the carriers that she held them far less of men than the three brutes whirling and worrying in the dust before them, had put her hands round the thick neck of the largest of the curs, and given her whole strength to the essay of choking it from Tartar's torn and bleeding eye, just above and below which organ the vengeful fangs were inserted. Five or six men were presently on the spot to help her, but she never thanked one of them. "They might have come before if their will had been good," she said. She had not a word for anybody during the rest of the day, but sat near the hall fire till evening watching and tending Tartar, who lay all gory, stiff, and swelled on a mat at her feet. She wept furtively over him sometimes, and murmured the softest words of pity and endearment, in tones whose music the old, scarred, canine warrior acknowledged by licking her hand or her sandal alternately with his own red wounds. As to John, his lady turned a cold shoulder on him for a week afterwards. Mrs. Gill, remembering this little episode, came "all of a tremble," as she said herself. In a firm, brief voice Miss Keeldar proceeded to put questions and give orders. That at such a time Fieldhead should have evinced the inhospitality of a miser's hovel stung her haughty spirit to the quick; and the revolt of its pride was seen in the heaving of her heart, stirred stormily under the lace and silk which veiled it. "How long is it since that message came from the mill?" "Not an hour yet, ma'am," answered the housekeeper soothingly. "Not an hour! You might almost as well have said not a day. They will have applied elsewhere by this time. Send a man instantly down to tell them that everything this house contains is at Mr. Moore's, Mr. Helstone's, and the soldiers' service. Do that first." While the order was being executed, Shirley moved away from her friends, and stood at the hall-window, silent, unapproachable. When Mrs. Gill came back, she turned. The purple flush which painful excitement kindles on a pale cheek glowed on hers; the spark which displeasure lights in a dark eye fired her glance. "Let the contents of the larder and the wine-cellar be brought up, put into the hay-carts, and driven down to the Hollow. If there does not happen to be much bread or much meat in the house, go to the butcher and baker, and desire them to send what they have. But I will see for myself." She moved off. "All will be right soon; she will get over it in an hour," whispered Caroline to Mrs. Pryor. "Go upstairs, dear madam," she added affectionately, "and try to be as calm and easy as you can. The truth is, Shirley will blame herself more than you before the day is over." By dint of a few more gentle assurances and persuasions, Miss Helstone contrived to soothe the agitated lady. Having accompanied her to her apartment, and promised to rejoin her there when things were settled, Caroline left her to see, as she said, "if she could be useful." She presently found that she could be very useful; for the retinue of servants at Fieldhead was by no means numerous, and just now their mistress found plenty of occupation for all the hands at her command, and for her own also. The delicate good-nature and dexterous activity which Caroline brought to the aid of the housekeeper and maids--all somewhat scared by their lady's unwonted mood--did a world of good at once; it helped the assistants and appeased the directress. A chance glance and smile from Caroline moved Shirley to an answering smile directly. The former was carrying a heavy basket up the cellar stairs. "This is a shame!" cried Shirley, running to her. "It will strain your arm." She took it from her, and herself bore it out into the yard. The cloud of temper was dispelled when she came back; the flash in her eye was melted; the shade on her forehead vanished. She resumed her usual cheerful and cordial manner to those about her, tempering her revived spirits with a little of the softness of shame at her previous unjust anger. She was still superintending the lading of the cart, when a gentleman entered the yard and approached her ere she was aware of his presence. "I hope I see Miss Keeldar well this morning?" he said, examining with rather significant scrutiny her still flushed face. She gave him a look, and then again bent to her employment without reply. A pleasant enough smile played on her lips, but she hid it. The gentleman repeated his salutation, stooping, that it might reach her ear with more facility. "Well enough, if she be good enough," was the answer; "and so is Mr. Moore too, I dare say. To speak truth, I am not anxious about him; some slight mischance would be only his just due. His conduct has been--we will say _strange_ just now, till we have time to characterize it by a more exact epithet. Meantime, may I ask what brings him here?" "Mr. Helstone and I have just received your message that everything at Fieldhead was at our service. We judged, by the unlimited wording of the gracious intimation, that you would be giving yourself too much trouble. I perceive our conjecture was correct. We are not a regiment, remember--only about half a dozen soldiers and as many civilians. Allow me to retrench something from these too abundant supplies." Miss Keeldar blushed, while she laughed at her own over-eager generosity and most