Cranford Page #19

Cranford is an episodic novel by the English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It first appeared in instalments in the magazine Household Words, then was published with minor revisions as a book with the title Cranford in 1853.

• Novel

								

you done enough, sir?’ quite hoarsely, and still standing quite quiet.  I
don’t know what my father said—or if he said anything.  But old Clare
said, Peter turned to where the people outside the railing were, and made
them a low bow, as grand and as grave as any gentleman; and then walked
slowly into the house.  I was in the store-room helping my mother to make
cowslip wine.  I cannot abide the wine now, nor the scent of the flowers;
they turn me sick and faint, as they did that day, when Peter came in,
looking as haughty as any man—indeed, looking like a man, not like a boy.
‘Mother!’ he said, ‘I am come to say, God bless you for ever.’  I saw his
lips quiver as he spoke; and I think he durst not say anything more
loving, for the purpose that was in his heart.  She looked at him rather
frightened, and wondering, and asked him what was to do.  He did not
smile or speak, but put his arms round her and kissed her as if he did
not know how to leave off; and before she could speak again, he was gone.
We talked it over, and could not understand it, and she bade me go and
seek my father, and ask what it was all about.  I found him walking up
and down, looking very highly displeased.

“‘Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that he richly deserved it.’

“I durst not ask any more questions.  When I told my mother, she sat
down, quite faint, for a minute.  I remember, a few days after, I saw the
poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf heap, to decay and
die there.  There was no making of cowslip wine that year at the
rectory—nor, indeed, ever after.

“Presently my mother went to my father.  I know I thought of Queen Esther
and King Ahasuerus; for my mother was very pretty and delicate-looking,
and my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus.  Some time after they
came out together; and then my mother told me what had happened, and that
she was going up to Peter’s room at my father’s desire—though she was not
to tell Peter this—to talk the matter over with him.  But no Peter was
there.  We looked over the house; no Peter was there!  Even my father,
who had not liked to join in the search at first, helped us before long.
The rectory was a very old house—steps up into a room, steps down into a
room, all through.  At first, my mother went calling low and soft, as if
to reassure the poor boy, ‘Peter!  Peter, dear! it’s only me;’ but,
by-and-by, as the servants came back from the errands my father had sent
them, in different directions, to find where Peter was—as we found he was
not in the garden, nor the hayloft, nor anywhere about—my mother’s cry
grew louder and wilder, ‘Peter!  Peter, my darling! where are you?’ for
then she felt and understood that that long kiss meant some sad kind of
‘good-bye.’  The afternoon went on—my mother never resting, but seeking
again and again in every possible place that had been looked into twenty
times before, nay, that she had looked into over and over again herself.
My father sat with his head in his hands, not speaking except when his
messengers came in, bringing no tidings; then he lifted up his face, so
strong and sad, and told them to go again in some new direction.  My
mother kept passing from room to room, in and out of the house, moving
noiselessly, but never ceasing.  Neither she nor my father durst leave
the house, which was the meeting-place for all the messengers.  At last
(and it was nearly dark), my father rose up.  He took hold of my mother’s
arm as she came with wild, sad pace through one door, and quickly towards
another.  She started at the touch of his hand, for she had forgotten all
in the world but Peter.

“‘Molly!’ said he, ‘I did not think all this would happen.’  He looked
into her face for comfort—her poor face all wild and white; for neither
she nor my father had dared to acknowledge—much less act upon—the terror
that was in their hearts, lest Peter should have made away with himself.
My father saw no conscious look in his wife’s hot, dreary eyes, and he
missed the sympathy that she had always been ready to give him—strong man
as he was, and at the dumb despair in her face his tears began to flow.
But when she saw this, a gentle sorrow came over her countenance, and she
said, ‘Dearest John! don’t cry; come with me, and we’ll find him,’ almost
as cheerfully as if she knew where he was.  And she took my father’s
great hand in her little soft one, and led him along, the tears dropping
as he walked on that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to room,
through house and garden.

“Oh, how I wished for Deborah!  I had no time for crying, for now all
seemed to depend on me.  I wrote for Deborah to come home.  I sent a
message privately to that same Mr Holbrook’s house—poor Mr Holbrook;—you
know who I mean.  I don’t mean I sent a message to him, but I sent one
that I could trust to know if Peter was at his house.  For at one time Mr
Holbrook was an occasional visitor at the rectory—you know he was Miss
Pole’s cousin—and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him how to
fish—he was very kind to everybody, and I thought Peter might have gone
off there.  But Mr Holbrook was from home, and Peter had never been seen.
It was night now; but the doors were all wide open, and my father and
mother walked on and on; it was more than an hour since he had joined
her, and I don’t believe they had ever spoken all that time.  I was
getting the parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants was preparing
tea, for I wanted them to have something to eat and drink and warm them,
when old Clare asked to speak to me.

“‘I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty.  Shall we drag the
ponds to-night, or wait for the morning?’

“I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I
laughed out loud.  The horror of that new thought—our bright, darling
Peter, cold, and stark, and dead!  I remember the ring of my own laugh
now.

“The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again.  She would
not have been so weak as to give way as I had done; but my screams (my
horrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my sweet dear mother,
whose poor wandering wits were called back and collected as soon as a
child needed her care.  She and Deborah sat by my bedside; I knew by the
looks of each that there had been no news of Peter—no awful, ghastly
news, which was what I most had dreaded in my dull state between sleeping
and waking.

“The same result of all the searching had brought something of the same
relief to my mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought that Peter might
even then be hanging dead in some of the familiar home places had caused
that never-ending walk of yesterday.  Her soft eyes never were the same
again after that; they had always a restless, craving look, as if seeking
for what they could not find.  Oh! it was an awful time; coming down like
a thunder-bolt on the still sunny day when the lilacs were all in bloom.”

“Where was Mr Peter?” said I.
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