North and South Page #22

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

								

she penetrated farther into what might have been. If she had cared for
him as a lover, and had accepted him, and this change in her father’s
opinions and consequent station had taken place, she could not doubt but
that it would have been impatiently received by Mr. Lennox. It was a
bitter mortification to her in one sense; but she could bear it
patiently, because she knew her father’s purity of purpose, and that
strengthened her to endure his errors, grave and serious though in her
estimation they were. But the fact of the world esteeming her father
degraded, in its rough wholesale judgment, would have oppressed and
irritated Mr. Lennox. As she realised what might have been, she grew to
be thankful for what was. They were at the lowest now; they could not be
worse. Edith’s astonishment and her Aunt Shaw’s dismay would have to be
met bravely, when their letters came. So Margaret rose up and began
slowly to undress herself, feeling the full luxury of acting leisurely,
late as it was, after all the past hurry of the day. She fell asleep,
hoping for some brightness, either internal or external. But if she had
known how long it would be before the brightness came, her heart would
have sunk low down. The time of the year was most unpropitious to health
as well as to spirits. Her mother caught a severe cold, and Dixon
herself was evidently not well, although Margaret could not insult her
more than by trying to save her, or by taking any care of her. They
could hear of no girl to assist her; all were at work in the factories;
at least, those who applied were well scolded by Dixon, for thinking
that such as they could ever be trusted to work in a gentleman’s house.
So they had to keep a charwoman in almost constant employ. Margaret
longed to send for Charlotte; but besides the objection of her being a
better servant than they now could afford to keep, the distance was too
great.

Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr. Bell, or by
the more immediate influence of Mr. Thornton. They were mostly of the
age when many boys would be still at school, but, according to the
prevalent, and, apparently well-founded notions of Milton, to make a lad
into a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimated to the
life of the mill, or office, or warehouse. If he were sent to even the
Scotch Universities, he came back unsettled for commercial pursuits: how
much more so if he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he could not be
entered till he was eighteen? So most of the manufacturers placed their
sons in situations at from fourteen or fifteen years of age, unsparingly
cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high
mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigour
of the plant into commerce. Still there were some wiser parents; and
some who had sense enough to perceive their own deficiencies, and strive
to remedy them. Nay, there were a few no longer youths, but men in the
prime of life, who had the stern wisdom to acknowledge their own
ignorance, and to learn late what they should have learnt early. Mr.
Thornton was perhaps the oldest of Mr. Hale’s pupils. He was certainly
the favourite. Mr. Hale got into the habit of quoting his opinions so
frequently, and with such regard, that it became a little domestic joke
to wonder what time, during the hour appointed for instruction, could be
given to absolute learning, so much of it appeared to have been spent in
conversation.

Margaret rather encouraged this light, merry way of viewing her father’s
acquaintance with Mr. Thornton, because she felt that her mother was
inclined to look upon this new friendship of her husband’s with jealous
eyes. As long as his time had been solely occupied with his books and
his parishioners, as at Helstone, she had appeared to care little
whether she saw much of him or not; but now that he looked eagerly
forward to each renewal of his intercourse with Mr. Thornton, she seemed
hurt and annoyed, as if he were slighting her companionship for the
first time. Mr. Hale’s over-praise had the usual effect of over-praise
upon his auditors; they were a little inclined to rebel against
Aristides being always called the Just.

After a quiet life in a country parsonage for more than twenty years,
there was something dazzling to Mr. Hale in the energy which conquered
immense difficulties with ease; the power of the machinery of Milton,
the power of the men of Milton, impressed him with a sense of grandeur,
which he yielded to without caring to inquire into the details of its
exercise. But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw
less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown
with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of
people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question
always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these
exceptions as small as possible? or, in the triumph of the crowded
procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently
lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have no
power to accompany on his march?

It fell to Margaret’s share to have to look out for a servant to assist
Dixon, who had at first undertaken to find just the person she wanted to
do all the rough work of the house. But Dixon’s ideas of helpful girls
were founded on the recollection of tidy elder scholars at Helstone
school, who were only too proud to be allowed to come to the parsonage
on a busy day, and treated Mrs. Dixon with all the respect, and a good
deal more of fright, which they paid to Mr. and Mrs. Hale. Dixon was not
unconscious of this awed reverence which was given to her; nor did she
dislike it: it flattered her much as Louis the Fourteenth was flattered
by his courtiers shading their eyes from the dazzling light of his
presence. But nothing short of her faithful love for Mrs. Hale could
have made her endure the rough independent way in which all the Milton
girls, who made application for the servant’s place, replied to her
inquiries respecting their qualifications. They even went the length of
questioning her back again; having doubts and fears of their own, as to
the solvency of a family who lived in a house of thirty pounds a-year,
and yet gave themselves airs, and kept two servants, one of them so very
high and mighty. Mr. Hale was no longer looked upon as Vicar of
Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate. Margaret was
weary and impatient of the accounts which Dixon perpetually brought to
Mrs. Hale of the behaviour of these would-be servants. Not but what
Margaret was repelled by the rough uncourteous manners of these people;
not but what she shrunk with fastidious pride from their hail-fellow
accost, and severely resented their unconcealed curiosity as to the
means and position of any family who lived in Milton, and yet were not
engaged in trade of some kind. But the more Margaret felt impertinence,
the more likely she was to be silent on the subject; and, at any rate,
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