Part 12

“And may I say you do not know the North?” asked he, with an inexpressible gentleness in his tone, as he saw that he had really hurt her. She continued resolutely silent; yearning after the lovely haunts she had left far away in Hampshire, with a passionate longing that made her feel her voice would be unsteady and trembling if she spoke.

“At any rate, Mr. Thornton,” said Mrs. Hale, “you will allow that Milton is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever meet with in the South.”

“I’m afraid I must give up its cleanliness,” said Mr. Thornton, with the quick gleaming smile. “But we are bidden by Parliament to burn our own smoke; so I suppose, like good little children, we shall do as we are bid—some time.”

Nicholas Higgins Discusses Religion with the Retired Clergyman

From _North and South_.

The Rev. William Gaskell, who, along with his gifted wife, did so much during the “Hungry Forties” as a peacemaker between the masters and the men, was often to be found in the homes of the Manchester poor listening to their tale of woe, and like Mr. Hale, he always treated the poor with marked courtesy and kindness.

She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on.

In the first place, the decorous, kind-hearted, simple, old-fashioned gentleman had unconsciously called out, by his own refinement and courteousness of manner, all the latent courtesy in the other.

Mr. Hale treated all his fellow creatures alike; it never entered into his head to make any difference because of their rank. He placed a chair for Nicholas: stood up till he, at Mr. Hale’s request, took a seat; and called him, invariably, “Mr. Higgins,” instead of the curt “Nicholas” or “Higgins,” to which the “drunken infidel weaver” had been accustomed. But Nicholas was neither an habitual drunkard nor a thorough infidel. He drank to drown care, as he would have himself expressed it; and he was infidel so far as he had never yet found any form of faith to which he could attach himself, heart and soul.

Margaret was a little surprised, and very much pleased, when she found her father and Higgins in earnest conversation—each speaking with gentle politeness to the other, however their opinions might clash. Nicholas—clean, tidied (if only at the pump trough), and quiet spoken—was a new creature to her, who had only seen him in the rough independence of his own hearthstone. He had “slicked” his hair down with the fresh water; he had adjusted his neck-handkerchief, and borrowed an odd candle-end to polish his clogs with; and there he sat, enforcing some opinion on her father, with a strong Darkshire accent, it is true, but with a lowered voice, and a good, earnest composure on his face. Her father, too, was interested in what his companion was saying. He looked round as she came in, smiled, and quietly gave her his chair, and then sat down afresh as quickly as possible, and with a little bow of apology to his guest for the interruption. Higgins nodded to her as a sign of greeting; and she softly adjusted her working materials on the table, and prepared to listen.

“As I was a-sayin’, sir, I reckon yo’d not ha’ much belief in yo’ if yo’ lived here—if yo’d been bred here. I ax your pardon if I use wrong words; but what I mean by belief just now, is a-thinking on sayings and maxims and promises made by folk yo’ never saw, about the things and the life yo’ never saw, nor no one else. Now, yo’ say these are true things, and true sayings, and a true life. I just say, where’s the proof? There’s many and many a one wiser, and scores better learned than I am around me—folk who’ve had time to think on these things—while my time has had to be gi’en up to getting my bread. Well, I sees these people. Their lives is pretty much open to me. They’re real folk. They don’t believe i’ the Bible—not they. They may say they do, for form’s sake; but Lord, sir, dy’e think their first cry i’ th’ morning is, ‘What shall I do to get hold on eternal life?’ or ‘What shall I do to fill my purse this blessed day? Where shall I go? What bargains shall I strike?’ The purse and the gold and the notes is real things; things as can be felt and touched; them’s realities; and eternal life is all a talk, very fit for—I ax your pardon, sir; yo’r a parson out o’ work, I believe. Well! I’ll never speak disrespectful of a man in the same fix as I’m in mysel’. But I’ll just ax yo’ another question, sir, and I dunnot want yo’ to answer it, only to put in yo’r pipe, and smoke it, afore yo’ go for to set down us, who only believe in what we see, as fools and noddies. If salvation, and life to come, and what not, was true—not in men’s words, but in men’s hearts’ core—dun yo’ not think they’d din us wi’ it as they do wi’ political ’conomy? They’re mighty anxious to come round us wi’ that piece o’ wisdom; but t’other would be a greater convarsion, if it were true.”

