North and South

OSES AND THORNS.

“By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played
By the household tree, thro’ which thine eye
First looked in love to the summer sky.”
MRS. HEMANS.

Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly home
with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding. Her mother
had been detained at home by a multitude of half-reasons, none of which
anybody fully understood, except Mr. Hale, who was perfectly aware that
all his arguments in favour of a grey satin gown, which was midway
between oldness and newness, had proved unavailing; and that, as he had
not the money to equip his wife afresh, from top to toe, she would not
show herself at her only sister’s only child’s wedding. If Mrs. Shaw had
guessed at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband,
she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly twenty
years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor pretty Miss Beresford, and she
had really forgotten all grievances except that of the unhappiness
arising from disparity of age in married life, on which she could
descant by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married the man of her
heart, only eight years older than herself, with the sweetest temper,
and that blue black hair one so seldom sees. Mr. Hale was one of the
most delightful preachers she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a
parish priest. Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all
these premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw’s characteristic conclusion,
as she thought over her sister’s lot: “Married for love, what can
dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?” Mrs. Hale, if she spoke
truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, “a silver-grey glacé
silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things for the wedding, and
hundreds of things for the house.”

Margaret only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come,
and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting would
take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the confusion of
the last two or three days, in the house in Harley Street, where she
herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and was wanted everywhere at
one and the same time. Her mind and body ached now with the recollection
of all she had done and said within the last forty-eight hours. The
farewells so hurriedly taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those
she had lived with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the
times that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been,
they were gone never to return. Margaret’s heart felt more heavy than
she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own dear home,
the place and the life she had longed for for years—at that time of all
times for yearning and longing, just before the sharp senses lose their
outlines in sleep. She took her mind away with a wrench from the
recollection of the past to the bright serene contemplation of the
hopeful future. Her eyes began to see, not visions of what had been, but
the sight actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in
the railway carriage. His blue-black hair was grey now, and lay thinly
over his brows. The bones of his face were plainly to be seen—too
plainly for beauty, if his features had been less finely cut; as it was,
they had a grace if not a comeliness of their own. The face was in
repose; but it was rather rest after weariness than the serene calm of
the countenance of one who led a placid, contented life. Margaret was
painfully struck by the worn, anxious expression; and she went back over
the open and avowed circumstances of her father’s life, to find the
cause for the lines that spoke so plainly of habitual distress and
depression.

“Poor Frederick!” thought she, sighing. “Oh! if Frederick had but been a
clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost to us all! I
wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from Aunt Shaw; I only
knew he could not come back to England because of that terrible affair.
Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am so glad I am going home, to be at
hand to comfort him and mamma.”

She was ready with a bright smile, in which there was not a trace of
fatigue, to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back again, but
faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion. His face returned into its
lines of habitual anxiety. He had a trick of half-opening his mouth as
if to speak, which constantly unsettled the form of the lips, and gave
the face an undecided expression. But he had the same large, soft eyes
as his daughter,—eyes which moved slowly and almost grandly round in
their orbits, and were well veiled by their transparent white eyelids.
Margaret was more like him than like her mother. Sometimes people
wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far
regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said. Her
mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a
“yes” and “no,” and “an’t please you, sir.” But the wide mouth was one
soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if not white and fair, was of
an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If the look on her face was, in
general, too dignified and reserved for one so young, now, talking to
her father, it was bright as the morning,—full of dimples, and glances
that spoke of childish gladness, and boundless hope in the future.

