North and South

EW SCENES AND FACES.

“Mist clogs the sunshine,
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere.”
MATTHEW ARNOLD.

The next afternoon, about twenty miles from Milton-Northern, they
entered on the little branch railway that led to Heston. Heston itself
was one long straggling street, running parallel to the seashore. It
had a character of its own, as different from the little bathing-places
in the south of England as they again from those of the continent. To
use a Scotch word, everything looked more “purpose-like.” The country
carts had more iron, and less wood and leather about the horse-gear; the
people in the streets, although on pleasure bent, had yet a busy mind.
The colours looked grayer—more enduring, not so gay and pretty. There
were no smock-frocks, even among the country-folk; they retarded motion,
and were apt to catch on machinery, and so the habit of wearing them had
died out. In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the
shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their
doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street.
Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made themselves
business in the shop—even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary
unrolling and re-rolling of ribbons. All these differences struck upon
her mind, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for
lodgings.

Their two nights at hotels had cost more than Mr. Hale had anticipated,
and they were glad to take the first clean, cheerful rooms they met with
that were at liberty to receive them. There, for the first time for many
days, did Margaret feel at rest. There was a dreaminess in the rest,
too, which made it still more perfect and luxurious to repose in. The
distant sea, lapped the sandy shore with measured sound; the nearer
cries of the donkey-boys; the unusual scenes moving before her like
pictures, which she cared not in her laziness to have fully explained
before they passed away; the stroll down to the beach to breathe the
sea-air, soft and warm on that sandy shore even to the end of November;
the great long misty sea-line touching the tender-coloured sky; the
white sail of a distant boat turning silver in some pale sunbeam:—it
seemed as if she could dream her life away in such luxury of
pensiveness, in which she made her present all in all, from not daring
to think of the past, or wishing to contemplate the future.

But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be. One evening it
was arranged that Margaret and her father should go the next day to
Milton-Northern, and look out for a house. Mr. Hale had received several
letters from Mr. Bell, and one or two from Mr. Thornton, and he was
anxious to ascertain at once a good many particulars respecting his
position and chances of success there, which he could only do by an
interview with the latter gentleman. Margaret knew that they ought to be
removing; but she had a repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town,
and believed that her mother was receiving benefit from Heston air, so
she would willingly have deferred the expedition to Milton.

For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep
lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon in the direction in which
it lay. It was all the darker from contrast with the pale gray-blue of
the wintry sky; for in Heston there had been the earliest signs of
frost. Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke;
perhaps, after all, more a loss of the fragrance of grass and herbage
than any positive taste or smell. Quick they were whirled over long,
straight, hopeless streets of regularly-built houses, all small and of
brick. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up,
like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black “unparliamentary”
smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which Margaret had
taken to foretell rain. As they drove through the larger and wider
streets, from the station to the hotel, they had to stop constantly;
great loaded lurries blocked up the not over-wide thoroughfares.
Margaret had now and then been into the city in her drives with her
aunt. But there the heavy lumbering vehicles seemed various in their
purposes and intent; here every van, every waggon and truck, bore
cotton, either in the raw shape in bags, or the woven shape in bales of
calico. People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as
regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck
Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar
class in London.

“New Street,” said Mr. Hale. “This, I believe, is the principal street
in Milton. Bell has often spoken to me about it. It was the opening of
this street from a lane into a great thoroughfare, thirty years ago,
which has caused his property to rise so much in value. Mr. Thornton’s
mill must be somewhere not very far off, for he is Mr. Bell’s tenant.
But I fancy he dates from his warehouse.”

“Where is our hotel, papa?”

“Close to the end of this street, I believe. Shall we have lunch before
or after we have looked at the houses we marked in the Milton Times?”

“Oh, let us get our work done first.”

“Very well. Then I will only see if there is any note or letter for me
from Mr. Thornton, who said he would let me know anything he might hear
about these houses, and then we will set off. We will keep the cab; it
will be safer than losing ourselves, and being too late for the train
this afternoon.”

There were no letters awaiting him. They set out on their house-hunting.
Thirty pounds a-year was all they could afford to give, but in Hampshire
they could have met with a roomy house and pleasant garden for the
money. Here, even the necessary accommodation of two sitting-rooms and
four bed-rooms seemed unattainable. They went through their list,
rejecting each as they visited it. They then looked at each other in
dismay.

