“Yes! if anyone had told me, when I was Miss Beresford, and one of the belles of the country, that a child of mine would have to stand half a day, in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, that we might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman, and that this tradesman should be the only—”
“Oh, mamma!” said Margaret, lifting herself up, “don’t punish me for so careless a speech. I don’t mind ironing, or any kind of work for you and papa. I am myself a born and bred lady through it all, even though it comes to scouring a floor, or washing dishes. I am tired now, just for a little while; but in half an hour I shall be ready to do the same over again. And as to Mr. Thornton’s being in trade, why he can’t help that now, poor fellow. I don’t suppose his education would fit him for much else,” Margaret lifted herself slowly up, and went to her own room; for just now she could not bear much more.
In Mr. Thornton’s house, at this very same time, a similar, yet different scene was going on. A large-boned lady, long past middle age, sat at work in a grim handsomely-furnished dining-room. Her features, like her frame, were strong and massive, rather than heavy. Her face moved slowly from one decided expression to another equally decided. There was no great variety in her countenance; but those who looked at it once, generally looked at it again; even the passers by in the street, half-turned their heads to gaze an instant longer at the firm, severe, dignified woman, who never gave way in street-courtesy, or paused in her straight-onward course to the clearly defined end which she proposed to herself.
She was handsomely dressed in stout black silk, of which not a thread was worn or discoloured. She was mending a large, long tablecloth of the finest texture, holding it up against the light occasionally to discover thin places, which required her delicate care. There was not a book about in the room, with the exception of Matthew Henry’s Bible commentaries, six volumes of which lay in the centre of the massive sideboard, flanked by a tea-urn on one side, and a lamp on the other. In some remote apartment, there was exercise upon the piano going on. Someone was practising up a morceau de salon, playing it very rapidly, every third note, on an average, being either indistinct, or wholly missed out, and the loud chords at the end being half of them false, but not the less satisfactory to the performer. Mrs. Thornton heard a step, like her own in its decisive character, pass the dining-room door.
“John! Is that you?”
Her son opened the door, and showed himself.
“What has brought you home so early? I thought you were going to tea with that friend of Mr. Bell’s; that Mr. Hale?”
“So I am, mother. I am come home to dress!”
“Dress! humph! When I was a girl, young men were satisfied with dressing once in a day. Why should you dress to go and take a cup of tea with an old parson?”
“Mr. Hale is a gentleman, and his wife and daughter are ladies.”
“Wife and daughter! Do they teach too? What do they do? You have never mentioned them.”
“No! mother, because I have never seen Mrs. Hale; I have only seen Miss Hale for half an hour.”
“Take care you don’t get caught by a penniless girl, John.”
“I am not easily caught, mother, as I think you know. But I must not have Miss Hale spoken of in that way, which, you know, is offensive to me. I never was aware of any young lady trying to catch me yet, nor do I believe that anyone has ever given themselves that useless trouble.”
Mrs. Thornton did not choose to yield the point to her son; or else she had, in general, pride enough for her sex.
“Well! I only say, take care. Perhaps our Milton girls have too much spirit and good feeling to go angling after husbands; but this Miss Hale comes out of the aristocratic counties, where, if all tales be true, rich husbands are reckoned prizes.”
Mr. Thornton’s brow contracted, and he came a step forward into the room.
“Mother” (with a short scornful laugh), “you will make me confess. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy, mother.”
“No! I am not easy nor content either. What business had she, a renegade clergyman’s daughter, to turn up her nose at you! I would dress for none of them—a saucy set! if I were you.” As he was leaving the room he said:—
“Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned. He is not saucy. As for Mrs. Hale, I will tell you what she is like tonight, if you care to hear.” He shut the door, and was gone.
“Despise my son! treat him as her vassal, indeed! Humph! I should like to know where she could find such another! Boy and man, he’s the noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew. I don’t care if I am his mother; I can see what’s what, and not be blind. I know what Fanny is; and I know what John is. Despise him! I hate her!”
X
Wrought Iron and Gold
We are the trees whom shaking fastens more.
George Herbert
Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again. He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton. He was anxious not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctuality. The church-clock struck half-past seven as he stood at the door awaiting Dixon’s slow movements;
