North and South

speculations, and smoke, well-cleansed and well-cared-for machinery, and unwashed and neglected hands. Poor old Hale! Poor old Hale! If you could have known the change which it was to him from Helstone. Do you know the New Forest at all?”

“Yes.” (Very shortly.)

“Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton. What part were you in? Were you ever at Helstone? a little picturesque village, like some in the Odenwald? You know Helstone?”

“I have seen it. It was a great change to leave it and come to Milton.”

He took up his newspaper with a determined air, as if resolved to avoid further conversation; and Mr. Bell was fain to resort to his former occupation of trying to find out how he could best break the news to Margaret.

She was at an upstairs window; she saw him alight; she guessed the truth with an instinctive flash. She stood in the middle of the drawing-room, as if arrested in her first impulse to rush downstairs, and as if by the same restraining thought she had been turned to stone; so white and immovable was she.

“Oh! don’t tell me! I know it from your face! You would have sent⁠—you would not have left him⁠—if he were alive! Oh, papa, papa!”

XLII

Alone! Alone!

When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new⁠—
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense?

Mrs. Browning

The shock had been great. Margaret fell into a state of prostration, which did not show itself in sobs and tears, or even find the relief of words. She lay on the sofa with her eyes shut, never speaking but when spoken to, and then replying in whispers. Mr. Bell was perplexed. He dared not leave her; he dared not ask her to accompany him back to Oxford, which had been one of the plans he had formed on the journey to Milton, her physical exhaustion was evidently too complete for her to undertake any such fatigue⁠—putting the sight that she would have to encounter out of the question. Mr. Bell sat over the fire, considering what he had better do. Margaret lay motionless, and almost breathless by him. He would not leave her, even for the dinner which Dixon had prepared for him downstairs, and, with sobbing hospitality, would fain have tempted him to eat. He had a plateful of something brought up to him. In general, he was particular and dainty enough, and knew well each shade of flavour in his food, but now the devilled chicken tasted like sawdust. He minced up some of the fowl for Margaret, and peppered and salted it well; but when Dixon, following his directions, tried to feed her, the languid shake of head, proved that in such a state as Margaret was in, food would only choke, not nourish her.

Mr. Bell gave a great sigh; lifted up his stout old limbs (stiff with travelling) from their easy position, and followed Dixon out of the room.

“I can’t leave her. I must write to them at Oxford, to see that the preparations are made: they can be getting on with these till I arrive. Can’t Mrs. Lennox come to her? I’ll write and tell her she must. The girl must have some woman-friend about her, if only to talk her into a good fit of crying.”

Dixon was crying⁠—enough for two; but, after wiping her eyes and steadying her voice, she managed to tell Mr. Bell, that Mrs. Lennox was too near her confinement to be able to undertake any journey at present.

“Well! I suppose we must have Mrs. Shaw; she’s come back to England, isn’t she?”

“Yes, sir, she’s come back; but I don’t think she will like to leave Mrs. Lennox at such an interesting time,” said Dixon, who did not much approve of a stranger entering the household, to share with her in her ruling care of Margaret.

“Interesting time be⁠—.” Mr. Bell restricted himself by coughing over the end of his sentence. “She could be content to be at Venice or Naples, or some of those Popish places, at the last ‘interesting time,’ which took place in Corfu, I think. And what does that little prosperous woman’s ‘interesting time’ signify, in comparison with that poor creature there⁠—that helpless, homeless, friendless, Margaret⁠—lying as still on that sofa as if it were an altar-tomb, and she the stone statue on it. I tell you, Mrs. Shaw shall come. See that a room, or whatever she wants, is got ready for her by tomorrow night. I’ll take care she comes.”

Accordingly Mr. Bell wrote a letter, which Mrs. Shaw declared, with many tears, to be so like one of the dear general’s when he was going to have a fit of the gout, that she should always value and preserve it. If he had given her the option, by requesting or urging her, as if a refusal were possible, she might not have come⁠—true and sincere as was her sympathy with Margaret. It needed the sharp uncourteous command to make her conquer her vis inertiae and allow herself to be packed by her maid, after the latter had completed the boxes. Edith, all cap, shawl, and tears, came out to the top of the stairs, as Captain Lennox was taking her mother down to the carriage:

“Don’t forget, mamma; Margaret must come and live with us. Sholto will go to Oxford on Wednesday, and you must send word by Mr. Bell to him when we’re to expect you. And if you want Sholto, he can go on from Oxford to Milton. Don’t forget, mamma; you are to bring back Margaret.”

Edith re-entered the drawing-room. Mr. Henry Lennox was there, cutting open the pages of a new Review. Without lifting his head, he said, “If you don’t like Sholto to be so long absent from you, Edith, I hope you will