disproportionate calculations. Moore laughed too, very quietly though; and as quietly he ordered basket after basket to be taken from the cart, and remanded vessel after vessel to the cellar. "The rector must hear of this," he said; "he will make a good story of it. What an excellent army contractor Miss Keeldar would have been!" Again he laughed, adding, "It is precisely as I conjectured." "You ought to be thankful," said Shirley, "and not mock me. What could I do? How could I gauge your appetites or number your band? For aught I knew, there might have been fifty of you at least to victual. You told me nothing; and then an application to provision soldiers naturally suggests large ideas." "It appears so," remarked Moore, levelling another of his keen, quiet glances at the discomfited Shirley.--"Now," he continued, addressing the carter, "I think you may take what remains to the Hollow. Your load will be somewhat lighter than the one Miss Keeldar destined you to carry." As the vehicle rumbled out of the yard, Shirley, rallying her spirits, demanded what had become of the wounded. "There was not a single man hurt on our side," was the answer. "You were hurt yourself, on the temples," interposed a quick, low voice--that of Caroline, who, having withdrawn within the shade of the door, and behind the large person of Mrs. Gill, had till now escaped Moore's notice. When she spoke, his eye searched the obscurity of her retreat. "Are you much hurt?" she inquired. "As you might scratch your finger with a needle in sewing." "Lift your hair and let us see." He took his hat off, and did as he was bid, disclosing only a narrow slip of court-plaster. Caroline indicated, by a slight movement of the head, that she was satisfied, and disappeared within the clear obscure of the interior. "How did she know I was hurt?" asked Moore. "By rumour, no doubt. But it is too good in her to trouble herself about you. For my part, it was of your victims I was thinking when I inquired after the wounded. What damage have your opponents sustained?" "One of the rioters, or victims as you call them, was killed, and six were hurt." "What have you done with them?" "What you will perfectly approve. Medical aid was procured immediately; and as soon as we can get a couple of covered wagons and some clean straw, they will be removed to Stilbro'." "Straw! You must have beds and bedding. I will send my wagon directly, properly furnished; and Mr. Yorke, I am sure, will send his." "You guess correctly; he has volunteered already. And Mrs. Yorke--who, like you, seems disposed to regard the rioters as martyrs, and me, and especially Mr. Helstone, as murderers--is at this moment, I believe, most assiduously engaged in fitting it up with feather-beds, pillows, bolsters, blankets, etc. The _victims_ lack no attentions, I promise you. Mr. Hall, your favourite parson, has been with them ever since six o'clock, exhorting them, praying with them, and even waiting on them like any nurse; and Caroline's good friend, Miss Ainley, that _very_ plain old maid, sent in a stock of lint and linen, something in the proportion of another lady's allowance of beef and wine." "That will do. Where is your sister?" "Well cared for. I had her securely domiciled with Miss Mann. This very morning the two set out for Wormwood Wells [a noted watering-place], and will stay there some weeks." "So Mr. Helstone domiciled me at the rectory! Mighty clever you gentlemen think you are! I make you heartily welcome to the idea, and hope its savour, as you chew the cud of reflection upon it, gives you pleasure. Acute and astute, why are you not also omniscient? How is it that events transpire, under your very noses, of which you have no suspicion? It should be so, otherwise the exquisite gratification of outmanoeuvring you would be unknown. Ah, friend, you may search my countenance, but you cannot read it." Moore, indeed, looked as if he could not. "You think me a dangerous specimen of my sex. Don't you now?" "A peculiar one, at least." "But Caroline--is she peculiar?" "In her way--yes." "Her way! What is her way?" "You know her as well as I do." "And knowing her, I assert that she is neither eccentric nor difficult of control. Is she?" "That depends----" "However, there is nothing masculine about _her_?" "Why lay such emphasis on _her_? Do you consider her a contrast, in that respect, to yourself?" "You do, no doubt; but that does not signify. Caroline is neither masculine, nor of what they call the spirited order of women." "I have seen her flash out." "So have I, but not with manly fire. It was a short, vivid, trembling glow, that shot up, shone, vanished----" "And left her scared at her own daring. You describe others besides Caroline." "The point I wish to establish is, that Miss Helstone, though gentle, tractable, and candid enough, is still perfectly capable of defying even Mr. Moore's penetration." "What have you and she been doing?" asked Moore suddenly. "Have you had any breakfast?" "What is your mutual mystery?" "If you are hungry, Mrs. Gill will give you something to eat here. Step into the oak parlour, and ring the bell. You will be served as if at an inn; or, if you like better, go back to the Hollow." "The alternative is not open to me; I _must_ go back. Good-morning. The first leisure I have I will see you again."

