North and South

OFT BREEZE IN A SULTRY PLACE.

“That doubt and trouble, fear and pain,
And anguish, all, are shadows vain,
That death itself shall not remain;

That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread.
Thro’ dark ways underground be led;

Yet, if we will one Guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way
Shall issue out in heavenly day;

And we, on divers shores now cast,
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father’s house at last!”
R. C. TRENCH.

Margaret flew up stairs as soon as their visitors were gone, and put on
her bonnet and shawl, to run and inquire how Betsy Higgins was, and sit
with her as long as she could before dinner. As she went along the
crowded narrow streets, she felt how much of interest they had gained by
the simple fact of her having learnt to care for a dweller in them.

Mary Higgins, the slatternly younger sister, had endeavoured as well as
she could to tidy up the house for the expected visit. There had been
rough-stoning done in the middle of the floor, while the flags under the
chairs and table and round the walls retained their dark unwashed
appearance. Although the day was hot, there burnt a large fire in the
grate, making the whole place feel like an oven; Margaret did not
understand that the lavishness of coals was a sign of hospitable welcome
to her on Mary’s part, and thought that perhaps the oppressive heat was
necessary for Bessy. Bessy herself lay on a squab, or short sofa, placed
under the window. She was very much more feeble than on the previous
day, and tired with raising herself at every step to look out and see if
it was Margaret coming. And now that Margaret was there, and had taken a
chair by her, Bessy lay back silent, and content to look at Margaret’s
face, and touch her articles of dress, with a childish admiration of
their fineness of texture.

“I never knew why folk in the Bible cared for soft raiment afore. But it
must be nice to go dressed as yo’ do. It’s different fro’ common. Most
fine folk tire my eyes out wi’ their colours; but some how yours rest
me. Where did ye get this frock?”

“In London,” said Margaret, much amused.

“London! Have yo’ been in London?”

“Yes! I lived there for some years. But my home was in a forest; in the
country.”

“Tell me about it,” said Bessy. “I like to hear speak of the country,
and trees, and such like things.” She leant back, and shut her eyes,
and crossed her hands over her breast, lying at perfect rest, as if to
receive all the ideas Margaret could suggest.

Margaret had never spoken of Helstone since she left it, except just
naming the place incidentally. She saw it in dreams more vivid than
life, and as she fell away to slumber at nights her memory wandered in
all its pleasant places. But her heart was opened to this girl: “Oh,
Bessy, I loved the home we have left so dearly! I wish you could see it.
I cannot tell you half its beauty. There are great trees standing all
about it, with their branches stretching long and level, and making a
deep shade of rest even at noonday. And yet, though every leaf may seem
still, there is a continual rushing sound of movement all around—not
close at hand. Then sometimes the turf is as soft and fine as velvet;
and sometimes quite lush with the perpetual moisture of a little,
hidden, tinkling brook near at hand. And then in other parts there are
billowy ferns—whole stretches of fern; some in the green shadow; some
with long streaks of golden sunlight lying on them—just like the sea.”

“I have never seen the sea,” murmured Bessy. “But go on.”

“Then here and there, there are wide commons, high up as if above the
very tops of the trees—”

“I am glad of that. I felt smothered like down below. When I have gone
for an out, I’ve always wanted to get high up and see far away, and take
a deep breath o’ fulness in that air. I get smothered enough in Milton,
and I think the sound yo’ speak of among the trees, going on for ever
and ever, would send me dazed; it’s that made my head ache so in the
mill. Now on these commons, I reckon, there is but little noise?”

“No,” said Margaret; “nothing but here and there a lark high in the air.
Sometimes I used to hear a farmer speaking sharp and loud to his
servants; but it was so far away that it only reminded me pleasantly
that other people were hard at work in some distant place, while I just
sat on the heather and did nothing.”

“I used to think once that if I could have a day of doing nothing, to
rest me—a day in some quiet place like that yo’ speak on—it would
maybe set me up. But now I’ve had many days o’ idleness, and I’m just as
weary ’o them as I was o’ my work. Sometimes I’m so tired out I think I
cannot enjoy heaven without a piece of rest first. I’m rather afeard o’
going straight there without getting a good sleep in the grave to set me
up.”

