North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (classic literature books .txt) 📖

Pray whose opinion did you think would have the most obstinate vitality?’

Mr. Thornton had not a notion what they were talking about, and disdained to inquire. Mr. Hale politely enlightened him.

‘Mr. Thornton, we were accusing Mr. Bell this morning of a kind of Oxonian mediaeval bigotry against his native town; and we—Margaret, I believe—suggested that it would do him good to associate a little with Milton manufacturers.’

‘I beg your pardon. Margaret thought it would do the Milton manufacturers good to associate a little more with Oxford men. Now wasn’t it so, Margaret?’

‘I believe I thought it would do both good to see a little more of the other,—I did not know it was my idea any more than papa’s.’

‘And so you see, Mr. Thornton, we ought to have been improving each other downstairs, instead of talking over vanished families of Smiths and Harrisons. However, I am willing to do my part now. I wonder when you Milton men intend to live. All your lives seem to be spent in gathering together the materials for life.’

‘By living, I suppose you mean enjoyment.’

‘Yes, enjoyment,—I don’t specify of what, because I trust we should both consider mere pleasure as very poor enjoyment.’

‘I would rather have the nature of the enjoyment defined.’

‘Well! enjoyment of leisure—enjoyment of the power and influence which money gives. You are all striving for money. What do you want it for?’

Mr. Thornton was silent. Then he said, ‘I really don’t know. But money is not what I strive for.’

‘What then?’

‘It is a home question. I shall have to lay myself open to such a catechist, and I am not sure that I am prepared to do it.’

‘No!’ said Mr. Hale; ‘don’t let us be personal in our catechism. You are neither of you representative men; you are each of you too individual for that.’

‘I am not sure whether to consider that as a compliment or not. I should like to be the representative of Oxford, with its beauty and its learning, and its proud old history. What do you say, Margaret; ought I to be flattered?’

‘I don’t know Oxford. But there is a difference between being the representative of a city and the representative man of its inhabitants.’

‘Very true, Miss Margaret. Now I remember, you were against me this morning, and were quite Miltonian and manufacturing in your preferences.’ Margaret saw the quick glance of surprise that Mr. Thornton gave her, and she was annoyed at the construction which he might put on this speech of Mr. Bell’s. Mr. Bell went on—

‘Ah! I wish I could show you our High Street—our Radcliffe Square. I am leaving out our colleges, just as I give Mr. Thornton leave to omit his factories in speaking of the charms of Milton. I have a right to abuse my birth-place. Remember I am a Milton man.

Mr. Thornton was annoyed more than he ought to have been at all that Mr. Bell was saying. He was not in a mood for joking. At another time, he could have enjoyed Mr. Bell’s half testy condemnation of a town where the life was so at variance with every habit he had formed; but now, he was galled enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to be seriously attacked.

‘I don’t set up Milton as a model of a town.’

‘Not in architecture?’ slyly asked Mr. Bell.

‘No! We’ve been too busy to attend to mere outward appearances.’

‘Don’t say mere outward appearances,’ said Mr. Hale, gently. ‘They impress us all, from childhood upward—every day of our life.’

‘Wait a little while,’ said Mr. Thornton. ‘Remember, we are of a different race from the Greeks, to whom beauty was everything, and to whom Mr. Bell might speak of a life of leisure and serene enjoyment, much of which entered in through their outward senses. I don’t mean to despise them, any more than I would ape them. But I belong to Teutonic blood; it is little mingled in this part of England to what it is in others; we retain much of their language; we retain more of their spirit; we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion. Our glory and our beauty arise out of our inward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance, and over greater difficulties still. We are Teutonic up here in Darkshire in another way. We hate to have laws made for us at a distance. We wish people would allow us to right ourselves, instead of continually meddling, with their imperfect legislation. We stand up for self-government, and oppose centralisation.’

‘In short, you would like the Heptarchy back again. Well, at any rate, I revoke what I said this morning—that you Milton people did not reverence the past. You are regular worshippers of Thor.’

‘If we do not reverence the past as you do in Oxford, it is because we want something which can apply to the present more directly. It is fine when the study of the past leads to a prophecy of the future. But to men groping in new circumstances, it would be finer if the words of experience could direct us how to act in what concerns us most intimately and immediately; which is full of difficulties that must be encountered; and upon the mode in which they are met and conquered—not merely pushed aside for the time—depends our future. Out of the wisdom of the past, help us over the present. But no! People can speak of Utopia much more easily than of the next day’s duty; and yet when that duty is all done by others, who so ready to cry, “Fie, for shame!”’