“We must go back to the second, I think. That one,—in Crampton, don’t
they call the suburb? There were three sitting-rooms; don’t you remember
how we laughed at the number compared with the three bed-rooms? But I
have planned it all. The front room down-stairs is to be your study and
our dining-room (poor papa!), for you know, we settled mamma is to have
as cheerful a sitting-room as we can get; and that front room up-stairs,
with the atrocious blue and pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a
pretty view over the plain, with a great bend of river, or canal, or
whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bed-room
behind, in that projection at the head of the first flight of stairs
over the kitchen, you know—and you and mamma the room behind the
drawing-room, and that closet in the roof will make you a splendid
dressing-room.”

“But Dixon, and the girl we are to have to help?”

“Oh, wait a minute. I am overpowered by the discovery of my own genius
for management. Dixon is to have—let me see, I had it once—the back
sitting-room. I think she will like that. She grumbles so much about the
stairs at Heston; and the girl is to have that sloping attic over your
room and mamma’s. Won’t that do?”

“I dare say it will. But the papers. What taste! And the over-loading
such a house with colour and such heavy cornices!”

“Never mind, papa! Surely you can charm the landlord into re-papering
one or two of the rooms—the drawing-room and your bed-room—for mamma
will come most in contact with them; and your book-shelves will hide a
great deal of that gaudy pattern in the dining-room.”

“Then you think it the best? If so, I had better go at once and call on
this Mr. Donkin, to whom the advertisement refers me. I will take you
back to the hotel, where you can order lunch, and rest, and by the time
it is ready, I shall be with you. I hope I shall be able to get new
papers.”

Margaret hoped so too, though she said nothing. She had never come
fairly in contact with the taste that loves ornament, however bad, more
than the plainness and simplicity which are of themselves the framework
of elegance.

Her father took her through the entrance of the hotel, and leaving her
at the foot of the staircase, went to the address of the landlord of the
house they had fixed upon. Just as Margaret had her hand on the door of
their sitting-room, she was followed by a quick-stepping waiter:

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. The gentleman was gone so quickly, I had no
time to tell him. Mr. Thornton called almost directly after you left;
and as I understood, from what the gentleman said, you would be back in
an hour, I told him so, and he came again about five minutes ago, and
said he would wait for Mr. Hale. He is in your room now, ma’am.”

“Thank you. My father will return soon, and then you can tell him.”

Margaret opened the door and went in with the straight, fearless,
dignified presence habitual to her. She felt no awkwardness; she had too
much the habits of society for that. Here was a person come on business
to her father; and, as he was one who had shown himself obliging, she
was disposed to treat him with a full measure of civility. Mr. Thornton
was a good deal more surprised and discomfited than she. Instead of a
quiet, middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came forward with frank
dignity,—a young lady of a different type to most of those he was in
the habit of seeing. Her dress was very plain: a close straw bonnet of
the best material and shape, trimmed with white ribbon; a large Indian
shawl, which hung about her in long heavy folds, and which she wore as
an empress wears her drapery. He did not understand who she was, as he
caught the simple, straight, unabashed look, which showed that his
being there was of no concern to the beautiful countenance, and called
up no flush of surprise to the pale ivory of the complexion. He had
heard that Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had imagined that she was a
little girl.

“Mr. Thornton, I believe!” said Margaret, after a half-instant’s pause,
during which his unready words would not come. “Will you sit down. My
father brought me to the door not a minute ago, but unfortunately he was
not told that you were here, and he has gone away on some business. But
he will come back almost directly. I am sorry you have had the trouble
of calling twice.”

Mr. Thornton was in habits of authority himself, but she seemed to
assume some kind of rule over him at once. He had been getting impatient
at the loss of his time on a market-day, the moment before she appeared,
yet now he calmly took a seat at her bidding.

“Do you know where it is that Mr. Hale has gone to? Perhaps I might be
able to find him.”

“He has gone to a Mr. Donkin in Canute Street. He is the landlord of the
house my father wishes to take in Crampton.”

Mr. Thornton knew the house. He had seen the advertisement, and been to
look at it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell’s that he would
assist Mr. Hale to the best of his power: and also instigated by his own
interest in the case of a clergyman who had given up his living under
circumstances such as those of Mr. Hale. Mr. Thornton had thought that
the house in Crampton was really just the thing; but now that he saw
Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel
ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales, in
spite of a certain vulgarity in it which had struck him at the time of
his looking it over.

