North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell [best love story novels in english TXT] 📗
- Author: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Performer: 0140434240
Book online «North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell [best love story novels in english TXT] 📗». Author Elizabeth Gaskell
‘Yes!’ said Margaret. ‘I am tired, I cannot go.’
She was very silent and trembling while she made tea. She was thankful to see her father so much occupied with her mother as not to notice her looks. Even after her mother went to bed, he was not content to be absent from her, but undertook to read her to sleep. Margaret was alone.
‘Now I will think of it—now I will remember it all. I could not before—I dared not.’ She sat still in her chair, her hands clasped on her knees, her lips compressed, her eyes fixed as one who sees a vision. She drew a deep breath.
‘I, who hate scenes—I, who have despised people for showing emotion—who have thought them wanting in self-control—I went down and must needs throw myself into the melee, like a romantic fool! Did I do any good? They would have gone away without me I dare say.’ But this was overleaping the rational conclusion,—as in an instant her well-poised judgment felt. ‘No, perhaps they would not. I did some good. But what possessed me to defend that man as if he were a helpless child! Ah!’ said she, clenching her hands together, ‘it is no wonder those people thought I was in love with him, after disgracing myself in that way. I in love—and with him too!’ Her pale cheeks suddenly became one flame of fire; and she covered her face with her hands. When she took them away, her palms were wet with scalding tears.
‘Oh how low I am fallen that they should say that of me! I could not have been so brave for any one else, just because he was so utterly indifferent to me—if, indeed, I do not positively dislike him. It made me the more anxious that there should be fair play on each side; and I could see what fair play was. It was not fair, said she, vehemently, ‘that he should stand there—sheltered, awaiting the soldiers, who might catch those poor maddened creatures as in a trap—without an effort on his part, to bring them to reason. And it was worse than unfair for them to set on him as they threatened. I would do it again, let who will say what they like of me. If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action that might otherwise have been committed, I did a woman’s work. Let them insult my maiden pride as they will—I walk pure before God!’
She looked up, and a noble peace seemed to descend and calm her face, till it was ‘stiller than chiselled marble.’
Dixon came in:
‘If you please, Miss Margaret, here’s the water-bed from Mrs. Thornton’s. It’s too late for to-night, I’m afraid, for missus is nearly asleep: but it will do nicely for to-morrow.’
‘Very,’ said Margaret. ‘You must send our best thanks.’
Dixon left the room for a moment.
‘If you please, Miss Margaret, he says he’s to ask particular how you are. I think he must mean missus; but he says his last words were, to ask how Miss Hale was.’
‘Me!’ said Margaret, drawing herself up. ‘I am quite well. Tell him I am perfectly well.’ But her complexion was as deadly white as her handkerchief; and her head ached intensely.
Mr. Hale now came in. He had left his sleeping wife; and wanted, as Margaret saw, to be amused and interested by something that she was to tell him. With sweet patience did she bear her pain, without a word of complaint; and rummaged up numberless small subjects for conversation—all except the riot, and that she never named once. It turned her sick to think of it.
‘Goodnight, Margaret. I have every chance of a good night myself, and you are looking very pale with your watching. I shall call Dixon if your mother needs anything. Do you go to bed and sleep like a top; for I’m sure you need it, poor child!’
‘Goodnight, papa.’
She let her colour go—the forced smile fade away—the eyes grow dull with heavy pain. She released her strong will from its laborious task. Till morning she might feel ill and weary.
She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity. She could not be alone, prostrate, powerless as she was,—a cloud of faces looked up at her, giving her no idea of fierce vivid anger, or of personal danger, but a deep sense of shame that she should thus be the object of universal regard—a sense of shame so acute that it seemed as if she would fain have burrowed into the earth to hide herself, and yet she could not escape out of that unwinking glare of many eyes.
MISTAKES CLEARED UP
‘Your beauty was the first that won the place, And scal’d the walls of my undaunted heart, Which, captive now, pines in a caitive case, Unkindly met with rigour for desert;— Yet not the less your servant shall abide, In spite of rude repulse or silent pride.’ WILLIAM FOWLER.
