North and South

HAPTER LI.

MEETING AGAIN.

“Bear up, brave heart! we will be calm and strong;
Sure, we can master eyes, or cheek, or tongue,
Nor let the smallest tell-tale sign appear
She ever was, and is, and will be dear.”
RHYMING PLAY.

It was a hot summer’s evening. Edith came into Margaret’s bed-room, the
first time in her habit, the second ready dressed for dinner. No one was
there at first; the next time Edith found Dixon laying out Margaret’s
dress on the bed; but no Margaret. Edith remained to fidget about.

“Oh, Dixon! not those horrid blue flowers to that dead gold-coloured
gown. What taste! Wait a minute, and I will bring you some pomegranate
blossoms.”

“It’s not a dead gold-colour ma’am. It’s a straw-colour. And blue always
goes with straw-colour.” But Edith had brought the brilliant scarlet
flowers before Dixon had got half through her remonstrance.

“Where is Miss Hale?” asked Edith, as soon as she had tried the effect
of the garniture. “I can’t think,” she went on, pettishly, “how my aunt
allowed her to get into such rambling habits in Milton! I’m sure I’m
always expecting to hear of her having met with something horrible among
all those wretched places she pokes herself into. I should never dare to
go down some of those streets without a servant. They’re not fit for
ladies.”

Dixon was still huffed about her despised taste; so she replied rather
shortly:

“It’s no wonder to my mind, when I hear ladies talk such a deal about
ladies—and when they’re such fearful, delicate, dainty ladies too—I
say it’s no wonder to me that there are no longer any saints on
earth——”

“Oh, Margaret! here you are! I have been so wanting you. But how your
cheeks are flushed with the heat, poor child! But only think what that
tiresome Henry has done; really, he exceeds brother-in-law’s limits.
Just when my party was made up so beautifully—fitted in so precisely
for Mr. Colthurst—there has Henry come, with an apology it is true, and
making use of your name for an excuse, and asked me if he may bring that
Mr. Thornton of Milton—your tenant, you know—who is in London about
some law business. It will spoil my number, quite.”

“I don’t mind dinner. I don’t want any,” said Margaret, in a low voice.
“Dixon can get me a cup of tea here, and I will be in the drawing-room
by the time you come up. I shall really be glad to lie down.”

“No, no! that will never do. You do look wretchedly white, to be sure;
but that is just the heat, and we can’t do without you possibly. (Those
flowers a little lower, Dixon. They look glorious flames, Margaret, in
your black hair.) You know we planned you to talk about Milton to Mr.
Colthurst. Oh! to be sure! and this man comes from Milton. I believe it
will be capital, after all. Mr. Colthurst can pump him well on all the
subjects in which he is interested, and it will be great fun to trace
out your experiences, and this Mr. Thornton’s wisdom, in Mr. Colthurst’s
next speech in the House. Really, I think it is a happy hit of Henry’s.
I asked him if he was a man one would be ashamed of; and he replied,
‘Not if you’ve any sense in you, my little sister.’ So I suppose he is
able to sound his h’s, which is not a common Darkshire
accomplishment—eh, Margaret?”

“Mr. Lennox did not say why Mr. Thornton was come up to town? Was it law
business connected with the property?” asked Margaret, in a constrained
voice.

“Oh! he’s failed, or something of the kind, that Henry told you of that
day you had such a headache—what was it? (There, that’s capital, Dixon.
Miss Hale does us credit, does she not?) I wish I was as tall as a
queen, and as brown as a gipsy, Margaret.”

“But about Mr. Thornton?”

“Oh! I really have such a terrible head for law business. Henry will
like nothing better than to tell you all about it. I know the impression
he made upon me was, that Mr. Thornton is very badly off, and a very
respectable man, and that I’m to be very civil to him: and as I did not
know how, I came to you to ask you to help me. And now come down with
me, and rest on the sofa for a quarter of an hour.”

The privileged brother-in-law came early; and Margaret, reddening as she
spoke, began to ask him the questions she wanted to hear answered about
Mr. Thornton.