Margaret could not help her looks; but the short curled upper lip, the
round, massive up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her head, her
movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave strangers the
impression of haughtiness. She was tired now, and would much rather have
remained silent, and taken the rest her father had planned for her; but,
of course, she owed to herself to be a gentlewoman, and to speak
courteously from time to time to this stranger; not over-brushed, nor
over-polished, it must be confessed, after his rough encounter with
Milton streets and crowds. She wished that he would go, as he had once
spoken of doing, instead of sitting there, answering with curt sentences
all the remarks she made. She had taken off her shawl, and hung it over
the back of her chair. She sat facing him and facing the light; her full
beauty met his eye; her round white flexile throat rising out of the
full, yet lithe figure; her lips moving so slightly as she spoke, not
breaking the cold serene look of her face with any variation from the
one lovely haughty curve; her eyes, with their soft gloom, meeting his
with quiet maiden freedom. He almost said to himself that he did not
like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so to compensate
himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked upon her with
an admiration he could not repress, she looked at him with proud
indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he
told himself he was—a great rough fellow, with not a grace or a
refinement about him. Her quiet coldness of demeanour he interpreted
into contemptuousness, and resented it in his heart to the pitch of
almost inclining him to get up and go away, and have nothing more to do
with these Hales, and their superciliousness.

Just as Margaret had exhausted her last subject of conversation—and yet
conversation that could hardly be called which consisted of so few and
such short speeches—her father came in, and with his pleasant
gentlemanly courteousness of apology, reinstated his name and family in
Mr. Thornton’s good opinion.

Mr. Hale and his visitor had a good deal to say respecting their mutual
friend, Mr. Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of entertaining the
visitor was over, went to the window to try and make herself more
familiar with the strange aspect of the street. She got so much absorbed
in watching what was going on outside that she hardly heard her father
when he spoke to her, and he had to repeat what he said:

“Margaret! the landlord will persist in admiring that hideous paper, and
I am afraid we must let it remain.”

“Oh dear! I am sorry!” she replied, and began to turn over in her mind
the possibility of hiding part of it, at least, by some of her sketches,
but gave up the idea at last, as likely only to make bad worse. Her
father, meanwhile, with his kindly country hospitality, was pressing Mr.
Thornton to stay to luncheon with them. It would have been very
inconvenient to him to do so, yet he felt that he should have yielded,
if Margaret by word or look had seconded her father’s invitation; he was
glad she did not, and yet he was irritated at her for not doing so. She
gave him a low, grave bow when he left, and he felt more awkward and
self-conscious in every limb than he had ever done in his life before.

“Well, Margaret, now to luncheon as fast as we can. Have you ordered
it?”

“No, papa; that man was here when I came home, and I have never had an
opportunity.”

“Then we must take anything we can get. He must have been waiting a long
time I’m afraid.”

“It seemed exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you
came in. He never went on with any subject, but gave little, short,
abrupt answers.”

“Very much to the point though, I should think. He is a clear-headed
fellow. He said (did you hear?) that Crampton is on gravelly soil, and
by far the most healthy suburb in the neighbourhood of Milton.”

When they returned to Heston, there was the day’s account to be given to
Mrs. Hale, who was full of questions, which they answered in the
intervals of tea-drinking.

“And what is your correspondent, Mr. Thornton, like?”

“Ask Margaret,” said her husband. “She and he had a long attempt at
conversation, while I was away speaking to the landlord.”

“Oh! I hardly know what he is like,” said Margaret, lazily; too tired to
tax her powers of description much. And then rousing herself, she said,
“He is a tall, broad-shouldered man, about—how old, papa?”

“I should guess about thirty.”

“About thirty—with a face that is neither exactly plain, nor yet
handsome, nothing remarkable—not quite a gentleman; but that was hardly
to be expected.”

“Not vulgar or common though,” put in her father, rather jealous of any
disparagement of the sole friend he had in Milton.

“Oh, no!” said Margaret. “With such an expression of resolution and
power, no face, however plain in feature, could be either vulgar or
common. I should not like to have to bargain with him; he looks very
inflexible. Altogether a man who seems made for his niche, mamma;
sagacious, and strong, as becomes a great tradesman.”

“Don’t call the Milton manufacturers tradesmen, Margaret,” said her
father. “They are very different.”

“Are they? I apply the word to all who have something tangible to sell;
but if you think the term is not correct, papa, I won’t use it. But, oh
mamma! speaking of vulgarity and commonness, you must prepare yourself
for our drawing-room paper. Pink and blue roses, with yellow leaves! And
such a heavy cornice round the room!”

But when they removed to their new house in Milton, the obnoxious papers
were gone. The landlord received their thanks very composedly; and let
them think, if they liked, that he had relented from his expressed
determination not to repaper. There was no particular need to tell them,
that what he did not care to do for a Reverend Mr. Hale, unknown in
Milton, he was only too glad to do at the one short sharp remonstrance
of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.