It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home. The forest
trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below them caught
all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still.
Margaret used to tramp along by her father’s side, crushing down the
fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it yield under her light foot, and
send up the fragrance peculiar to it—out on the broad commons into the
warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures,
revelling in the sunshine, and the herbs and flowers it called forth.
This life—at least these walks—realised all Margaret’s anticipations.
She took a pride in her forest. Its people were her people. She made
hearty friends with them; learned and delighted in using their peculiar
words; took up her freedom amongst them; nursed their babies; talked or
read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes
to their sick; resolved before long to teach at the school where her
father went regularly every day as to an appointed task, but she was
continually tempted off to go and see some individual friend—man,
woman, or child—in some cottage in the green shade of the forest. Her
out-of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors life had its drawbacks. With
the healthy shame of a child, she blamed herself for her keenness of
sight in perceiving that all was not as it should be there. Her
mother—her mother always so kind and tender towards her—seemed now and
then so much discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop
strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not giving Mr. Hale a
better living; and almost reproached her husband because he could not
bring himself to say that he wished to leave the parish, and undertake
the charge of a larger. He would sigh aloud as he answered, that if he
could do what he ought in little Helstone, he should be thankful; but
every day he was more overpowered; the world became more bewildering. At
each repeated urgency of his wife, that he would put himself in the way
of seeking some preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more and
more; and she strove at such times to reconcile her mother to Helstone.
Mrs. Hale said that the near neighbourhood of so many trees affected her
health; and Margaret would try to tempt her forth on to the beautiful,
broad, upland, sun-streaked, cloud-shadowed common; for she was sure
that her mother had accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life,
seldom extending her walks beyond the church, the school, and the
neighbouring cottages. This did good for a time; but when the autumn
drew on, and the weather became more changeable, her mother’s idea of
the unhealthiness of the place increased; and she repined even more
frequently that her husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume, a
better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth, should not have met with the
preferment that these two former neighbours of theirs had done.

This marring of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent, was what
Margaret was unprepared for. She knew, and had rather revelled in the
idea, that she should have to give up many luxuries, which had only been
troubles and trammels to her freedom in Harley Street. Her keen
enjoyment of every sensuous pleasure was balanced finely, if not
overbalanced, by her conscious pride in being able to do without them
all, if need were. But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the
horizon from which we watch for it. There had been slight complaints and
passing regrets on her mother’s part, over some trifle connected with
Helstone, and her father’s position there, when Margaret had been
spending her holidays at home before; but in the general happiness of
the recollection of those times, she had forgotten the small details
which were not so pleasant.

In the latter half of September, the autumnal rains and storms came on,
and Margaret was obliged to remain more in the house than she had
hitherto done. Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of
their own standard of cultivation.

“It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England,”
said Mrs. Hale, in one of her plaintive moods. “I can’t help regretting
constantly that papa has really no one to associate with here; he is so
thrown away; seeing no one but farmers and labourers from week’s end to
week’s end. If we only lived at the other side of the parish, it would
be something; there we should be almost within walking distance of the
Stansfields; certainly the Gormons would be within a walk.”

“Gormons,” said Margaret, “Are those the Gormons who made their fortunes
in trade at Southampton? Oh! I’m glad we don’t visit them. I don’t like
shoppy people. I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers
and labourers, and people without pretence.”

“You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!” said her mother,
secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gormon whom she had once
met at Mr. Hume’s.

“No! I call mine a very comprehensive taste; I like all people whose
occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and sailors, and the
three learned professions, as they call them. I’m sure you don’t want me
to admire butchers and bakers, and candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?”

“But the Gormons were neither butchers nor bakers, but very respectable
coach-builders.”

“Very well. Coach-building is a trade all the same, and I think a much
more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how tired I used
to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw’s carriage, and how I longed
to walk!”

And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of
doors, at her father’s side, that she almost danced; and with the soft
violence of the west wind behind her, as she crossed some heath, she
seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly and easily as the fallen leaf
that was wafted along by the autumnal breeze. But the evenings were
rather difficult to fill up agreeably. Immediately after tea her father
withdrew into his small library, and she and her mother were left alone.
Mrs. Hale had never cared much for books, and had discouraged her
husband, very early in their married life, in his desire of reading
aloud to her, while she worked. At one time they had tried backgammon as
a resource; but as Mr. Hale grew to take an increasing interest in his
school and his parishioners, he found that the interruptions which arose
out of these duties were regarded as hardships by his wife, not to be
accepted as the natural conditions of his profession, but to be
regretted and struggled against by her as they severally arose. So he
withdrew, while the children were yet young, into his library, to spend
his evenings (if he were at home), in reading the speculative and
metaphysical books which were his delight.

