North and South
Page 13When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her
a great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and
had found the summer's day all too short to get through the
reading she had to do before her return to town. Now there were
only the well-bound little-read English Classics, which were
weeded out of her father's library to fill up the small
book-shelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Seasons, Hayley's
Cowper, Middleton's Cicero, were by far the lightest, newest, and
most amusing. The book-shelves did not afford much resource.
Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to
all of which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused
and questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her
sister's circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower
means at Helstone vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to
stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the
rain upon the leads of the little bow-window. Once or twice
Margaret found herself mechanically counting the repetition of
the monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to
put a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where
Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they
delicate health, and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from
the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged,--the
full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now
seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion,--made her pause and
turn away from the subject each time she approached it. When she
was with her mother, her father seemed the best person to apply
to for information; and when with him, she thought that she could
speak more easily to her mother. Probably there was nothing much
to be heard that was new. In one of the letters she had received
before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her that they
had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well in
health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but
not the living intelligence she longed for. Frederick was always
spoken of, in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as
'Poor Frederick.' His room was kept exactly as he had left it;
and was regularly dusted, and put into order by Dixon, Mrs.
Hale's maid, who touched no other part of the household work, but
always remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady
Beresford as ladies' maid to Sir John's wards, the pretty Miss
considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young
lady's prospects in life. If Miss Beresford had not been in such
a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman, there was no knowing
what she might not have become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert
her in her affliction and downfall (alias her married life). She
remained with her, and was devoted to her interests; always
considering herself as the good and protecting fairy, whose duty
it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr. Hale. Master Frederick
had been her favorite and pride; and it was with a little
softening of her dignified look and manner, that she went in
weekly to arrange the chamber as carefully as if he might be
coming home that very evening. Margaret could not help believing
that there had been some late intelligence of Frederick, unknown
to her mother, which was making her father anxious and uneasy.
Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any alteration in her
husband's looks or ways. His spirits were always tender and
gentle, readily affected by any small piece of intelligence
concerning the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many
days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of any crime. But
pre-occupied by some subject, the oppression of which could not
be relieved by any daily action, such as comforting the
survivors, or teaching at the school in hope of lessening the
evils in the generation to come. Mr. Hale did not go out among
his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his
study; was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the
house-hold was a rap on the back-kitchen window-shutter--a signal
which at one time had often to be repeated before any one was
sufficiently alive to the hour of the day to understand what it
was, and attend to him. Now Mr. Hale loitered about the garden if
the morning was fine, and if not, stood dreamily by the study
window until the postman had called, or gone down the lane,
giving a half-respectful, half-confidential shake of the head to
the parson, who watched him away beyond the sweet-briar hedge,
and past the great arbutus, before he turned into the room to
begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an
occupied mind.