“But the masters have nothing to do with your religion. All that they are connected with you in is trade—so they think—and all that it concerns them, therefore, to rectify your opinions in is the science of trade.”

“I’m glad, sir,” said Higgins, with a curious wink of his eye, “that yo’ put in, ‘so they think.’ I’d ha’ thought yo’ a hypocrite, I’m afeard, if yo’ hadn’t, for all yo’r a parson, or rayther because yo’r a parson. Yo’ see, if yo’d spoken o’ religion as a thing that, if it was true, it didn’t concern all men to press on all men’s attention, above everything else in this ’varsal earth, I should ha’ thought yo’ a knave for to be a parson; and I’d rather think yo’ a fool than a knave. No offence, I hope, sir.”

“None at all. You consider me mistaken, and I consider you far more fatally mistaken. I don’t expect to convince you in a day—not in one conversation; but let us know each other, and speak freely to each other about these things, and the truth will prevail. I should not believe in God if I did not believe that. Mr. Higgins, I trust, whatever else you have given up, you believe” (Mr. Hale’s voice dropped low in reverence)—“you believe in Him.”

Nicholas Higgins suddenly stood straight, stiff up. Margaret started to her feet—for she thought, by the working of his face, he was going into convulsions. Mr. Hale looked at her dismayed. At last Higgins found words:

“Man! I could fell yo’ to the ground for tempting me. Whatten business have yo’ to try me wi’ your doubts? Think o’ her lying theere, after the life hoo’s led; and think then how yo’d deny me the one sole comfort left—that there is a God, and that He set her her life. I dunnot believe she’ll ever live again,” said he, sitting down, and drearily going on, as if to the unsympathising fire. “I dunnot believe in any other life than this, in which she dreed such trouble, and had such never-ending care; and I cannot bear to think it were all a set o’ chances, that might ha’ been altered wi’ a breath o’ wind. There’s many a time when I’ve thought I didna believe in God, but I’ve never put if fair out before me in words, as many men do. I may ha’ laughed at those who did, to brave it out like—but I have looked round at after, to see if He heard me, if so be there was a He; but to-day, when I’m left desolate, I wunnot listen to yo’ wi’ yo’r questions, and yo’r doubts. There’s one thing steady and quiet i’ all this reeling world, and, reason or no reason, I’ll cling to that.”

Humorous

The New Mamma—Mrs. Gibson

From _Wives and Daughters_, 1866

Writing of _Wives and Daughters_, Madame Mohl said: “The Hamleys are delightful, and Mrs. Gibson! oh, the tricks are delicious; but I am not up to Cynthia yet. Molly is the best heroine you have had yet. Everyone says it is the best thing you ever did.”

On Tuesday afternoon Molly returned home—to the home which was already strange, and what Warwickshire people would call “unked,” to her. New paper, new colours; grim servants dressed in their best, and objecting to every change—from their master’s marriage to the new oilcloth in the hall, “which tripped ’em up, and threw ’em down, and was cold to the feet, and smelt just abominable.” All these complaints Molly had to listen to, and it was not a cheerful preparation for the reception which she already felt to be so formidable.

The sound of their carriage-wheels was heard at last, and Molly went to the front door to meet them. Her father got out first, and took her hand and held it while he helped his bride to alight. Then he kissed her fondly, and passed her on to his wife; but her veil was so securely (and becomingly) fastened down, that it was some time before Mrs. Gibson could get her lips clear to greet her new daughter. Then there was luggage to be seen about; and both the travellers were occupied in this, while Molly stood by trembling with excitement, unable to help, and only conscious of Betty’s rather cross looks, as heavy box after heavy box jammed up the passage.

“Molly, my dear, show—your mamma to her room!”

Mr. Gibson had hesitated, because the question of the name by which Molly was to call her new relation had never occurred to him before. The colour flashed into Molly’s face. Was she to call her “mamma”?—the name long appropriated in her mind to someone else—to her own dead mother. The rebellious heart rose against it, but she said nothing. She led the way upstairs, Mrs. Gibson turning round from time to time with some fresh direction as to which bag or trunk she needed most. She hardly spoke to Molly till they were both in the newly-furnished bedroom, where a small fire had been lighted by Molly’s orders.

