North and South

EACE.

“Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted!
My last Good Night—thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake.”
DR. KING.

Home seemed unnaturally quiet after all this terror and noisy commotion.
Her father had seen all due preparation made for her refreshment on her
return; and then sate down again in his accustomed chair, to fall into
one of his sad waking dreams. Dixon had got Mary Higgins to scold and
direct in the kitchen; and her scolding was not the less energetic
because it was delivered in an angry whisper; for, speaking above her
breath she would have thought irreverent, as long as there was any one
lying dead in the house. Margaret had resolved not to mention the
crowning and closing affright to her father. There was no use in
speaking about it; it had ended well; the only thing to be feared was
lest Leonards should in some way borrow money enough to effect his
purpose of following Frederick to London, and hunting him out there. But
there were immense chances against the success of any such plan; and
Margaret determined not to torment herself by thinking of what she could
do nothing to prevent. Frederick would be as much on his guard as she
could put him; and in a day or two at most he would be safely out of
England.

“I suppose we shall hear from Mr. Bell to-morrow,” said Margaret.

“Yes,” replied her father. “I suppose so.”

“If he can come, he will be here to-morrow evening, I should think.”

“If he cannot come, I shall ask Mr. Thornton to go with me to the
funeral. I cannot go alone. I should break down utterly.”

“Don’t ask Mr. Thornton, papa. Let me go with you,” said Margaret,
impetuously.

“You! My dear, women do not generally go.”

“No; because they can’t control themselves. Women of our class don’t go,
because they have no power over their emotions, and yet are ashamed of
showing them. Poor women go, and don’t care if they are seen overwhelmed
with grief. But I promise you, papa, that if you will let me go, I will
be no trouble. Don’t have a stranger, and leave me out. Dear papa! if
Mr. Bell cannot come, I shall go. I won’t urge my wish against your
will, if he does.”

Mr. Bell could not come. He had the gout. It was a most affectionate
letter, and expressed great and true regret for his inability to attend.
He hoped to come and pay them a visit soon, if they would have him; his
Milton property required some looking after, and his agent had written
to him to say that his presence was absolutely necessary; or else he had
avoided coming near Milton as long as he could, and now the only thing
that would reconcile him to this necessary visit was the idea that he
should see, and might possibly be able to comfort his old friend.

Margaret had all the difficulty in the world to persuade her father not
to invite Mr. Thornton. She had an indescribable repugnance to this step
being taken. The night before the funeral, came a stately note from Mrs.
Thornton to Miss Hale, saying that, at her son’s desire, their carriage
should attend the funeral, if it would not be disagreeable to the
family. Margaret tossed the note to her father.

“Oh, don’t let us have these forms,” said she. “Let us go alone—you and
me, papa. They don’t care for us, or else he would have offered to go
himself, and not have proposed this sending an empty carriage.”

“I thought you were so extremely averse to his going, Margaret,” said
Mr. Hale in some surprise.

“And so I am. I don’t want him to come at all; and I should especially
dislike the idea of our asking him. But this seems such a mockery of
mourning that I did not expect it from him.” She startled her father by
bursting into tears. She had been so subdued in her grief, so thoughtful
for others, so gentle and patient in all things, that he could not
understand her impatient ways to-night; she seemed agitated and
restless; and at all the tenderness which her father in his turn now
lavished upon her, she only cried the more.

She passed so bad a night that she was ill prepared for the additional
anxiety caused by a letter received from Frederick. Mr. Lennox was out
of town; his clerk said that he would return by the following Tuesday at
the latest; that he might possibly be home on Monday. Consequently,
after some consideration, Frederick had determined upon remaining in
London a day or two longer. He had thought of coming down to Milton
again; the temptation had been very strong; but the idea of Mr. Bell
domesticated in his father’s house, and the alarm he had received at the
last moment at the railway station, had made him resolve to stay in
London. Margaret might be assured he would take every precaution against
being tracked by Leonards. Margaret was thankful that she received this
letter while her father was absent in her mother’s room. If he had been
present, he would have expected her to read it aloud to him, and it
would have raised in him a state of nervous alarm which she would have
found it impossible to soothe away. There was not merely the fact, which
disturbed her excessively, of Frederick’s detention in London, but there
were allusions to the recognition at the last moment at Milton, and the
possibility of a pursuit, which made her blood run cold; and how then
would it have affected her father? Many a time did Margaret repent of
having suggested and urged on the plan of consulting Mr. Lennox. At the
moment, it had seemed as if it would occasion so little delay—add so
little to the apparently small chances of detection; and yet everything
that had since occurred had tended to make it so undesirable. Margaret
battled hard against this regret of hers for what could not now be
helped; this self-reproach for having said what at the time appeared to
be wise, but which after events were proving to have been so foolish.
But her father was in too depressed a state of mind and body to struggle
healthily; he would succumb to all these causes for morbid regret over
what could not be recalled. Margaret summoned up all her forces to her
aid. Her father seemed to have forgotten that they had any reason to
expect a letter from Frederick that morning. He was absorbed in one
idea—that the last visible token of the presence of his wife was to be
carried away from him, and hidden from his sight. He trembled pitifully
as the undertaker’s man was arranging his crape draperies around him. He
looked wistfully at Margaret; and, when released, he tottered towards
her, murmuring, “Pray for me, Margaret. I have no strength left in me. I
cannot pray. I give her up because I must. I try to bear it: indeed I
do. I know it is God’s will. But I cannot see why she died. Pray for me,
Margaret, that I may have faith to pray. It is a great strait, my
child.”