‘And all this time I don’t see what you are talking about. Would you Milton men condescend to send up your to-day’s difficulty to Oxford? You have not tried us yet.’

Mr. Thornton laughed outright at this. ‘I believe I was talking with reference to a good deal that has been troubling us of late; I was thinking of the strikes we have gone through, which are troublesome and injurious things enough, as I am finding to my cost. And yet this last strike, under which I am smarting, has been respectable.’

‘A respectable strike!’ said Mr. Bell. ‘That sounds as if you were far gone in the worship of Thor.’

Margaret felt, rather than saw, that Mr. Thornton was chagrined by the repeated turning into jest of what he was feeling as very serious. She tried to change the conversation from a subject about which one party cared little, while, to the other, it was deeply, because personally, interesting. She forced herself to say something.

‘Edith says she finds the printed calicoes in Corfu better and cheaper than in London.’

‘Does she?’ said her father. ‘I think that must be one of Edith’s exaggerations. Are you sure of it, Margaret?’

‘I am sure she says so, papa.’

‘Then I am sure of the fact,’ said Mr. Bell. ‘Margaret, I go so far in my idea of your truthfulness, that it shall cover your cousin’s character. I don’t believe a cousin of yours could exaggerate.’

‘Is Miss Hale so remarkable for truth?’ said Mr. Thornton, bitterly. The moment he had done so, he could have bitten his tongue out. What was he? And why should he stab her with her shame in this way? How evil he was to-night; possessed by ill-humour at being detained so long from her; irritated by the mention of some name, because he thought it belonged to a more successful lover; now ill-tempered because he had been unable to cope, with a light heart, against one who was trying, by gay and careless speeches, to make the evening pass pleasantly away,—the kind old friend to all parties, whose manner by this time might be well known to Mr. Thornton, who had been acquainted with him for many years. And then to speak to Margaret as he had done! She did not get up and leave the room, as she had done in former days, when his abruptness or his temper had annoyed her. She sat quite still, after the first momentary glance of grieved surprise, that made her eyes look like some child’s who has met with an unexpected rebuff; they slowly dilated into mournful, reproachful sadness; and then they fell, and she bent over her work, and did not speak again. But he could not help looking at her, and he saw a sigh tremble over her body, as if she quivered in some unwonted chill. He felt as the mother would have done, in the midst of ‘her rocking it, and rating it,’ had she been called away before her slow confiding smile, implying perfect trust in mother’s love, had proved the renewing of its love. He gave short sharp answers; he was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between jest and earnest; anxious only for a look, a word of hers, before which to prostrate himself in penitent humility. But she neither looked nor spoke. Her round taper fingers flew in and out of her sewing, as steadily and swiftly as if that were the business of her life. She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his. He could have struck her before he left, in order that by some strange overt act of rudeness, he might earn the privilege of telling her the remorse that gnawed at his heart. It was well that the long walk in the open air wound up this evening for him. It sobered him back into grave resolution, that henceforth he would see as little of her as possible,—since the very sight of that face arid form, the very sounds of that voice (like the soft winds of pure melody) had such power to move him from his balance. Well! He had known what love was—a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling! but, through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age,—all the richer and more human for having known this great passion.

When he had somewhat abruptly left the room, Margaret rose from her seat, and began silently to fold up her work; The long seams were heavy, and had an unusual weight for her languid arms. The round lines in her face took a lengthened, straighter form, and her whole appearance was that of one who had gone through a day of great fatigue. As the three prepared for bed, Mr. Bell muttered forth a little condemnation of Mr. Thornton.

‘I never saw a fellow so spoiled by success. He can’t bear a word; a jest of any kind. Everything seems to touch on the soreness of his high dignity. Formerly, he was as simple and noble as the open day; you could not offend him, because he had no vanity.’

‘He is not vain now,’ said Margaret, turning round from the table, and speaking with quiet distinctness. ‘To-night he has not been like himself Something must have annoyed him before he came here.’

Mr. Bell gave her one of his sharp glances from above his spectacles. She stood it quite calmly; but, after she had left the room, he suddenly asked,—

‘Hale! did it ever strike you that Thornton and your daughter have what the French call a tendresse for each other?’

‘Never!’ said Mr. Hale, first startled and then flurried by the new idea. ‘No, I am sure you are wrong. I am almost certain you are mistaken. If there is anything, it is all on Mr. Thornton’s side. Poor fellow! I hope and trust he is not thinking