Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  The wedding-day drew near apace. It was Philip’s plan that after they had been married in Kirk Moorside church, he and his Sylvia, his cousin, his love, his wife, should go for the day to Robin Hood’s Bay, returning in the evening to the house behind the shop in the market-place. There they were to find Bell Robson installed in her future home; for Haytersbank Farm was to be given up to the new tenant on the very day of the wedding. Sylvia would not be married any sooner; she said that she must stay there till the very last; and had said it with such determination that Philip had desisted from all urgency at once.

  He had told her that all should be settled for her mother’s comfort during their few hours’ absence; otherwise Sylvia would not have gone at all. He told her he should ask Hester, who was always so good and kind — who never yet had said him nay, to go to church with them as bridesmaid — for Sylvia would give no thought or care to anything but her mother — and that they would leave her at Haytersbank as they returned from church; she would manage Mrs Robson’s removal — she would do this — do that — do everything. Such friendly confidence had Philip in Hester’s willingness and tender skill. Sylvia acquiesced at length, and Philip took upon himself to speak to Hester on the subject.

  ‘Hester,’ said he, one day when he was preparing to go home after the shop was closed; ‘would yo’ mind stopping a bit? I should like to show yo’ the place now it’s done up; and I’ve a favour to ask on yo’ besides.’ He was so happy he did not see her shiver all over. She hesitated just a moment before she answered, —

  ‘I’ll stay, if thou wishes it, Philip. But I’m no judge o’ fashions and such like.’

  ‘Thou’rt a judge o’ comfort, and that’s what I’ve been aiming at. I were niver so comfortable in a’ my life as when I were a lodger at thy house,’ said he, with brotherly tenderness in his tone. ‘If my mind had been at ease I could ha’ said I niver were happier in all my days than under thy roof; and I know it were thy doing for the most part. So come along, Hester, and tell me if there’s aught more I can put in for Sylvie.’

  It might not have been a very appropriate text, but such as it was the words, ‘From him that would ask of thee turn not thou away,’ seemed the only source of strength that could have enabled her to go patiently through the next half-hour. As it was, she unselfishly brought all her mind to bear upon the subject; admired this, thought and decided upon that, as one by one Philip showed her all his alterations and improvements. Never was such a quiet little bit of unconscious and unrecognized heroism. She really ended by such a conquest of self that she could absolutely sympathize with the proud expectant lover, and had quenched all envy of the beloved, in sympathy with the delight she imagined Sylvia must experience when she discovered all these proofs of Philip’s fond consideration and care. But it was a great strain on the heart, that source of life; and when Hester returned into the parlour, after her deliberate survey of the house, she felt as weary and depressed in bodily strength as if she had gone through an illness of many days. She sate down on the nearest chair, and felt as though she never could rise again. Philip, joyous and content, stood near her talking.

  ‘And, Hester,’ said he, ‘Sylvie has given me a message for thee — she says thou must be her bridesmaid — she’ll have none other.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Hester, with sudden sharpness.

  ‘Oh, yes, but yo’ must. It wouldn’t be like my wedding if thou wasn’t there: why I’ve looked upon thee as a sister iver since I came to lodge with thy mother.’

  Hester shook her head. Did her duty require her not to turn away from this asking, too? Philip saw her reluctance, and, by intuition rather than reason, he knew that what she would not do for gaiety or pleasure she would consent to, if by so doing she could render any service to another. So he went on.

  ‘Besides, Sylvie and me has planned to go for our wedding jaunt to Robin Hood’s Bay. I ha’ been to engage a shandry this very morn, before t’ shop was opened; and there’s no one to leave wi’ my aunt. Th’ poor old body is sore crushed with sorrow; and is, as one may say, childish at times; she’s to come down here, that we may find her when we come back at night; and there’s niver a one she’ll come with so willing and so happy as with thee, Hester. Sylvie and me has both said so.’

  Hester looked up in his face with her grave honest eyes.

  ‘I cannot go to church wi’ thee, Philip; and thou must not ask me any further. But I’ll go betimes to Haytersbank Farm, and I’ll do my best to make the old lady happy, and to follow out thy directions in bringing her here before nightfall.’

  Philip was on the point of urging her afresh to go with them to church; but something in her eyes brought a thought across his mind, as transitory as a breath passes over a looking-glass, and he desisted from his entreaty, and put away his thought as a piece of vain coxcombry, insulting to Hester. He passed rapidly on to all the careful directions rendered necessary by her compliance with the latter part of his request, coupling Sylvia’s name with his perpetually; so that Hester looked upon her as a happy girl, as eager in planning all the details of her marriage as though no heavy shameful sorrow had passed over her head not many months ago.

