North and South

RESSING FOR TEA.

“Let China’s earth, enriched with coloured stains,
Pencil’d with gold, and streaked with azure veins,
The grateful flavour of the Indian leaf,
Or Mocha’s sunburnt berry glad receive.”
MRS. BARBOULD.

The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter Mr. Hale came
upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour. He went up to
different objects in the room, as if examining them, but Margaret saw
that it was merely a nervous trick—a way of putting off something he
wished, yet feared to say. Out it came at last—

“My dear! I’ve asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea to-night.”

Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an
expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late.
But she roused up into querulousness at this speech of her husband’s.

“Mr. Thornton!—and to-night! What in the world does the man want to
come here for? And Dixon is washing my muslins and laces, and there is
no soft water with these horrid east winds, which I suppose we shall
have all the year round in Milton.”

“The wind is veering round, my dear,” said Mr. Hale, looking out at the
smoke, which drifted right from the east, only he did not yet understand
the points of the compass, and rather arranged them ad libitum according
to circumstances.

“Don’t tell me!” said Mrs. Hale, shuddering up, and wrapping her shawl
about her still more closely. “But, east or west wind, I suppose this
man comes.”

“Oh mamma, that shows you never saw Mr. Thornton. He looks like a person
who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet
with—enemies, winds, or circumstances. The more it rains and blows, the
more certain we are to have him. But I’ll go and help Dixon. I’m getting
to be a famous clear-starcher. And he won’t want any amusement beyond
talking to Papa. Papa, I am really longing to see the Pythias to your
Damon. You know I never saw him but once, and then we were so puzzled to
know what to say to each other that we did not get on particularly
well.”

“I don’t know that you would ever like him, or think him agreeable,
Margaret. He is not a lady’s man.”

Margaret wreathed her throat in a scornful curve.

“I don’t particularly admire ladies’ men, papa. But Mr. Thornton comes
here as your friend—as one who has appreciated you”—

“The only person in Milton,” said Mrs. Hale.

“So we will give him a welcome, and some cocoa-nut cakes. Dixon will be
flattered if we ask her to make some; and I will undertake to iron your
caps, mamma.”

Many a time that morning did Margaret wish Mr. Thornton far enough away.
She had planned other employments for herself: a letter to Edith, a good
piece of Dante, a visit to the Higginses. But, instead, she ironed away,
listening to Dixon’s complaints, and only hoping that by an excess of
sympathy she might prevent her from carrying the recital of her sorrows
to Mrs. Hale. Every now and then, Margaret had to remind herself of her
father’s regard for Mr. Thornton, to subdue the irritation of weariness
that was stealing over her, and bringing on one of the bad headaches to
which she had lately become liable. She could hardly speak when she sat
down at last, and told her mother that she was no longer Peggy the
laundry-maid, but Margaret Hale the lady. She meant this speech for a
little joke, and was vexed enough with her busy tongue when she found
her mother taking it seriously.

“Yes! if any one had told me, when I was Miss Beresford, and one of the
belles of the country, that a child of mine would have to stand half a
day, in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, that we
might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman, and that this
tradesman should be the only”—

“Oh, mamma!” said Margaret, lifting herself up, “don’t punish me for so
careless a speech. I don’t mind ironing, or any kind of work for you and
papa. I am myself a born and bred lady through it all, even though it
comes to scouring a floor, or washing dishes. I am tired now, just for a
little while; but in half an hour I shall be ready to do the same over
again. And as to Mr. Thornton’s being in trade, why he can’t help that
now, poor fellow. I don’t suppose his education would fit him for much
else.” Margaret lifted herself slowly up, and went to her own room; for
just now she could not bear much more.

In Mr. Thornton’s house, at this very same time, a similar, yet
different scene was going on. A large-boned lady, long past middle age,
sat at work in a grim handsomely-furnished dining-room. Her features,
like her frame, were strong and massive, rather than heavy. Her face
moved slowly from one decided expression to another equally decided.
There was no great variety in her countenance; but those who looked at
it once, generally looked at it again; even the passers by in the
street, half-turned their heads to gaze an instant longer at the firm,
severe, dignified woman, who never gave way in street-courtesy, or
paused in her straight-onward course to the clearly defined end which
she proposed to herself.

She was handsomely dressed in stout black silk, of which not a thread
was worn or discoloured. She was mending a large, long table-cloth of
the finest texture, holding it up against the light occasionally to
discover thin places, which required her delicate care. There was not a
book about in the room, with the exception of Matthew Henry’s Bible
commentaries, six volumes of which lay in the centre of the massive
side-board, flanked by a tea-urn on one side, and a lamp on the other.
In some remote apartment, there was exercise upon the piano going on.
Someone was practising up a morceau de salon, playing it very rapidly,
every third note, on an average, being either indistinct, or wholly
missed out, and the loud chords at the end being half of them false, but
not the less satisfactory to the performer. Mrs. Thornton heard a step,
like her own in its decisive character, pass the dining-room door.

“John! Is that you?”

Her son opened the door, and showed himself.

“What has brought you home so early? I thought you were going to tea
with that friend of Mr. Bell’s; that Mr. Hale?”

“So I am, mother. I am come home to dress!”

“Dress! humph! When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing
once in a day. Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an
old parson?”

“Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.”

“Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never
mentioned them.”

“No! mother, because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss
Hale for half an hour.”

“Take care you don’t get caught by a penniless girl, John.”

“I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But I must not
have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to
me. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I
believe that any one has ever given themselves that useless trouble.”

Mrs. Thornton did not choose to yield the point to her son; or else she
had, in general, pride enough for her sex.

“Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Milton girls have too much
spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale
comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true,
rich husbands are reckoned prizes.”

Mr. Thornton’s brow contracted, and he came a step forward into the
room.

“Mother” (with a short scornful laugh), “you will make me confess. The
only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which
had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me
as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy,
mother.”

“No! I am not easy nor content either. What business had she, a renegade
clergyman’s daughter, to turn up her nose at you! I would dress for none
of them—a saucy set! if I were you.” As he was leaving the room he
said:—

“Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned. He is not saucy. As for Mrs.
Hale, I will tell you what she is like to-night, if you care to hear.”
He shut the door, and was gone.

“Despise my son! treat him as her vassal, indeed! Humph! I should like
to know where she could find such another! Boy and man, he’s the
noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew. I don’t care if I am his mother; I
can see what’s what, and not be blind. I know what Fanny is; and I know
what John is. Despise him! I hate her!”