Margaret sat by him in the coach, almost supporting him in her arms; and
repeating all the noble verses of holy comfort, or texts expressive of
faithful resignation, that she could remember. Her voice never faltered;
and she herself gained strength by doing this. Her father’s lips moved
after her, repeating the well-known texts as her words suggested them;
it was terrible to see the patient struggling effort to obtain the
resignation which he had not strength to take into his heart as part of
himself.

Margaret’s fortitude nearly gave way as Dixon, with a slight motion of
her hand, directed her notice to Nicholas Higgins and his daughter,
standing a little aloof, but deeply attentive to the ceremonial.
Nicholas wore his usual fustian clothes, but had a bit of black stuff
sown round his hat—a mark of mourning which he had never shown to his
daughter Bessy’s memory. But Mr. Hale saw nothing. He went on repeating
to himself, mechanically as it were, all the funeral service as it was
read by the officiating clergyman; he sighed twice or thrice when all
was ended; and then, putting his hand on Margaret’s arm, he mutely
entreated to be led away, as if he were blind, and she his faithful
guide.

Dixon sobbed aloud; she covered her face with her handkerchief, and was
so absorbed in her own grief that she did not perceive that the crowd,
attracted on such occasions, was dispersing, till she was spoken to by
some one close at hand. It was Mr. Thornton. He had been present all the
time, standing, with bent head, behind a group of people, so that, in
fact, no one had recognised him.

“I beg your pardon,—but, can you tell me how Mr. Hale is? And Miss
Hale, too? I should like to know how they both are.”

“Of course, sir. They are much as is to be expected. Master is terribly
broke down. Miss Hale bears up better than likely.”

Mr. Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the natural
sorrow. In the first place, there was selfishness enough in him to have
taken pleasure in the idea that his great love might come in to comfort
and console her; much the same kind of passionate pleasure which comes
stinging through a mother’s heart, when her drooping infant nestles
close to her, and is dependent upon her for everything. But this
delicious vision of what might have been—in which, in spite of all
Margaret’s repulse, he would have indulged only a few days ago—was
miserably disturbed by the recollection of what he had seen near the
Outwood station. “Miserably disturbed!” that is not strong enough. He
was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she
stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance
shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight
in order to subdue the pain. At that late hour, so far from home! It
took a great moral effort to galvanise his trust—erewhile so
perfect—in Margaret’s pure and exquisite maidenliness into life; as
soon as the effort ceased, his trust dropped down dead and powerless:
and all sorts of wild fancies chased each other like dreams, through his
mind. Here was a little bit of miserable, gnawing confirmation. “She
bore up better than likely” under this grief. She had then some hope to
look to, so bright that even in her affectionate nature it could come in
to lighten the dark hours of a daughter newly made motherless. Yes! he
knew how she would love. He had not loved her without gaining that
instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her. Her soul would
walk in glorious sunlight if any man was worthy, by his power of loving,
to win back her love. Even in her mourning she would rest with a
peaceful faith upon his sympathy. His sympathy! Whose? That other man’s.
And that it was another was enough to make Mr. Thornton’s pale grave
face grow doubly wan and stern at Dixon’s answer.

“I suppose I may call,” said he coldly. “On Mr. Hale, I mean. He will
perhaps admit me after to-morrow or so.”

He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him. But it
was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it.
Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle,
familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless
desire to renew her picture in his mind—a longing for the very
atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must
perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.

“I dare say, sir, master will see you. He was very sorry to have to deny
you the other day; but circumstances was not agreeable just then.”

For some reason or other, Dixon never named this interview that she had
had with Mr. Thornton to Margaret. It might have been mere chance, but
so it was that Margaret never heard that he had attended her poor
mother’s funeral.