North and South Page #19

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

								

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
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