“He came up about this sub-letting the property—Marlborough Mills, and
the house and premises adjoining, I mean. He is unable to keep it on;
and there are deeds and leases to be looked over and agreements to be
drawn up. I hope Edith will receive him properly; but she was rather put
out, as I could see, by the liberty I had taken in begging for an
invitation for him. But I thought you would like to have some attention
shown him: and one would be particularly scrupulous in paying every
respect to a man who is going down in the world.” He had dropped his
voice to speak to Margaret, by whom he was sitting; but as he ended he
sprang up, and introduced Mr. Thornton, who had that moment entered, to
Edith and Captain Lennox.

Margaret looked with an anxious eye at Mr. Thornton while he was thus
occupied. It was considerably more than a year since she had seen him;
and events had occurred to change him much in that time. His fine figure
yet bore him above the common height of men; and gave him a
distinguished appearance, from the ease of motion which arose out of it,
and was natural to him; but his face looked older and careworn; yet a
noble composure sate upon it, which impressed those who had just been
hearing of his changed position, with a sense of inherent dignity and
manly strength. He was aware, from the first glance he had given round
the room, that Margaret was there; he had seen her intent look of
occupation as she listened to Mr. Henry Lennox; and he came up to her
with the perfectly regulated manner of an old friend. With his first
calm words a vivid colour flashed into her cheeks, which never left them
again during the evening. She did not seem to have much to say to him.
She disappointed him by the quiet way in which she asked what seemed to
him to be the merely necessary questions respecting her old
acquaintances, in Milton; but others came in—more intimate in the house
than he—and he fell into the background, where he and Mr. Lennox talked
together from time to time.

“You think Miss Hale looking well,” said Mr. Lennox, “don’t you? Milton
didn’t agree with her, I imagine; for when she first came to London, I
thought I had never seen any one so much changed. To-night she is
looking radiant. But she is much stronger. Last autumn she was fatigued
with a walk of a couple of miles. On Friday evening we walked up to
Hampstead and back. Yet on Saturday she looked as well as she does now.”

“We!” Who? They two alone?

Mr. Colthurst was a very clever man, and a rising member of Parliament.
He had a quick eye at discerning character, and was struck by a remark
which Mr. Thornton made at dinner-time. He enquired from Edith who that
gentleman was; and, rather to her surprise, she found, from the tone of
his “Indeed!” that Mr. Thornton of Milton was not such an unknown name
to him as she had imagined it would be. Her dinner was going off well.
Henry was in good humour, and brought out his dry caustic wit admirably.
Mr. Thornton and Mr. Colthurst found one or two mutual subjects of
interest, which they could only touch upon then, reserving them for
more private after-dinner talk. Margaret looked beautiful in the
pomegranate flowers; and if she did lean back in her chair and speak but
little, Edith was not annoyed, for the conversation flowed on smoothly
without her. Margaret was watching Mr. Thornton’s face. He never looked
at her: so she might study him unobserved, and note the changes which
even this short time had wrought in him. Only at some unexpected mot of
Mr. Lennox’s, his face flashed out into the old look of intense
enjoyment: the merry brightness returned to his eyes, the lips just
parted to suggest the brilliant smile of former days; and for an
instant, his glance instinctively sought hers, as if he wanted her
sympathy. But when their eyes met, his whole countenance changed; he was
grave and anxious once more; and he resolutely avoided even looking near
her again during dinner.

There were only two ladies beside their own party, and as these were
occupied in conversation by her aunt and Edith, when they went up into
the drawing-room, Margaret languidly employed herself about some work.
Presently the gentlemen came up, Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton in close
conversation. Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and said in a low voice:

“I really think Edith owes me thanks for my contribution to her party.
You’ve no idea what an agreeable, sensible fellow this tenant of yours
is. He has been the very man to give Colthurst all the facts he wanted
coaching in. I can’t conceive how he contrived to mismanage his
affairs.”

“With his powers and opportunities you would have succeeded,” said
Margaret. He did not quite relish the tone in which she spoke, although
the words but expressed a thought which had passed through his own mind.
As he was silent, they caught a swell in the sound of conversation going
on near the fire-place between Mr. Colthurst and Mr. Thornton.

“I assure you, I heard it spoken of with great interest—curiosity as to
its result, perhaps I should rather say. I heard your name frequently
mentioned during my short stay in the neighbourhood.” Then they lost
some words; and when next they could hear Mr. Thornton was speaking.