When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her a
great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and had found
the summer’s day all too short to get through the reading she had to do
before her return to town. Now there were only the well-bound,
little-read English Classics, which were weeded out of her father’s
library to fill up the small book-shelves in the drawing-room. Thomson’s
Season’s, Hayley’s Cowper, Middleton’s Cicero, were by far the lightest,
newest, and most amusing. The book-shelves did not afford much resource.
Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to all of
which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused and
questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her sister’s
circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower means at Helstone
Vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to stop talking rather
abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the rain upon the leads of the
little bow window. Once or twice Margaret found herself mechanically
counting the repetition of the monotonous sound, while she wondered if
she might venture to put a question on a subject very near to her heart,
and ask where Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was
since they had heard from him. But a consciousness that her mother’s
delicate health and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from the
time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged—the full account
of which Margaret had never heard, and which now seemed doomed to be
buried in sad oblivion,—made her pause and turn away from the subject
each time she approached it. When she was with her mother, her father
seemed the best person to apply to for information; and when with him,
she thought that she could speak more easily to her mother. Probably
there was nothing much to be heard that was new. In one of the letters
she had received before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her
that they had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well
in health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but not
the living intelligence she longed for. Frederick was always spoken of,
in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as “Poor Frederick.” His
room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted, and
put into order by Dixon, Mrs. Hale’s maid, who touched no other part of
the household work, but always remembered the day when she had been
engaged by Lady Beresford as ladies’ maid to Sir John’s wards, the
pretty Miss Beresfords, the belles of Rutlandshire. Dixon had always
considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young lady’s
prospects in life. If Miss Beresford had not been in such a hurry to
marry a poor country clergyman there was no knowing what she might have
become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert her in her affliction and
downfall (alas, her married life). She remained with her, and was
devoted to her interests; always considering herself as the good and
protecting fairy, whose duty it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr.
Hale. Master Frederick had been her favourite and pride; and it was with
a little softening of her dignified look and manner, that she went in
weekly to arrange the chamber as carefully as if he might be coming home
that very evening.

Margaret could not help believing that there had been some late
intelligence of Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was making her
father anxious and uneasy. Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any
alteration in her husband’s looks or ways. His spirits were tender and
gentle, readily affected by any small piece of intelligence concerning
the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many days after
witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of any crime. But now Margaret
noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were pre-occupied by some
subject, the oppression of which could not be relieved by any daily
action, such as comforting the survivors, or teaching at the school in
hope of lessening the evils in the generation to come. Mr. Hale did not
go out among his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in
his study; was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the
household was a rap on the back-kitchen window shutter—a signal which
at one time had often to be repeated before any one was sufficiently
alive to the hour of the day to understand what it was, and attend to
him. Now Mr. Hale loitered about the garden if the morning was fine, and
if not, stood dreamily by the study window until the postman had called,
or gone down the lane, giving a half-respectful, half-confidential shake
of the head to the parson, who watched him away from the sweet-briar
hedge, and past the great arbutus, before he turned into the room to
begin his day’s work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an
occupied mind.

But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based
on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny
day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when the brilliant fourteen
fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly
as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the
forest. The fern-harvest was over; and now that the rain was gone, many
a deep glade was accessible, into which Margaret had only peeped in July
and August weather. She had learnt drawing with Edith; and she had
sufficiently regretted, during the gloom of the bad weather, her idle
revelling in the beauty of the woodlands, while it had yet been fine, to
make her determined to sketch what she could before winter fairly set
in. Accordingly, she was busy preparing her board one morning, when
Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the drawing-room door, and
announced, “Mr. Henry Lennox.”