The next morning, Margaret dragged herself up, thankful that the night was over,—unrefreshed, yet rested. All had gone well through the house; her mother had only wakened once. A little breeze was stirring in the hot air, and though there were no trees to show the playful tossing movement caused by the wind among the leaves, Margaret knew how, somewhere or another, by wayside, in copses, or in thick green woods, there was a pleasant, murmuring, dancing sound,—a rushing and falling noise, the very thought of which was an echo of distant gladness in her heart.
She sat at her work in Mrs. Hale’s room. As soon as that forenoon slumber was over, she would help her mother to dress after. dinner, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. She would banish all recollection of the Thornton family,—no need to think of them till they absolutely stood before her in flesh and blood. But, of course, the effort not to think of them brought them only the more strongly before her; and from time to time, the hot flush came over her pale face sweeping it into colour, as a sunbeam from between watery clouds comes swiftly moving over the sea.
Dixon opened the door very softly, and stole on tiptoe up to Margaret, sitting by the shaded window.
‘Mr. Thornton, Miss Margaret. He is in the drawing-room.’
Margaret dropped her sewing.
‘Did he ask for me? Isn’t papa come in?’
‘He asked for you, miss; and master is out.’
‘Very well, I will come,’ said Margaret, quietly. But she lingered strangely. Mr. Thornton stood by one of the windows, with his back to the door, apparently absorbed in watching something in the street. But, in truth, he was afraid of himself. His heart beat thick at the thought of her coming. He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but never unheeded again. His heart throbbed loud and quick Strong man as he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how it might be received. She might droop, and flush, and flutter to his arms, as to her natural home and resting-place. One moment, he glowed with impatience at the thought that she might do this, the next, he feared a passionate rejection, the very idea of which withered up his future with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it. He was startled by the sense of the presence of some one else in the room. He turned round. She had come in so gently, that he had never heard her; the street noises had been more distinct to his inattentive ear than her slow movements, in her soft muslin gown.
She stood by the table, not offering to sit down. Her eyelids were dropped half over her eyes; her teeth were shut, not compressed; her lips were just parted over them, allowing the white line to be seen between their curve. Her slow deep breathings dilated her thin and beautiful nostrils; it was the only motion visible on her countenance. The fine-grained skin, the oval cheek, the rich outline of her mouth, its corners deep set in dimples,—were all wan and pale to-day; the loss of their usual natural healthy colour being made more evident by the heavy shadow of the dark hair, brought down upon the temples, to hide all sign of the blow she had received. Her head, for all its drooping eyes, was thrown a little back, in the old proud attitude. Her long arms hung motionless by her sides. Altogether she looked like some prisoner, falsely accused of a crime that she loathed and despised, and from which she was too indignant to justify herself.
Mr. Thornton made a hasty step or two forwards; recovered himself, and went with quiet firmness to the door (which she had left open), and shut it. Then he came back, and stood opposite to her for a moment, receiving the general impression of her beautiful presence, before he dared to disturb it, perhaps to repel it, by what he had to say.
‘Miss Hale, I was very ungrateful yesterday—’
‘You had nothing to be grateful for,’ said she, raising her eyes, and looking full and straight at him. ‘You mean, I suppose, that you believe you ought to thank me for what I did.’ In spite of herself—in defiance of her anger—the thick blushes came all over her face, and burnt into her very eyes; which fell not nevertheless from their grave and steady look. ‘It was only a natural instinct; any woman would have done just the same. We all feel the sanctity of our sex as a high privilege when we see danger. I ought rather,’ said she, hastily, ‘to apologise to you, for having said thoughtless words which sent you down into the danger.’
‘It was not your words; it was the truth they conveyed, pungently as it was expressed. But you shall not drive me off upon that, and so escape the expression of my deep gratitude, my—’ he was on the verge now; he would not speak in the haste of his hot passion; he would weigh each word. He would; and his will was triumphant. He stopped in mid career.
‘I do not try to escape from anything,’ said she. ‘I simply say, that you owe me no gratitude; and I may add, that any expression of it will be painful to me, because I do not feel that I deserve it. Still, if it will relieve you from even a fancied obligation, speak on.’
‘I do not want to be relieved from any obligation,’ said he, goaded by her calm manner. Fancied, or not fancied—I question not myself to know which—I choose to believe that I owe my very life to you—ay—smile, and think it an exaggeration if you will. I believe it, because it adds a value to that life to think—oh, Miss Hale!’ continued he, lowering his voice to such a tender intensity
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