“Don’t be afraid, Bessy,” said Margaret, laying her hand on the girl’s
hand; “God can give you more perfect rest than even idleness on earth,
or the dead sleep of the grave can do.”

Bessy moved uneasily; then she said:

“I wish father would not speak to me as he does. He means well, as I
telled yo’ yesterday, and tell yo’ again and again. But yo’ see, though
I don’t believe him a bit by day, yet by night—when I’m in a fever,
half asleep and half awake—it comes back upon me—oh! so bad! And I
think, if this should be th’ end of all, and if all I’ve been born for
is just to work my heart and my life away, and to sicken i’ this dree
place, wi’ them mill-noises in my ears for ever, until I could scream
out for them to stop, and let me have a little piece o’ quiet—and wi’
the fluff filling my lungs, until I thirst to death for one long deep
breath o’ the clear air yo’ speak on—and my mother gone, and I never
able to tell her again how I loved her, and o’ all my troubles—I think
if this life is th’ end, and there’s no God to wipe away all tears from
all eyes—yo’ wench, yo’!” said she, sitting up, and clutching
violently, almost fiercely, at Margaret’s hand, “I could go mad, and
kill yo, I could.” She fell back completely worn out with her passion.
Margaret knelt down by her.

“Bessy—we have a Father in Heaven.”

“I know it! I know it,” moaned she, turning her head uneasily from side
to side. “I’m very wicked. I’ve spoken very wickedly. Oh! don’t be
frightened by me and never come again. I would not harm a hair of your
head. And,” opening her eyes, and looking earnestly at Margaret, “I
believe, perhaps, more than yo’ do o’ what’s to come. I read the book o’
Revelations until I know it off by heart, and I never doubt when I’m
waking, and in my senses, of all the glory I’m to come to.”

“Don’t let us talk of what fancies come into your head when you are
feverish. I would rather hear something about what you used to do when
you were well.”

“I think I was well when mother died, but I have never been rightly
strong sin’ somewhere about that time. I began to work in a carding-room
soon after, and the fluff got into my lungs, and poisoned me.”

“Fluff?” said Margaret, inquiringly.

“Fluff,” repeated Bessy. “Little bits, as fly off fro’ the cotton, when
they’re carding it, and fill the air till it looks all fine white dust.
They say it winds rounds the lungs, and tightens them up. Anyhow,
there’s many a one as works in a carding-room, that falls into a waste,
coughing and spitting blood, because they’re just poisoned by the
fluff.”

“But can’t it be helped?” asked Margaret.

“I dunno. Some folk have a great wheel at one end o’ their carding-rooms
to make a draught, and carry off th’ dust; but that wheel costs a deal
of money—five or six hundred pounds, maybe, and brings in no profit; so
it’s but a few of th’ masters as will put ’em up; and I’ve heard tell o’
men who didn’t like working in places where there was a wheel, because
they said as how it made ’em hungry, at after they’d been long used to
swallowing fluff, to go without it, and that their wages ought to be
raised if they were to work in such places. So between masters and men
th’ wheels fall through. I know I wish there’d been a wheel in our
place, though.”

“Did not your father know about it?” asked Margaret.

“Yes! And he was sorry. But our factory were a good one on the whole;
and a steady likely set o’ people; and father was afeard of letting me
go to a strange place, for though yo’ would na think it now, many a one
then used to call me a gradely lass enough. And I did na like to be
reckoned nesh and soft, and Mary’s schooling were to be kept up, mother
said, and father he were always liking to buy books, and go to lectures
o’ one kind and another—all which took money—so I just worked on till
I shall ne’er get the whirr out o’ my ears, or the fluff out o’ my
throat i’ this world. That’s all.”

“How old are you?” asked Margaret.

“Nineteen, come July.”

“And I too am nineteen.” She thought more sorrowfully than Bessy did, of
the contrast between them. She could not speak for a moment or two for
the emotion she was trying to keep down.

