North and South Page #29

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

								

affected. There were several other signs of something wrong about Mrs.
Hale. She and Dixon held mysterious consultations in her bedroom, from
which Dixon would come out crying and cross, as was her custom when any
distress of her mistress called upon her sympathy. Once Margaret had
gone into the chamber soon after Dixon left it, and found her mother on
her knees, and as Margaret stole out she caught a few words which were
evidently a prayer for strength and patience to endure severe bodily
suffering. Margaret yearned to re-unite the bond of intimate confidence
which had been broken by her long residence at her aunt Shaw’s, and
strove by gentle caresses and softened words to creep into the warmest
place in her mother’s heart. But though she received caresses and fond
words back again, in such profusion as would have gladdened her
formerly, yet she felt that there was a secret withheld from her, and
she believed it bore serious reference to her mother’s health. She lay
awake very long this night, planning how to lessen the evil influence of
their Milton life on her mother. A servant to give Dixon permanent
assistance should be got, if she gave up her whole time to the search;
and then, at any rate, her mother might have all the personal attention
she required, and had been accustomed to her whole life.

Visiting register offices, seeing all manner of unlikely people, and
very few in the least likely, absorbed Margaret’s time and thoughts for
several days. One afternoon she met Bessy Higgins in the street, and
stopped to speak to her.

“Well, Bessy, how are you? Better, I hope, now the wind has changed.”

“Better and not better, if yo’ know what that means.”

“Not exactly,” replied Margaret, smiling.

“I’m better in not being torn to pieces by coughing o’ nights, but I’m
weary and tired o’ Milton, and longing to get away to the land o’
Beulah? and when I think I’m farther and farther off, my heart sinks,
and I’m no better; I’m worse.”

Margaret turned round to walk alongside of the girl in her feeble
progress homeward. But for a minute or two she did not speak. At last
she said in a low voice,

“Bessy, do you wish to die?” For she shrank from death herself, with all
the clinging to life so natural to the young and healthy.

Bessy was silent in her turn for a minute or two. Then she replied,

“If yo’d led the life I have, and getten as weary of it as I have, and
thought at times, ‘maybe it’ll last for fifty or sixty years--it does
wi’ some,’--and got dizzy and dazed, and sick, as each of them sixty
years seemed to spin about me, and mock me with its length of hours and
minutes, and endless bits o’ time--oh, wench! I tell thee thou’d been
glad enough when th’ doctor said he feared thou’d never see another
winter.”

“Why, Bessy, what kind of a life has yours been?”

“Nought worse than many others,’ I reckon. Only I fretted against it,
and they didn’t.”

“But what was it? You know, I’m a stranger here, so perhaps I’m not so
quick at understanding what you mean as if I’d lived all my life at
Milton.”

“If yo’d ha’ come to our house when yo’ said yo’ would, I could maybe
ha’ told you. But father says yo’re just like th’ rest on ’em; its out
o’ sight out o’ mind wi’ you.”

“I don’t know who the rest are; and I’ve been very busy; and, to tell
the truth, I had forgotten my promise--”

“Yo’ offered it; we asked none of it.”

“I had forgotten what I said for the time,” continued Margaret quietly.
“I should have thought of it again when I was less busy. May I go with
you now?”

Bessy gave a quick glance at Margaret’s face, to see if the wish
expressed was really felt. The sharpness in her eye turned to a wistful
longing as she met Margaret’s soft and friendly gaze.

“I ha’ none so many to care for me; if yo’ care yo’ may come.”

So they walked on together in silence. As they turned up into a small
court, out of a squalid street, Bessy said,

“Yo’ll not be daunted if father’s at home, and speaks a bit gruffish at
first. He took a mind to ye, yo’ see, and he thought a deal o’ your
coming to see us; and just because he liked yo’ he was vexed and put
about.”

“Don’t fear, Bessy.”

But Nicholas was not at home when they entered. A great slatternly girl,
not so old as Bessy, but taller and stronger, was busy at the wash-tub,
knocking about the furniture in a rough capable way, but altogether
making so much noise that Margaret shrunk, out of sympathy with poor
Bessy, who had sat down on the first chair, as if completely tired out
with her walk. Margaret asked the sister for a cup of water, and while
she ran to fetch it (knocking down the fire-irons, and tumbling over a
chair in her way), she unloosed Bessy’s bonnet strings, to relieve her
catching breath.

“Do you think such life as this is worth caring for?” gasped Bessy, at
last. Margaret did not speak, but held the water to her lips. Bessy took
a long and feverish draught, and then fell back and shut her eyes.
Margaret heard her murmur to herself: “They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more: neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat.”

Margaret bent over and said, “Bessy don’t be impatient with your life,
whatever it is--or may have been. Remember who gave it you, and made it
what it is!”

She was startled by hearing Nicholas speak behind her; he had come in
without her noticing him.

“Now, I’ll not have my wench preached to. She’s bad enough, as it is,
with her dreams and her methodee fancies, and her visions of cities with
goulden gates and precious stones. But if it amuses her I let it abe,
but I’m none going to have more stuff poured into her.”

“But surely,” said Margaret, facing round, “you believe in what I said,
that God gave her life, and ordered what kind of life it was to be?”

“I believe what I see, and no more. That’s what I believe, young woman.
I don’t believe all I hear--no! not by a big deal. I did hear a young
lass make an ado about knowing where we lived, and coming to see us. And
my wench here thought a deal about it, and flushed up many a time, when
hoo little knew as I was looking at her, at the sound of a strange step.
But hoo’s come at last,--and hoo’s welcome, as long as hoo’ll keep from
preaching on what hoo knows nought about.”

Bessy had been watching Margaret’s face; she half sate up to speak now,
laying her hand on Margaret’s arm with a gesture of entreaty. “Don’t be
vexed wi’ him--there’s many a one thinks like him: many and many a one
here. If yo’ could hear them speak, yo’d not be shocked at him; he’s a
rare good man, is father--but oh!” said she, falling back in despair,
“what he says at times makes me long to die more than ever, for I want
to know so many things, and am so tossed about wi’ wonder.”

“Poor wench--poor old wench--I’m loth to vex thee, I am; but a man mun
speak out for the truth, and when I see the world going all wrong at
this time o’ day, bothering itself wi’ things it knows nought about, and
leaving undone all the things that lie in disorder close at its
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