North and South Page #34

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

								

and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had
been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.
Mr. Hale was in exactly that stage of apprehension which, in men of his
stamp, takes the shape of wilful blindness. He was more irritated than
Margaret had ever known him at his daughter’s expressed anxiety.

“Indeed, Margaret, you are growing fanciful! God knows I should be the
first to take the alarm if your mother were really ill; we always saw
when she had her headaches at Helstone, even without her telling us. She
looks quite pale and white when she is ill; and now she has a bright
healthy colour in her cheeks, just as she used to have when I first knew
her.”

“But papa,” said Margaret, with hesitation, “do you know I think that is
the flush of pain.”

“Nonsense, Margaret. I tell you, you are too fanciful. You are the
person not well, I think. Send for the doctor to-morrow for yourself;
and then, if it will make your mind easier, he can see your mother.”

“Thank you, dear papa. It will make me happier, indeed.” And she went up
to him to kiss him. But he pushed her away--gently enough, but still as
if she had suggested unpleasant ideas, which he should be glad to get
rid of as readily as he could of her presence. He walked uneasily up and
down the room.

“Poor Maria!” said he, half soliloquising, “I wish one could do right
without sacrificing others. I shall hate this town, and myself too, if
she----. Pray, Margaret, does your mother often talk to you of the old
places: of Helstone, I mean.”

“No, papa,” said Margaret, sadly.

“Then, you see, she can’t be fretting after them, eh? It has always been
a comfort to me to think that your mother was so simple and open that I
knew every little grievance she had. She never would conceal anything
seriously affecting her health from me: would she, eh, Margaret? I am
quite sure she would not. So don’t let me hear of these foolish morbid
ideas. Come, give me a kiss, and run off to bed.”

But she heard him pacing about (racooning, as she and Edith used to call
it) long after her slow and languid undressing was finished--long after
as she began to listen as she lay in bed.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE MEETING.

                        “I was used
    To sleep at nights as sweetly as a child,--
    Now if the wind blew rough, it made me start,
    And think of my poor boy tossing about
    Upon the roaring seas. And then I seemed
    To feel that it was hard to take him from me
    For such a little fault.”
                      SOUTHEY.


It was a comfort to Margaret about this time, to find that her mother
drew more tenderly and intimately towards her than she had ever done
since the days of her childhood. She took her to her heart as a
confidential friend--the post Margaret had always longed to fill, and
had envied Dixon for being preferred to. Margaret took pains to respond
to every call made upon her for sympathy--and they were many--even when
they bore relation to trifles which she would no more have noticed or
regarded herself than the elephant would perceive the little pin at his
feet, which yet he lifts carefully up at the bidding of his keeper. All
unconsciously Margaret drew near to a reward.

One evening, Mr. Hale being absent, her mother began to talk to her
about her brother Frederick, the very subject on which Margaret had
longed to ask questions, and almost the only one on which her timidity
overcame her natural openness. The more she wanted to hear about him,
the less likely she was to speak.

“Oh, Margaret, it was so windy last night! It came howling down the
chimney in our room! I could not sleep. I never can when there is such a
terrible wind. I got into a wakeful habit when poor Frederick was at
sea; and now, even if I don’t waken all at once, I dream of him in some
stormy sea, with great, clear, glass-green walls of waves on either side
his ship, but far higher than her very masts, curling over her with that
cruel, terrible white foam, like some gigantic crested serpent. It is an
old dream, but it always comes back on windy nights, till I am thankful
to waken, sitting straight and stiff up in bed with my terror. Poor
Frederick! He is on land now, so wind can do him no harm. Though I did
think it might shake down some of those tall chimneys.”

“Where is Frederick now, mamma? Our letters are directed to the care of
Messrs. Barbour, at Cadiz. I know: but where is he himself?”

“I can’t remember the name of the place, but he is not called Hale; you
must remember that, Margaret. Notice the F. D. in every corner of the
letters. He has taken the name of Dickenson. I wanted him to have been
called Beresford, to which he had a kind of right, but your father
thought he had better not. He might be recognised, you know, if he were
called by my name.”

“Mamma,” said Margaret, “I was at Aunt Shaw’s when it all happened; and
I suppose I was not old enough to be told plainly about it. But I should
like to know now, if I may--if it does not give you too much pain to
speak about it.”

“Pain! No,” replied Mrs. Hale, her cheek flushing. “Yet it is pain to
think that perhaps I may never see my darling boy again. Or else he did
right, Margaret. They may say what they like, but I have his own letters
to show, and I’ll believe him, though he is my son, sooner than any
court-martial on earth. Go to my little japan cabinet, dear, and in the
second left-hand drawer you will find a packet of letters.”

Margaret went. There were the yellow, sea-stained letters, with the
peculiar fragrance which ocean letters have. Margaret carried them back
to her mother, who untied the silken string with trembling fingers, and,
examining their dates, she gave them to Margaret to read, making her
hurried, anxious remarks on their contents, almost before her daughter
could have understood what they were.

“You see, Margaret, how from the very first he disliked Captain Reid. He
was second lieutenant in the ship--the Orion--in which Frederick sailed
the very first time. Poor little fellow, how well he looked in his
midshipman’s dress, with his dirk in his hand, cutting open all the
newspapers with it as if it were a paper-knife! But this Mr. Reid, as he
was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the very beginning.
And then--stay! these are the letters he wrote on board the Russell.
When he was appointed to her, and found his old enemy Captain Reid in
command, he did mean to bear all his tyranny patiently. Look! this is
the letter. Just read it, Margaret. Where is it he says--Stop--‘my
father may rely upon me, that I will bear with all proper patience
everything that one officer and gentleman can take from another. But
from my former knowledge of my present captain, I confess I look forward
with apprehension to a long course of tyranny on board the Russell.’ You
see, he promises to bear patiently, and I am sure he did, for he was the
sweetest-tempered boy, when he was not vexed, that could possibly be. Is
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