“I have not the elements for popularity—if they spoke of me in that
way, they were mistaken. I fall slowly into new projects; and I find it
difficult to let myself be known, even by those whom I desire to know,
and with whom I would fain have no reserve. Yet, even with all these
drawbacks, I felt that I was on the right path, and that, starting from
a kind of friendship with one, I was becoming acquainted with many. The
advantages were mutual: we were both unconsciously and consciously
teaching each other.”

“You say ‘were.’ I trust you are intending to pursue the same course?”

“I must stop Colthurst,” said Henry Lennox, hastily. And by an abrupt,
yet apropos question, he turned the current of the conversation, so as
not to give Mr. Thornton the mortification of acknowledging his want of
success and consequent change of position. But as soon as the
newly-started subject had come to a close, Mr. Thornton resumed the
conversation just where it had been interrupted, and gave Mr. Colthurst
the reply to his inquiry.

“I have been unsuccessful in business, and have had to give up my
position as a master. I am on the look-out for a situation in Milton,
where I may meet with employment under some one who will be willing to
let me go along my own way in such matters as these. I can depend upon
myself for having no go-ahead theories that I would rashly bring into
practice. My only wish is to have the opportunity of cultivating some
intercourse with the hands beyond the mere ‘cash nexus.’ But it might be
the point Archimedes sought from which to move the earth, to judge by
the importance attached to it by some of our manufacturers, who shake
their heads and look grave as soon as I name the one or two experiments
that I should like to try.”

“You call them ‘experiments’ I notice,” said Mr. Colthurst, with a
delicate increase of respect in his manner.

“Because I believe them to be such. I am not sure of the consequences
that may result from them. But I am sure they ought to be tried. I have
arrived at the conviction that no mere institutions, however wise, and
however much thought may have been required to organise and arrange
them, can attach class to class as they should be attached, unless the
working out of such institutions bring the individuals of the different
classes into actual personal contact. Such intercourse is the very
breath of life. A working man can hardly be made to feel and know how
much his employer may have laboured in his study at plans for the
benefit of his workpeople. A complete plan emerges like a piece of
machinery, apparently fitted for every emergency. But the hands accept
it as they do machinery, without understanding the intense mental labour
and forethought required to bring it to such perfection. But I would
take an idea, the working out of which would necessitate personal
intercourse; it might not go well at first, but at every hitch interest
would be felt by an increasing number of men, and at last its success in
working come to be desired by all, as all had borne a part in the
formation of the plan; and even then I am sure that it would lose its
vitality, cease to be living, as soon as it was no longer carried on by
that sort of common interest which invariably makes people find means
and ways of seeing each other, and becoming acquainted with each others’
characters and persons, and even tricks of temper and modes of speech.
We should understand each other better, and I’ll venture to say we
should like each other more.”

“And you think they may prevent recurrence of strikes?”

“Not at all. My utmost expectation only goes as far as this—that they
may render strikes not the bitter, venomous sources of hatred they have
hitherto been. A more hopeful man might imagine that a closer and more
genial intercourse between classes might do away with strikes. But I am
not a hopeful man.”

Suddenly, as if a new idea had struck him, he crossed over to where
Margaret was sitting, and began, without preface, as if he knew she had
been listening to all that had passed:

“Miss Hale, I had a round-robin from some of my men—I suspect in
Higgins’ handwriting—stating their wish to work for me, if ever I was
in a position to employ men again on my own behalf. That was good,
wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Just right. I am glad of it,” said Margaret, looking up straight
into his face with her speaking eyes, and then dropping them under his
eloquent glance. He gazed back at her for a minute, as if he did not
know exactly what he was about. Then sighed; and saying, “I knew you
would like it,” he turned away, and never spoke to her again until he
bid her a formal “good night.”

As Mr. Lennox took his departure, Margaret said, with a blush that she
could not repress, and with some hesitation,

“Can I speak to you to-morrow? I want your help about—something.”

“Certainly. I will come at whatever time you name. You cannot give me a
greater pleasure than by making me of any use. At eleven? Very well.”

His eye brightened with exultation. How she was learning to depend upon
him! It seemed as if any day now might give him the certainty, without
having which he had determined never to offer to her again.