North and South Page #25

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

								

street, half-turned their heads to gaze an instant longer at the firm,
severe, dignified woman, who never gave way in street-courtesy, or
paused in her straight-onward course to the clearly defined end which
she proposed to herself.

She was handsomely dressed in stout black silk, of which not a thread
was worn or discoloured. She was mending a large, long table-cloth of
the finest texture, holding it up against the light occasionally to
discover thin places, which required her delicate care. There was not a
book about in the room, with the exception of Matthew Henry’s Bible
commentaries, six volumes of which lay in the centre of the massive
side-board, flanked by a tea-urn on one side, and a lamp on the other.
In some remote apartment, there was exercise upon the piano going on.
Someone was practising up a morceau de salon, playing it very rapidly,
every third note, on an average, being either indistinct, or wholly
missed out, and the loud chords at the end being half of them false, but
not the less satisfactory to the performer. Mrs. Thornton heard a step,
like her own in its decisive character, pass the dining-room door.

“John! Is that you?”

Her son opened the door, and showed himself.

“What has brought you home so early? I thought you were going to tea
with that friend of Mr. Bell’s; that Mr. Hale?”

“So I am, mother. I am come home to dress!”

“Dress! humph! When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing
once in a day. Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an
old parson?”

“Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.”

“Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never
mentioned them.”

“No! mother, because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss
Hale for half an hour.”

“Take care you don’t get caught by a penniless girl, John.”

“I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But I must not
have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to
me. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I
believe that any one has ever given themselves that useless trouble.”

Mrs. Thornton did not choose to yield the point to her son; or else she
had, in general, pride enough for her sex.

“Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Milton girls have too much
spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale
comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true,
rich husbands are reckoned prizes.”

Mr. Thornton’s brow contracted, and he came a step forward into the
room.

“Mother” (with a short scornful laugh), “you will make me confess. The
only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which
had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me
as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy,
mother.”

“No! I am not easy nor content either. What business had she, a renegade
clergyman’s daughter, to turn up her nose at you! I would dress for none
of them--a saucy set! if I were you.” As he was leaving the room he
said:--

“Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned. He is not saucy. As for Mrs.
Hale, I will tell you what she is like to-night, if you care to hear.”
He shut the door, and was gone.

“Despise my son! treat him as her vassal, indeed! Humph! I should like
to know where she could find such another! Boy and man, he’s the
noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew. I don’t care if I am his mother; I
can see what’s what, and not be blind. I know what Fanny is; and I know
what John is. Despise him! I hate her!”




CHAPTER X.

WROUGHT IRON AND GOLD.

    “We are the trees whom shaking fastens more.”
              GEORGE HERBERT.


Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again.
He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton. He was anxious
not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctuality. The
church-clock struck half-past seven as he stood at the door awaiting
Dixon’s slow movements; always doubly tardy when she had to degrade
herself by answering the door-bell. He was ushered into the little
drawing-room, and kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to his
wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped figure made a silent excuse for
the cold languor of her greeting. Margaret was lighting the lamp when he
entered, for the darkness was coming on. The lamp threw a pretty light
into the centre of the dusky room, from which, with country habits, they
did not exclude the night-skies, and the outer darkness of air. Somehow,
that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome,
ponderous, with no sign of female habitation, except in the one spot
where his mother sate, and no convenience for any other employment than
eating and drinking. To be sure, it was a dining-room; his mother
preferred to sit in it; and her will was a household law. But the
drawing-room was not like this. It was twice--twenty times as fine; not
one quarter as comfortable. Here were no mirrors, not even a scrap of
glass to reflect the light, and answer the same purpose as water in a
landscape; no gilding; a warm, sober breadth of colouring, well relieved
by the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers. An open
davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was
a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of
English ivy, pale green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves. Pretty
baskets of work stood about in different places: and books, not cared
for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently
put down. Behind the door was another table decked out for tea, with a
white table-cloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket
piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.

It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares were habitual
to the family; and especially of a piece with Margaret. She stood by the
tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink
about it. She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation,
but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands
moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness. She had a bracelet on one
taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton
watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more
attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated
him to see her push it up impatiently until it tightened her soft flesh;
and then to mark the loosening--the fall. He could almost have
exclaimed--“There it goes again!” There was so little left to be done
after he arrived at the preparation for tea, that he was almost sorry
the obligation of eating and drinking came so soon to prevent him
watching Margaret. She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of
an unwilling slave; but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for
another cup; and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw
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