The two girls met nobody on their way back to the rectory. They let themselves in noiselessly, and stole upstairs by the early dawn light. Shirley sought her bed; and though the room was strange, and though the recent scene had been unparalleled for excitement and terror by any she had yet witnessed, yet scarce was her head laid on the pillow before deep sleep closed her eyes. Shirley had perfect health. Though warm-hearted and sympathetic, she was not nervous; powerful emotions could sway without exhausting her spirit. The tempest troubled her while it lasted, but it left her freshness quite unblighted. Caroline now watched her serenely sleeping. For herself, she could not sleep. The commonplace excitement of the school-gathering would alone have sufficed to make her restless; the effect of the terrible drama she had seen was not likely to quit her for days. It was vain even to lie down; she sat up by Shirley's side, watching the sun mount the heavens. Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had lately too often kept - vigils during which the mind, with no hope or joyous memories to feed on, tries to live on the meagre diet of wishes; and feeling itself ready to perish with craving, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation; calls on all these for aid, calls vainly - is unheard, and unhelped. Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she prayed often, begging for patience, strength, relief. However, it seemed that her prayers were unheard and unaccepted. She believed, sometimes, that God had turned His face from her. Most people have had a period in their lives when they have felt thus forsaken - when, having long hoped against hope, their hearts have truly sickened within them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes the rise of day - that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries both the dirge of departing winter and the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot understand this as they shiver; and nor can the suffering soul recognize the dawn of its deliverance. The household was astir at last; the servants were up; the shutters were opened below. Caroline, as she rose, felt that revival of spirits which the return of day gives to all but the wholly despairing or actually dying. She dressed carefully, so that none of the forlornness she felt should be visible externally. She looked as fresh as Shirley when both were dressed; only Miss Keeldar's eyes were lively, and Miss Helstone's languid. "Today I shall have much to say to Moore," were Shirley's first words; and you could see that life was full of interest and expectation for her. "He will have to undergo cross-examination," she added. "I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me. This is the way men deal with women - concealing danger from them - thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain. Men, I believe, fancy women's minds something like those of children. Now, that is a mistake." This was said as she stood at the mirror, training her hair into curls by twining it round her fingers. As Caroline fastened her dress, she continued: "If men could see us as we really are, they would be amazed; but the cleverest men are often under an illusion about women. They misapprehend them, both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them fall into ecstasies with each other's creations - worshipping the heroine of such a poem or novel - thinking it fine, divine! Fine and divine it may be, but often quite artificial - false as the rose in my bonnet." "Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you. Be still. And, after all, authors' heroines are almost as good as authoresses' heroes." "Not at all. Women read men more truly than men read women. I'll prove that in a magazine article some day when I've time; only it will never be published. It will be 'declined with thanks'." "To be sure. You don't know enough. You are not learned, Shirley." "I can't contradict you, Cary; I'm as ignorant as a stone. There's one comfort, however: you are not much better." They descended to breakfast. "I wonder how Mrs. Pryor and Hortense Moore have passed the night," said Caroline, as she made the coffee. "Selfish being that I am, I never thought of either of them till just now. They will have heard all the tumult; and Hortense is timid." "Take my word for it, Lina, Moore will have contrived to get his sister out of the way. He will have quartered her with Miss Mann for the night. As to Mrs. Pryor, I confess I am uneasy about her; but in another half-hour we will be with her." By this time the news of what had happened at the Hollow was spread all over the neighbourhood. Fanny, who had been to Fieldhead to fetch the milk, returned in panting haste with news that there had been a battle in the night at Mr. Moore's mill, and that some said twenty men were killed. Eliza had been informed by the butcher's boy that the mill was burnt to the ground. Both women rushed into the parlour to announce these terrible facts to the ladies, saying that they were sure master must have been in it all; and Joe Scott's wife and family were in the greatest distress, wondering what had become of their head. A knock at the kitchen door announced the Fieldhead errand-boy, with a note from Mrs. Pryor. It was hurriedly written, and urged Miss Keeldar to return directly, as the neighbourhood was all in confusion, and orders would have to be given by the mistress of the hall. In a postscript it was entreated that Miss Helstone might not be left alone at the rectory, but had better accompany Miss Keeldar. "I agree," said Shirley, as she tied on her bonnet, and ran to fetch Caroline's. "But what will Fanny and Eliza do? And if my uncle returns?" "Your uncle will not return yet; he will