North and South
by
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Part 9 out of 11

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 beer-shop,
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.

CHAPTER XLI

THE JOURNEY'S END

'I see my way as birds their trackless way--
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send 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 mill-owner. 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 coeur en ceste sorte: meurs de
honte, aveugle, impudent, traistre et desloyal a ton Dieu, et
sembables choses; mais je voudrois le corriger par voye de
compassion. Or sus, mon pauvre coeur, nous voila tombez dans la
fosse, laquelle nous avions tant resolu d' eschapper. Ah!
relevons-nous, et quittons-la pour jamais, reclamons la
misericorde de Dieu, et esperons en elle qu'elle nous assistera
pour desormais estre plus fermes; et remettons-nous au chemin de
l'humilite. 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 that 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
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. 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 milk 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 they'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 Margaret. That's right; steady on thy legs, and right arm
out as straight as a shewer. 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
this 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 hack 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 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, 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 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 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 moment 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 bye 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
recognised 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 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 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, 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
the 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 immoveably 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 up-stairs 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 immoveable 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!'

CHAPTER XLII

ALONE! ALONE!

'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 down-stairs, 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 he 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 to 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
inertiae, and allow herself to be packed by her maid, after the
latter had completed the boxes. Edith, all cap, shawls, 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 bedroom,
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 into
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 up-stairs 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 up-stairs. 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 candlelight. 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 wavering, 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
up-stairs, 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--?'
Me 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 to summon.'

'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,
about you 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 never 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 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 by no means 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'd 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?" 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
suspect 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 you will
pay my experiment the respect of silence. It is but a new broom
at present, and sweeps clean enough. But by-and-by we shall meet
with plenty of stumbling-blocks, no doubt.'

CHAPTER XLIII

MARGARET'S FLITTIN'

'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 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 lust 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 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 any 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 this 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 done.
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 her
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 attention.' The consequence of 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 had 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
afternoon, 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 me; and you
cannot be left alone, my dear, at your age. No; if you must pay
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 round; 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 drink for her feverish lips, Mary said:

'Oh, take summut 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 thought 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 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 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 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 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 th' 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 sha'n'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.
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 how 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 th' 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 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.'

CHAPTER XLIV

EASE NOT PEACE

'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
nick-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 down-stairs 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 regime;' 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 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, 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 Lennoxes'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
twelvemonth. 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 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, 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 I 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
afterthought 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 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 bed-room.'

'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 set of
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 am 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 in--now I think of it. 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 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.'

CHAPTER XLV

NOT ALL A DREAM

'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 her 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 like 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 have probably been 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 up-stairs 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 eye-lashes, and forcing a smile.

'There's my good girl. Then we'll go up-stairs 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

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North and SouthbyElizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Part 9 out of 11

North and South
by
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell