North and South Page #16

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.

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whom to apply for advice. The cook and Charlotte worked away with
willing arms and stout hearts at all the moving and packing; and as far
as that went, Margaret’s admirable sense enabled her to see what was
best, and to direct how it should be done. But where were they to go to?
In a week they must be gone. Straight to Milton, or where? So many
arrangements depended on this precision that Margaret resolved to ask
her father one evening, in spite of his evident fatigue and low spirits.
He answered:

“My dear! I have really had too much to think about to settle this. What
does your mother say? What does she wish? Poor Maria!”

He met with an echo even louder than his sigh. Dixon had just come into
the room for another cup of tea for Mrs. Hale, and catching Mr. Hale’s
last words, and protected by his presence from Margaret’s upbraiding
eyes, made bold to say, “My poor mistress!”

“You don’t think her worse to-day,” said Mr. Hale, turning hastily.

“I am sure I can’t say, sir. It’s not for me to judge. The illness seems
so much more on the mind than on the body.”

Mr. Hale looked infinitely distressed.

“You had better take mamma her tea while it is hot, Dixon,” said
Margaret, in a tone of quiet authority.

“Oh! I beg your pardon, Miss! My thoughts was otherwise occupied in
thinking of my poor---- of Mrs. Hale.”

“Papa!” said Margaret, “it is this suspense that is bad for you both. Of
course, mamma must feel your change of opinions: we can’t help that,”
she continued softly; “but now the course is clear, at least to a
certain point. And I think, papa, that I could get mamma to help me in
planning, if you could tell me what to plan for. She has never expressed
any wish in any way, and only thinks of what can’t be helped. Are we to
go straight to Milton? Have you taken a house there?”

“No,” he replied, “I suppose we must go into lodgings, and look about
for a house.”

“And pack up the furniture so that it can be left at the railway
station, till we have met with one?”

“I suppose so. Do what you think best. Only remember, we shall have much
less money to spend.”

They had never had much superfluity, as Margaret knew. She felt that it
was a great weight suddenly thrown upon her shoulders. Four months ago,
all the decisions she needed to make were what dress she would wear for
dinner, and to help Edith to draw out the lists of who should take down
whom in the dinner parties at home. Nor was the household in which she
lived one that called for much decision. Except in the one grand case of
Captain Lennox’s offer, everything went on with the regularity of
clockwork. Once a year, there was a long discussion between her aunt and
Edith as to whether they should go to the Isle of Wight, abroad, or to
Scotland; but at such times Margaret herself was secure of drifting,
without any exertion of her own, into the quiet harbour of home. Now,
since that day when Mr. Lennox came, and startled her into a decision,
every day brought some question, momentous to her, and to those whom she
loved, to be settled.

Her father went up after tea to sit with his wife. Margaret remained
alone in the drawing-room. Suddenly she took a candle and went into her
father’s study for a great atlas, and lugging it back into the
drawing-room, she began to pore over the map of England. She was ready
to look up brightly when her father came down stairs.

“I have hit upon such a beautiful plan. Look here--in Darkshire, hardly
the breadth of my finger from Milton, is Heston, which I have often
heard of from people living in the north as such a pleasant little
bathing-place. Now, don’t you think we could get mamma there with Dixon,
while you and I go and look at houses, and get one all ready for her in
Milton? She would get a breath of sea air to set her up for the winter,
and be spared all the fatigue, and Dixon would enjoy taking care of
her.”

“Is Dixon to go with us?” asked Mr. Hale, in a kind of helpless dismay.

“Oh, yes!” said Margaret. “Dixon quite intends it, and I don’t know what
mamma would do without her.”

“But we shall have to put up with a very different way of living, I am
afraid. Everything is so much dearer in a town. I doubt if Dixon can
make herself comfortable. To tell you the truth, Margaret, I sometimes
feel as if that woman gave herself airs.”

“To be sure she does, papa,” replied Margaret; “and if she has to put up
with a different style of living, we shall have to put up with her airs,
which will be worse. But she really loves us all, and would be miserable
to leave us, I am sure--especially in this change; so, for mamma’s sake,
and for the sake of her faithfulness, I do think she must go.”

“Very well, my dear. Go on. I am resigned. How far is Heston from
Milton? The breadth of one of your fingers does not give me a very clear
idea of distance.”

“Well, then, I suppose it is thirty miles; that is not much!”

“Not in distance, but in--. Never mind! If you really think it will do
your mother good, let it be fixed so.”

This was a great step. Now Margaret could work, and act, and plan in
good earnest. And now Mrs. Hale could rouse herself from her languor,
and forget her real suffering in thinking of the pleasure and the
delight of going to the sea-side. Her only regret was that Mr. Hale
could not be with her all the fortnight she was to be there, as he had
been for a whole fortnight once, when they were engaged, and she was
staying with Sir John and Lady Beresford at Torquay.




CHAPTER VI.

FAREWELL.

    “Unwatch’d the garden bough shall sway,
        The tender blossom flutter down,
        Unloved that beech will gather brown,
    The maple burn itself away;

    Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,
        Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
        And many a rose-carnation feed
    With summer spice the humming air;

        *       *       *       *       *

    Till from the garden and the wild
        A fresh association blow
        And year by year the landscape grow
    Familiar to the stranger’s child;

    As year by year the labourer tills
        His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
        And year by year our memory fades
    From all the circle of the hills.”
              TENNYSON.


The last day came; the house was full of packing-cases, which were being
carted off at the front door, to the nearest railway station. Even the
pretty lawn at the side of the house, was made unsightly and untidy by
the straw that had been wafted upon it through the open door and
windows. The rooms had a strange echoing sound in them,--and the light
came harshly and strongly in through the uncurtained windows,--seeming
already unfamiliar and strange. Mrs. Hale’s dressing-room was left
untouched to the last; and there she and Dixon were packing up clothes,
and interrupting each other every now and then to exclaim at, and turn
over with fond regard, some forgotten treasure, in the shape of some
relic of the children while they were yet little. They did not make much
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