  Hester did not see Sylvia’s white, dreamy, resolute face, that answered the solemn questions of the marriage service in a voice that did not seem her own. Hester was not with them to notice the heavy abstraction that made the bride as if unconscious of her husband’s loving words, and then start and smile, and reply with a sad gentleness of tone. No! Hester’s duty lay in conveying the poor widow and mother down from Haytersbank to the new home in Monkshaven; and for all Hester’s assistance and thoughtfulness, it was a dreary, painful piece of work — the poor old woman crying like a child, with bewilderment at the confused bustle which, in spite of all Sylvia’s careful forethought, could not be avoided on this final day, when her mother had to be carried away from the homestead over which she had so long presided. But all this was as nothing to the distress which overwhelmed poor Bell Robson when she entered Philip’s house; the parlour — the whole place so associated with the keen agony she had undergone there, that the stab of memory penetrated through her deadened senses, and brought her back to misery. In vain Hester tried to console her by telling her the fact of Sylvia’s marriage with Philip in every form of words that occurred to her. Bell only remembered her husband’s fate, which filled up her poor wandering mind, and coloured everything; insomuch that Sylvia not being at hand to reply to her mother’s cry for her, the latter imagined that her child, as well as her husband, was in danger of trial and death, and refused to be comforted by any endeavour of the patient sympathizing Hester. In a pause of Mrs Robson’s sobs, Hester heard the welcome sound of the wheels of the returning shandry, bearing the bride and bridegroom home. It stopped at the door — an instant, and Sylvia, white as a sheet at the sound of her mother’s wailings, which she had caught while yet at a distance, with the quick ears of love, came running in; her mother feebly rose and tottered towards her, and fell into her arms, saying, ‘Oh! Sylvie, Sylvie, take me home, and away from this cruel place!’

  Hester could not but be touched with the young girl’s manner to her mother — as tender, as protecting as if their relation to each other had been reversed, and she was lulling and tenderly soothing a wayward, frightened child. She had neither eyes nor ears for any one till her mother was sitting in trembling peace, holding her daughter’s hand tight in both of hers, as if afraid of losing sight of her: then Sylvia turned to Hester, and, with the sweet grace which is a natural gift to some happy people, thanked her; in common words enough she thanked her, but in that nameless manner, and with that strange, rare charm which made Hester feel as if she had never been thanked in all her life before; and from that time forth she understood, if she did not always yield to, the unconscious fascination which Sylvia could exercise over others at times.

  Did it enter into Philip’s heart to perceive that he had wedded his long-sought bride in mourning raiment, and that the first s
ounds which greeted them as they approached their home were those of weeping and wailing?

  CHAPTER XXX

  HAPPY DAYS

  And now Philip seemed as prosperous as his heart could desire. The business flourished, and money beyond his moderate wants came in. As for himself he required very little; but he had always looked forward to placing his idol in a befitting shrine; and means for this were now furnished to him. The dress, the comforts, the position he had desired for Sylvia were all hers. She did not need to do a stroke of household work if she preferred to ‘sit in her parlour and sew up a seam’. Indeed Phoebe resented any interference in the domestic labour, which she had performed so long, that she looked upon the kitchen as a private empire of her own. ‘Mrs Hepburn’ (as Sylvia was now termed) had a good dark silk gown-piece in her drawers, as well as the poor dove-coloured, against the day when she chose to leave off mourning; and stuff for either gray or scarlet cloaks was hers at her bidding.

  What she cared for far more were the comforts with which it was in her power to surround her mother. In this Philip vied with her; for besides his old love, and new pity for his aunt Bell, he never forgot how she had welcomed him to Haytersbank, and favoured his love to Sylvia, in the yearning days when he little hoped he should ever win his cousin to be his wife. But even if he had not had these grateful and affectionate feelings towards the poor woman, he would have done much for her if only to gain the sweet, rare smiles which his wife never bestowed upon him so freely as when she saw him attending to ‘mother,’ for so both of them now called Bell. For her creature comforts, her silk gowns, and her humble luxury, Sylvia did not care; Philip was almost annoyed at the indifference she often manifested to all his efforts to surround her with such things. It was even a hardship to her to leave off her country dress, her uncovered hair, her linsey petticoat, and loose bed-gown, and to don a stiff and stately gown for her morning dress. Sitting in the dark parlour at the back of the shop, and doing ‘white work,’ was much more wearying to her than running out into the fields to bring up the cows, or spinning wool, or making up butter. She sometimes thought to herself that it was a strange kind of life where there were no out-door animals to look after; the ‘ox and the ass’ had hitherto come into all her ideas of humanity; and her care and gentleness had made the dumb creatures round her father’s home into mute friends with loving eyes, looking at her as if wistful to speak in words the grateful regard that she could read without the poor expression of language.

