North and South
Page 35'Oh, Dixon! I did not hear you come into the room!' said
Margaret, resuming her trembling self-restraint. 'Is it very
late?' continued she, lifting herself languidly off the bed, yet
letting her feet touch the ground without fairly standing down,
as she shaded her wet ruffled hair off her face, and tried to
look as though nothing were the matter; as if she had only been
asleep.
'I hardly can tell what time it is,' replied Dixon, in an
aggrieved tone of voice. 'Since your mamma told me this terrible
news, when I dressed her for tea, I've lost all count of time.
I'm sure I don't know what is to become of us all. When Charlotte
told me just now you were sobbing, Miss Hale, I thought, no
his time of life, when, if it is not to be said he's done well in
the Church, he's not done badly after all. I had a cousin, miss,
who turned Methodist preacher after he was fifty years of age,
and a tailor all his life; but then he had never been able to
make a pair of trousers to fit, for as long as he had been in the
trade, so it was no wonder; but for master! as I said to missus,
"What would poor Sir John have said? he never liked your marrying
Mr. Hale, but if he could have known it would have come to this,
he would have sworn worse oaths than ever, if that was
possible!"' Dixon had been so much accustomed to comment upon Mr. Hale's
proceedings to her mistress (who listened to her, or not, as she
eye and dilating nostril. To hear her father talked of in this
way by a servant to her face!
'Dixon,' she said, in the low tone she always used when much
excited, which had a sound in it as of some distant turmoil, or
threatening storm breaking far away. 'Dixon! you forget to whom
you are speaking.' She stood upright and firm on her feet now,
confronting the waiting-maid, and fixing her with her steady
discerning eye. 'I am Mr. Hale's daughter. Go! You have made a
strange mistake, and one that I am sure your own good feeling
will make you sorry for when you think about it.' Dixon hung irresolutely about the room for a minute or two.
Margaret repeated, 'You may leave me, Dixon. I wish you to go.'
cry; either course would have done with her mistress: but, as she
said to herself, 'Miss Margaret has a touch of the old gentleman
about her, as well as poor Master Frederick; I wonder where they
get it from?' and she, who would have resented such words from
any one less haughty and determined in manner, was subdued enough
to say, in a half humble, half injured tone: 'Mayn't I unfasten your gown, miss, and do your hair?' 'No! not to-night, thank you.' And Margaret gravely lighted her
out of the room, and bolted the door. From henceforth Dixon
obeyed and admired Margaret. She said it was because she was so
like poor Master Frederick; but the truth was, that Dixon, as do
many others, liked to feel herself ruled by a powerful and
decided nature.