“About Mary,” said Bessy. “I wanted to ask yo’ to be a friend to her.
She’s seventeen, but she’s th’ last on us. And I don’t want her to go to
th’ mill, and yet I dunno what she’s fit for.”

“She could not do”—Margaret glanced unconsciously at the uncleaned
corners of the room—“She could hardly undertake a servant’s place,
could she? We have an old faithful servant, almost a friend, who wants
help, but who is very particular; and it would not be right to plague
her with giving her any assistance that would really be an annoyance and
an irritation.”

“No, I see. I reckon yo’re right. Our Mary’s a good wench; but who has
she had to teach her what to do about a house? No mother, and me at the
mill till I was good for nothing but scolding her for doing badly what I
didn’t know how to do a bit. But I wish she could ha’ lived wi’ yo’, for
all that.”

“But even though she may not be exactly fitted to come and live with us
as a servant—and I don’t know about that—I will always try to be a
friend to her for your sake, Bessy. And now I must go. I will come again
as soon as I can; but if it should not be to-morrow, or the next day, or
even a week or a fortnight hence, don’t think I’ve forgotten you. I may
be busy.”

“I’ll know yo’ won’t forget me again. I’ll not mistrust yo’ no more. But
remember, in a week or a fortnight I may be dead and buried!”

“I’ll come again as soon as I can, Bessy,” said Margaret, squeezing her
hand tight. “But you’ll let me know if you get worse.”

“Ay, that will I,” said Bessy, returning the pressure.

From that day forwards Mrs. Hale became more and more of a suffering
invalid. It was now drawing near to the anniversary of Edith’s marriage,
and looking back upon the year’s accumulated heap of troubles, Margaret
wondered how they had been borne. If she could have anticipated them,
how she would have shrunk away and hid herself from the coming time! And
yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very
endurable—small, keen, bright little spots of positive enjoyment having
come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows. A year ago, or when she
first went to Helstone, and first became silently conscious of the
querulousness in her mother’s temper, she would have groaned bitterly
over the idea of a long illness to be borne in a strange, desolate,
noisy, busy place, with diminished comforts on every side of the home
life. But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a
new kind of patience had sprung up in her mother’s mind. She was gentle
and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had
been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.
Mr. Hale was in exactly that stage of apprehension which, in men of his
stamp, takes the shape of wilful blindness. He was more irritated than
Margaret had ever known him at his daughter’s expressed anxiety.

“Indeed, Margaret, you are growing fanciful! God knows I should be the
first to take the alarm if your mother were really ill; we always saw
when she had her headaches at Helstone, even without her telling us. She
looks quite pale and white when she is ill; and now she has a bright
healthy colour in her cheeks, just as she used to have when I first knew
her.”

“But papa,” said Margaret, with hesitation, “do you know I think that is
the flush of pain.”

“Nonsense, Margaret. I tell you, you are too fanciful. You are the
person not well, I think. Send for the doctor to-morrow for yourself;
and then, if it will make your mind easier, he can see your mother.”

“Thank you, dear papa. It will make me happier, indeed.” And she went up
to him to kiss him. But he pushed her away—gently enough, but still as
if she had suggested unpleasant ideas, which he should be glad to get
rid of as readily as he could of her presence. He walked uneasily up and
down the room.

“Poor Maria!” said he, half soliloquising, “I wish one could do right
without sacrificing others. I shall hate this town, and myself too, if
she——. Pray, Margaret, does your mother often talk to you of the old
places: of Helstone, I mean.”

“No, papa,” said Margaret, sadly.

“Then, you see, she can’t be fretting after them, eh? It has always been
a comfort to me to think that your mother was so simple and open that I
knew every little grievance she had. She never would conceal anything
seriously affecting her health from me: would she, eh, Margaret? I am
quite sure she would not. So don’t let me hear of these foolish morbid
ideas. Come, give me a kiss, and run off to bed.”

But she heard him pacing about (racooning, as she and Edith used to call
it) long after her slow and languid undressing was finished—long after
as she began to listen as she lay in bed.