North and South Page #14

North and South is a social novel published in 1854 by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. With Wives and Daughters and Cranford, it is one of her best-known novels and was adapted for television three times. The 2004 version renewed interest in the novel and attracted a wider readership.

• Novel

								

delayed making it, but Margaret was of different stuff. She could not
bear the impending weight on her mind all day long: better get the worst
over; the day would be too short to comfort her mother. But while she
stood by the window, thinking how to begin, and waiting for the servant
to have left the room, her mother had gone up stairs to put on her
things to go to the school. She came down ready equipped, in a brisker
mood than usual.

“Mother, come round the garden with me this morning; just one turn,”
said Margaret, putting her arm round Mrs. Hale’s waist.

They passed through the open window. Mrs. Hale spoke--said
something--Margaret could not tell what. Her eye caught on a bee
entering a deep-belled flower: when that bee flew forth with his spoil
she would begin--that should be the sign. Out he came.

“Mamma! Papa is going to leave Helstone!” she blurted forth. “He’s going
to leave the Church, and live in Milton-Northern.” There were the three
hard facts hardly spoken.

“What makes you say so?” asked Mrs. Hale, in a surprised, incredulous
voice. “Who has been telling you such nonsense?”

“Papa himself,” said Margaret, longing to say something gentle and
consoling, but literally not knowing how. They were close to a
garden-bench. Mrs. Hale sat down and began to cry.

“I don’t understand you,” she said. “Either you have made some great
mistake, or I don’t quite understand you.”

“No, mother, I have made no mistake. Papa has written to the bishop,
saying that he has such doubts that he cannot conscientiously remain a
priest of the Church of England, and that he must give up Helstone. He
has also consulted Mr. Bell--Frederick’s godfather, you know, mamma; and
it is arranged that we go to live at Milton-Northern.” Mrs. Hale looked
up in Margaret’s face all the time she was speaking these words: the
shadow on her countenance told that she, at least, believed in the truth
of what she said.

“I don’t think it can be true,” said Mrs. Hale, at length. “He would
surely have told me before it came to this.”

It came strongly upon Margaret’s mind that her mother ought to have been
told: that whatever her faults of discontent and repining might have
been, it was an error in her father to have left her to learn his change
of opinion, and his approaching change of life, from her better-informed
child. Margaret sat down by her mother, and took her unresisting head on
her breast, bending her own soft cheeks down caressingly to touch her
face.

“Dear, darling mamma! we were so afraid of giving you pain. Papa felt so
acutely--you know you are not strong, and there must have been such
terrible suspense to go through.”

“When did he tell you, Margaret?”

“Yesterday, only yesterday,” replied Margaret, detecting the jealousy
which prompted the inquiry. “Poor papa!”--trying to divert her mother’s
thoughts into compassionate sympathy for all her father had gone
through. Mrs. Hale raised her head.

“What does he mean by having doubts?” she asked. “Surely, he does not
mean that he thinks differently--that he knows better than the Church.”

Margaret shook her head, and the tears came into her eyes, as her mother
touched the bare nerve of her own regret.

“Can’t the bishop set him right?” asked Mrs. Hale half impatiently.

“I’m afraid not,” said Margaret. “But I did not ask. I could not bear to
hear what he might answer. It is all settled at any rate. He is going to
leave Helstone in a fortnight. I am not sure if he did not say he had
sent in his deed of resignation.”

“In a fortnight!” exclaimed Mrs. Hale, “I do think this is very
strange--not at all right. I call it very unfeeling,” said she,
beginning to take relief in tears. “He has doubts you say, and gives up
his living, and all without consulting me. I dare say, if he had told me
his doubts at the first I could have nipped them in the bud.”

Mistaken as Margaret felt her father’s conduct to have been, she could
not bear to hear it blamed by her mother. She knew that his very
reserve had originated in a tenderness for her, which might be cowardly,
but was not unfeeling.

“I almost hoped you might be glad to leave Helstone, mamma,” said she,
after a pause. “You have never been well in this air, you know.”

“You can’t think the smoky air of a manufacturing town, all chimneys and
dirt like Milton-Northern, would be better than this air, which is pure
and sweet, if it is too soft and relaxing. Fancy living in the middle of
factories, and factory people! Though, of course, if your father leaves
the Church, we shall not be admitted into society anywhere. It will be
such a disgrace to us! Poor dear Sir John! It is well he is not alive to
see what your father has come to! Every day after dinner, when I was a
girl, living with your Aunt Shaw, at Beresford Court, Sir John used to
give for the first toast--‘Church and King, and down with the Rump.’”

Margaret was glad that her mother’s thoughts were turned away from the
fact of her husband’s silence to her on the point which must have been
so near his heart. Next to the serious vital anxiety as to the nature of
her father’s doubts, this was the one circumstance of the case that gave
Margaret the most pain.

“You know, we have very little society here, mamma. The Gormans, who are
our nearest neighbours (to call society--and we hardly ever see them),
have been in trade just as much as these Milton-Northern people.”

“Yes,” says Mrs. Hale, almost indignantly, “but at any rate, the Gormans
made carriages for half the gentlemen of the county, and were brought
into some kind of intercourse with them; but these factory people, who
on earth wears cotton that can afford linen?”

“Well, mamma, I give up the cotton-spinners; I am not standing up for
them, any more than for any other trades-people. Only we shall have
little enough to do with them.”

“Why on earth has your father fixed on Milton-Northern to live in?”

“Partly,” said Margaret, sighing, “because it is so very different from
Helstone--partly because Mr. Bell says there is an opening there for a
private tutor.”

“Private tutor in Milton! Why can’t he go to Oxford, and be a tutor to
gentlemen?”

“You forget, mamma! He is leaving the Church on account of his
opinions--his doubts would do him no good at Oxford.”

Mrs. Hale was silent for some time, quietly crying. At last she said:--

“And the furniture--How in the world are we to manage the removal? I
never removed in my life, and only a fortnight to think about it!”

Margaret was inexpressibly relieved to find that her mother’s anxiety
and distress was lowered to this point, so insignificant to herself, and
on which she could do so much to help. She planned and promised, and led
her mother on to arrange fully as much as could be fixed before they
knew somewhat more definitely what Mr. Hale intended to do. Throughout
the day Margaret never left her mother; bending her whole soul to
sympathise in all the various turns her feelings took; towards evening
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