“Now, my love, we can embrace each other in peace. O dear, how tired I am!”—(after the embrace had been accomplished). “My spirits are so easily affected with fatigue; but your dear papa has been kindness itself. Dear! what an old-fashioned bed! And what a—But it doesn’t signify. By and by we’ll renovate the house—won’t we, my dear? And you’ll be my little maid to-night, and help me to arrange a few things, for I’m just worn out with the day’s journey.”

“I’ve ordered a sort of tea-dinner to be ready for you,” said Molly. “Shall I go and tell them to send it in?”

“I’m not sure if I can go down again to-night. It would be very comfortable to have a little table brought in here, and sit in my dressing-gown by this cheerful fire. But, to be sure, there’s your dear papa! I really don’t think he would eat anything if I were not there. One must not think about oneself, you know. Yes, I’ll come down in a quarter of an hour.”

But Mr. Gibson had found a note awaiting him, with an immediate summons to an old patient, dangerously ill; and, snatching a mouthful of food while his horse was being saddled, he had to resume at once his old habits of attention to his profession above everything.

As soon as Mrs. Gibson found that he was not likely to miss her presence—he had eaten a very tolerable lunch of bread and cold meat in solitude, so her fears about his appetite in her absence were not well founded—she desired to have her meal upstairs in her own room; and poor Molly, not daring to tell the servants of this whim, had to carry up first a table, which, however small, was too heavy for her; and afterwards all the choice portions of the meal, which she had taken great pains to arrange on the table, as she had seen such things done at Hamley, intermixed with fruit and flowers that had that morning been sent in from various great houses where Mr. Gibson was respected and valued. How pretty Molly had thought her handiwork an hour or two before! How dreary it seemed as, at last released from Mrs. Gibson’s conversation, she sat down in solitude to cold tea and the drumsticks of the chicken! No one to look at her preparations and admire her deft-handedness and taste! She had thought that her father would be gratified by it, and then he had never seen it. She had meant her cares as an offering of goodwill to her stepmother, who even now was ringing her bell to have the tray taken away and Miss Gibson summoned to her bedroom.

Molly hastily finished her meal, and went upstairs again.

“I feel so lonely, darling, in this strange house; do come and be with me, and help me to unpack. I think your dear papa might have put off his visit to Mr. Craven Smith for just this one evening.”

“Mr. Craven Smith couldn’t put off his dying,” said Molly, bluntly.

“You droll girl!” said Mrs. Gibson, with a faint laugh. “But if this Mr. Smith is dying, as you say, what’s the use of your father’s going off to him in such a hurry? Does he expect any legacy, or anything of that kind?”

Molly bit her lips to prevent herself from saying something disagreeable. She only answered:

“I don’t quite know that he is dying. The man said so; and papa can sometimes do something to make the last struggle easier. At any rate, it’s always a comfort to the family to have him.”

“What dreary knowledge of death you have learned for a girl of your age! Really, if I had heard all these details of your father’s profession, I doubt if I could have brought myself to have him!”

“He doesn’t make the illness or the death; he does his best against them. I call it a very fine thing to think of what he does or tries to do. And you will think so, too, when you see how he is watched for, and how people welcome him!”

“Well, don’t let us talk any more of such gloomy things, to-night! I think I shall go to bed at once, I am so tired, if you will only sit by me till I get sleepy, darling. If you will talk to me, the sound of your voice will soon send me off.”

Molly got a book and read her stepmother to sleep, preferring that to the harder task of keeping up a continual murmur of speech.

Then she stole down and went into the dining-room, where the fire was gone out; purposely neglected by the servants, to mark their displeasure at their new mistress’s having had her tea in her own room. Molly managed to light it, however, before her father came home, and collected and rearranged some comfortable food for him. Then she knelt down again on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire in a dreamy reverie, which had enough of sadness about it to cause the tear to drop unnoticed from her eyes. But she jumped up, and shook herself into brightness at the sound of her father’s step.

“How is Mr. Craven Smith?” said she.

“Dead. He just recognised me. He was one of my first patients on coming to Hollingford.”