be galloping backwards and forwards from Briarfield to Stilbro' all day, rousing the magistrates in the court-house and the officers at the barracks; and Fanny and Eliza can have Joe Scott's and the clerk's wives in to keep them company. There is no real danger now. Weeks will elapse before the rioters can again rally; and I expect Moore and Mr. Helstone will take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell them altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stilbro' into energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too severe." "Robert will not be cruel. We saw that last night," said Caroline. "But he will be hard," retorted Shirley; "and so will your uncle." As they hurried along the meadow path to Fieldhead, they saw the distant highway already alive with horsemen and pedestrians, heading towards the Hollow. On reaching the hall, they found the backyard gates open, and the court and kitchen crowded with excited milk-fetchers - waiting to receive their supplies from the dairy, as was the custom - whom Mrs. Gill, the housekeeper, was vainly trying to persuade to take their milk-cans and depart. Seeing the state of matters, Shirley stepped in amongst the gossiping groups. She bade them good-morning with a frank, tranquil ease, and asked if they had all got their milk measured out; and understanding that they had, she observed that she "wondered what they were waiting for, then." "We're just talking a bit over this battle at your mill, mistress," replied a man. "Talking a bit!" said Shirley. "It is a queer thing all the world is so fond of talking over events. What good does your talking do? You working people should be models of industry, but you are just as gossip-loving as the idle. Fine, rich people that have nothing to do may be excused for trifling their time away; but not you." "Should we never have a holiday because we work hard?" asked a man, smiling. "Never," was the prompt answer; "unless you make a better use of it than to talk scandal at your neighbours' expense. Come, friends," she added, changing at once from bluntness to courtesy, "oblige me by taking your cans and going home. I expect several persons to call today, and it will be inconvenient to have the avenues to the house crowded." The yard was clear in five minutes. "Thank you, and good-bye, friends," said Shirley, as she closed the gates. Entering by the back way, the young ladies passed through the kitchen to the hall. Mrs. Pryor came running down the staircase to meet them. She was unnerved and pale, and looked alarmed. She felt, more than anything, dissatisfied with herself because she was not more equal to the demands of the occasion. "You are aware," she began with a trembling voice, and yet anxious to avoid exaggeration, "that rioters have attacked Mr. Moore's mill. We heard the firing and confusion very plainly here; we none of us slept. It was a sad night. The house has been in great bustle all the morning. The servants have applied to me for directions, which I really did not feel warranted in giving. Mr. Moore has, I believe, sent up for refreshments for the soldiers and aid for the wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving orders. I fear delay may have been harmful; but this is not my house. You were absent, my dear Miss Keeldar. What could I do?" "Were no refreshments sent?" asked Shirley, while her countenance suddenly turned dark and warm. "I think not, my dear." "And nothing for the wounded - no linen, no wine, no bedding?" "I think not. I cannot tell what Mrs. Gill did; but it seemed impossible to me to venture to dispose of your property by sending supplies to soldiers. Provisions for a company of soldiers sounds formidable. How many there are I did not ask; I intended to do what was right, yet I did not see the case quite clearly, I admit." "These soldiers have risked their lives in defence of my property: they have a right to my gratitude. The wounded are our fellow-creatures: we should aid them. - Mrs. Gill!" She called in a clear, penetrating voice. Mrs. Gill, who was deep in bread-making in the kitchen, came at once, not daring even to rub the dough from her hands or shake the flour from her apron. Her mistress had never called a servant in that voice save once before, when Tartar had been fighting with two large carriers' dogs, encouraged by their masters. Then Miss Keeldar had summoned John as if the Day of Judgment were at hand. Without waiting for him, she had walked out into the lane, put her hands round the thick neck of the largest cur, and used all her strength to pull it from Tartar's torn and bleeding head. She had not said a word to anybody during the rest of the day, but sat till evening tending Tartar. She wept furtively over him sometimes, and murmured the softest words of pity and endearment, which the old, scarred, canine warrior acknowledged by licking her hand. As to John, his lady turned a cold shoulder on him for a week afterwards. Mrs. Gill, remembering this little episode, came promptly. That at such a time Fieldhead should have been inhospitable stung Shirley's haughty spirit to the quick. "How long is it since that message came from the mill?" she demanded. "Not an hour yet, ma'am," answered the housekeeper soothingly. "Not an hour! You might as well have said not a day. They will have applied elsewhere by this time. Send a man instantly down to tell them that everything this house contains is at Mr. Moore's, Mr. Helstone's, and the soldiers' service. Do that first." While the order was being executed, Shirley moved away and stood at the hall-window, silent, unapproachable. When Mrs. Gill came back, she turned, with a flushed cheek and a spark of displeasure firing her glance. "Let the contents of the larder and the wine-cellar be brought