Mr. Gibson sat down in the arm-chair made ready for him, and warmed his hands at the fire, seeming neither to need food nor talk, as he went over a train of recollections. Then he roused himself from his sadness, and looking round the room, he said, briskly enough:

“And where’s the new mamma?”

“She was tired, and went to bed early. Oh, papa! must I call her ‘mamma’?”

“I should like it,” replied he, with a slight contraction of the brows.

Molly was silent. She put a cup of tea near him; he stirred it, and sipped it, and then he recurred to the subject.

“Why shouldn’t you call her ‘mamma’? I’m sure she means to do the duty of a mother to you. We all may make mistakes, and her ways may not be quite all at once our ways; but at any rate let us start with a family bond between us.”

What would Roger say was right?—that was the question that rose to Molly’s mind. She had always spoken of her father’s new wife as Mrs. Gibson, and had once burst out at Miss Brownings’ with a protestation that she would never call her “mamma.” She did not feel drawn to her new relation by their intercourse that evening. She kept silence, though she knew her father was expecting an answer. At last he gave up his expectation and turned to another subject; told about their journey, questioned her as to the Hamleys, the Brownings, Lady Harriet, and the afternoon they had passed together at the Manor-house. But there was a certain hardness and constraint in his manner, and in hers a heaviness and absence of mind. All at once she said:

“Papa, I will call her ‘mamma’!”

He took her hand and grasped it tight; but for an instant or two he did not speak. Then he said:

“You won’t be sorry for it, Molly, when you come to lie as poor Craven Smith did to-night.”

Calf-Love

From _Wives and Daughters_.

Lady Ritchie says: “To people of an elder generation re-reading _Wives and Daughters_, now, strong, gentle, and full of fun and wisdom, all youth seems to be in it; it is rest to live again in the merry touching pages” (_Blackstick Papers_, 1908).

One day, for some reason or other, Mr. Gibson came home unexpectedly. He was crossing the hall, having come in by the garden door—the garden communicated with the stable-yard, where he had left his horse—when the kitchen door opened, and the girl who was underling in the establishment came quickly into the hall with a note in her hand, and made as if she was taking it upstairs; but on seeing her master she gave a little start, and turned back as if to hide herself in the kitchen. If she had not made this movement, so conscious of guilt, Mr. Gibson, who was anything but suspicious, would never have taken any notice of her. As it was, he stepped quickly forwards, opened the kitchen door, and called out “Bethia” so sharply that she could not delay coming forwards.

“Give me that note,” he said. She hesitated a little.

“It’s for Miss Molly,” she stammered out.

“Give it to me!” he repeated more quickly than before. She looked as if she would cry; but still she kept the note tight held behind her back.

“He said as I was to give it into her own hands; and I promised as I would, faithful.”

“Cook, go and find Miss Molly. Tell her to come here at once.”

He fixed Bethia with his eyes. It was of no use trying to escape: she might have thrown it into the fire, but she had not presence of mind enough. She stood immovable, only her eyes looked any way rather than encounter her master’s steady gaze. “Molly, my dear!”

“Papa! I did not know you were at home,” said innocent, wondering Molly.

“Bethia, keep your word. Here is Miss Molly; give her the note.”

“Indeed, miss, I couldn’t help it!”

Molly took the note, but before she could open it, her father said: “That’s all, my dear; you need not read it. Give it to me. Tell those who sent you, Bethia, that all letters for Miss Molly must pass through my hands. Now be off with you, goosey, and go back to where you came from.”

“Papa, I shall make you tell me who my correspondent is.”

“We’ll see about that, by and by.”

She went a little reluctantly, with ungratified curiosity, upstairs to Miss Eyre, who was still her daily companion, if not her governess. He turned into the empty dining-room, shut the door, broke the seal of the note, and began to read it. It was a flaming love-letter from Mr. Coxe; who professed himself unable to go on seeing her day after day without speaking to her of the passion she had inspired—an “eternal passion,” he called it; on reading which Mr. Gibson laughed a little. Would she not look kindly at him? would she not think of him whose only thought was of her? and so on, with a very proper admixture of violent compliments to her beauty. She was fair, not pale; her eyes were lode-stars, her dimples marks of Cupid’s fingers, etc.

Mr. Gibson finished reading it; and began to think about it in his own mind. “Who would have thought the lad had been so poetical? but, to be sure, there’s a _Shakespeare_ in the surgery library: I’ll take it away and put _Johnson’s Dictionary_ instead. One comfort is the conviction of her perfect innocence—ignorance, I should rather say—for it is easy to see it’s the first “confession of his love,” as he calls it. But it’s an awful worry—to begin with lovers so early. Why, she’s only just seventeen—not seventeen, indeed, till July; not for six weeks yet. Sixteen and three-quarters! Why, she’s quite a baby. To be sure—poor Jeanie was not so old, and how I did love her!” (Mrs. Gibson’s name was Mary, so he must have been referring to someone else). Then his thoughts wandered back to other days, though he still held the open note in his hand. By and by his eyes fell upon it again, and his mind came back to bear upon the present time. “I’ll not be hard upon him. I’ll give him a hint; he is quite sharp enough to take it. Poor laddie! if I send him away, which would be the wisest course, I do believe he’s got no home to go to.”

After a little more consideration in the same strain, Mr. Gibson went and sat down at the writing-table and wrote the following formula:

_Master Coxe_

(“That ‘master’ will touch him to the quick,” said Mr. Gibson to himself as he wrote the word).

℞. Verecundiae ℥j. Fidelitatis Domesticae ℥j. Reticentiae gr. iij. M. Capiat hanc dosim ter die in aquâ purâ.

R. Gibson, _Ch._

Mr. Gibson smiled a little sadly as he re-read his words. “Poor Jeanie,” he said aloud. And then he chose out an envelope, enclosed the fervid love-letter, and the above prescription; sealed it with his own sharply-cut seal-ring, R. G., in old English letters, and then paused over the address.

“He’ll not like _Master_ Coxe outside; no need to put him to unnecessary shame.” So the direction on the envelope was:

_Edward Coxe, Esq._

Then Mr. Gibson applied himself to the professional business which had brought him home so opportunely and unexpectedly, and afterwards he went back through the garden to the stables; and just as he had mounted his horse, he said to the stable-man—“Oh! by the way, here’s a letter for Mr. Coxe. Don’t send it through the women; take it round yourself to the surgery door, and do it at once.”

The slight smile upon his face, as he rode out of the gates, died away as soon as he found himself in the solitude of the lanes. He slackened his speed, and began to think. It was very awkward, he considered, to have a motherless girl growing up into womanhood in the same house with two young men, even if she only met them at meal-times, and all the intercourse they had with each other was merely the utterance of such words as, “May I help you to potatoes?” or, as Mr. Wynne would persevere in saying, “May I assist you to potatoes?”—a form of speech which grated daily more and more upon Mr. Gibson’s ears. Yet Mr. Coxe, the offender in this affair which had just occurred, had to remain for three years more as a pupil in Mr. Gibson’s family. He should be the very last of the race. Still there were three years to be got over; and if this stupid passionate calf-love of his lasted, what was to be done? Sooner or later Molly would become aware of it. The contingencies of the affair were so excessively disagreeable to contemplate, that Mr. Gibson determined to dismiss the subject from his mind by a good strong effort. He put his horse to a gallop, and found that the violent shaking over the lanes—paved as they were with round stones, which had been dislocated by the wear and tear of a hundred years—was the very best thing for the spirits, if not for the bones. He made a long round that afternoon, and came back to his home imagining that the worse was over, and that Mr. Coxe would have taken the hint conveyed in the prescription. All that would be needed was to find a safe place for the unfortunate Bethia, who had displayed such a daring aptitude for intrigue. But Mr. Gibson reckoned without his host. It was the habit of the young men to come in to tea with the family in the dining-room, to swallow two cups, munch their bread and toast, and then disappear. This night Mr. Gibson watched their countenances furtively from under his long eyelashes, while he tried against his wont to keep up a _dégagé_ manner, and a brisk conversation on general subjects. He saw that Mr. Wynne was on the point of breaking out into laughter, and that red-haired, red-faced Mr. Coxe was redder and fiercer than ever, while his whole aspect and ways betrayed indignation and anger.