up, put into the hay-carts, and driven down to the Hollow. If we have not much bread or meat in the house, go to the butcher and baker, and desire them to send what they have. But I will see for myself." "She will get over it in an hour," whispered Caroline to Mrs. Pryor. "Go upstairs, dear madam," she added affectionately, "and try to be as calm as you can. The truth is, Shirley will blame herself more than you before the day is over." With a few more gentle assurances, Miss Helstone managed to soothe the agitated lady. Having taken her to her apartment, Caroline left her to see if she could be useful. She found that she could be very useful; for Fieldhead had not many servants, and just now their mistress found plenty of occupation for all the hands at her command, and for her own also. The good-natured help which Caroline gave the housekeeper and maids - all somewhat scared by their lady's mood - did a world of good; and it appeased Shirley herself. She ran over to Caroline, who was carrying a heavy basket up the cellar stairs. "It will strain your arm," she cried; took it from her, and bore it out into the yard. The cloud of temper was dispelled; the flash in her eye was melted. She resumed her usual cheerful and cordial manner to those about her. Shirley was still superintending the loading of the cart, when a gentleman entered the yard. "I hope I see Miss Keeldar well this morning?" he said, examining her flushed face. She gave him a look, and then again bent to her employment without reply, hiding a smile. The gentleman repeated his greeting. "Well enough," was the answer; "and so is Mr. Moore too, I dare say." For the gentleman was he. "To speak truth, I am not anxious about him; some slight mischance would be only deserved. His conduct has been - let us say strange. May I ask what brings him here?" "Mr. Helstone and I have just received your message that everything at Fieldhead was at our service. We judged that you would be giving yourself too much trouble; and I see we were correct. We are not a regiment, remember - only about half a dozen soldiers and as many civilians." Miss Keeldar blushed, while she laughed at her own over-eager generosity. Moore laughed too, though quietly; and ordered baskets to be removed from the cart, and vessels returned to the cellar. "The rector must hear of this," he said; "he will make a good story of it. What an excellent army contractor Miss Keeldar would have been!" "You ought to be thankful," said Shirley, "and not mock me. How could I gauge your appetites or number your band? For aught I knew, there might have been fifty of you. You told me nothing; and an application to provision soldiers naturally suggests large numbers." "It appears so," remarked Moore, levelling another of his keen, quiet glances at the discomfited Shirley. - "Now," he continued to the carter, "Your load is somewhat lighter. Take it to the Hollow." As the vehicle rumbled out of the yard, Shirley demanded what had become of the wounded. "There was not a single man hurt on our side," was the answer. "You were hurt yourself, on the head," interposed a quick, low voice - that of Caroline, in the doorway, who had till now escaped Moore's notice. "Are you much hurt?" "As you might scratch your finger with a needle in sewing." "Lift your hair and let us see." He took his hat off, disclosing a narrow slip of plaster. Caroline nodded slightly to show that she was satisfied, and disappeared inside. "How did she know I was hurt?" asked Moore. "By rumour, no doubt. But it is too good of her to trouble herself about you. For my part, it was your victims I was thinking of. What damage have your opponents sustained?" "One of the rioters, or victims as you call them, was killed, and six were hurt. Medical aid was fetched immediately; and as soon as we can get a couple of covered wagons and some clean straw, they will be removed to Stilbro'." "Straw! You must have beds and bedding. I will send my wagon directly; and Mr. Yorke, I am sure, will send his." "He has volunteered already. And Mrs. Yorke - who, like you, seems to regard the rioters as martyrs, and me and Mr. Helstone as murderers - is at this moment, I believe, fitting it up with feather-beds, pillows and blankets. The victims lack no attentions, I promise you. Mr. Hall, your favourite parson, has been with them since six o'clock, waiting on them like any nurse; and Caroline's good friend, Miss Ainley, sent in a vast stock of lint and linen." "That will do. Where is your sister?" "Well cared for. She is with Miss Mann. This morning the two set out for the resort of Wormwood Wells, and will stay there some weeks." "Mighty clever you gentlemen think you are! Why are you not also omniscient? How is it that events occur, under your very noses, of which you have no suspicion? Ah, friend, you may search my countenance, but you cannot read it. You think me a dangerous specimen of my sex. Don't you?" "A peculiar one, at least." "But Caroline - is she peculiar?" "In her way, yes." "Her way! What is her way? She is neither eccentric nor difficult of control. She is not what they call a spirited woman." "I have seen her flash out," said Moore. "So have I, but not with manly fire. It was a short, vivid, trembling glow, that shot up, shone, vanished-" "And left her scared at her own daring. You describe others besides Caroline." "The point I wish to make is, that Miss Helstone, though gentle and tractable, is still perfectly capable of defying even Mr. Moore's penetration." "What have you and she been doing?" asked Moore suddenly. "Have you had any breakfast? Mrs. Gill will give you something to eat. Step into the oak parlour, and ring the bell." "No, I must go back. Good-morning. The first leisure I have, I will see you again."

Shirley

Chapter 20: TO-MORROW