  She missed the free open air, the great dome of sky above the fields; she rebelled against the necessity of ‘dressing’ (as she called it) to go out, although she acknowledged that it was a necessity where the first step beyond the threshold must be into a populous street.

  It is possible that Philip was right at one time when he had thought to win her by material advantages; but the old vanities had been burnt out of her by the hot iron of acute suffering. A great deal of passionate feeling still existed, concealed and latent; but at this period it appeared as though she were indifferent to most things, and had lost the power of either hoping or fearing much. She was stunned into a sort of temporary numbness on most points; those on which she was sensitive being such as referred to the injustice and oppression of her father’s death, or anything that concerned her mother.

  She was quiet even to passiveness in all her dealings with Philip; he would have given not a little for some of the old bursts of impatience, the old pettishness, which, naughty as they were, had gone to form his idea of the former Sylvia. Once or twice he was almost vexed with her for her docility; he wanted her so much to have a will of her own, if only that he might know how to rouse her to pleasure by gratifying it. Indeed he seldom fell asleep at nights without his last thoughts being devoted to some little plan for the morrow, that he fancied she would like; and when he wakened in the early dawn he looked to see if she were indeed sleeping by his side, or whether it was not all a dream that he called Sylvia ‘wife.’

  He was aware that her affection for him was not to be spoken of in the same way as his for her, but he found much happiness in only being allowed to love and cherish her; and with the patient perseverance that was one remarkable feature in his character, he went on striving to deepen and increase her love when most other men would have given up the endeavour, made themselves content with half a heart, and turned to some other object of attainment. All this time Philip was troubled by a dream that recurred whenever he was over-fatigued, or otherwise not in perfect health. Over and over again in this first year of married life he dreamt this dream; perhaps as many as eight or nine times, and it never varied. It was always of Kinraid’s return; Kinraid was full of life in Philip’s dream, though in his waking hours he could and did convince himself by all the laws of probability that his rival was dead. He never remembered the exact sequence of events in that terrible dream after he had roused himself, with a fight and a struggle, from his feverish slumbers. He was generally sitting up in bed when he found himself conscious, his heart beating wildly, with a conviction of Kinraid’s living presence somewhere near him in the darkness. Occasionally Sylvia was disturbed by his agitation, and would question him about his dreams, having, like most of her class at that time, great faith in their prophetic interpretation; but Philip never gave her any truth in his reply.

  After all, and though he did not acknowledge it even to himself, the long-desired happiness was not so delicious and perfect as he had anticipated. Many have felt the same in their first year of married life; but the faithful, patient nature that still works on, striving to gain love, and capable itself of steady love all the while, is a gift not given to all.

  For many weeks after their wedding, Kester never came near them: a chance word or two from Sylvia showed Philip that she had noticed this and regretted it; and, accordingly, he made it his business at the next leisure opportunity to go to Haytersbank (never saying a word to his wife of his purpose), and seek out Kester.

  All the whole place was altered! It was new white-washed, new thatched: the patches of colour in the surrounding ground were changed with altered tillage; the great geraniums were gone from the window, and instead, was a smart knitted blind. Children played before the house-door; a dog lying on the step flew at Philip; all was so strange, that it was even the strangest thing of all for Kester to appear where everything else was so altered!

  Philip had to put up with a good deal of crabbed behaviour on the part of the latter before he could induce Kester to promise to come down into the town and see Sylvia in her new home.

  Somehow, the visit when paid was but a failure; at least, it seemed so at the time, though probably it broke the ice of restraint which was forming over the familiar intercourse between Kester and Sylvia. The old servant was daunted by seeing Sylvia in a strange place, and stood, sleeking his hair down, and furtively looking about him, instead of seating himself on the chair Sylvia had so eagerly brought forward for him.

  Then his sense of the estrangement caused by their new positions infected her, and she began to cry pitifully, saying, —

  ‘Oh, Kester! Kester! tell me about Haytersbank! Is it just as it used to be in feyther’s days?’

  ‘Well, a cannot say as it is,’ said Kester, thankful to have a subject started. ‘They’n pleughed up t’ oud pasture-field, and are settin’ it for ‘taters. They’re not for much cattle, isn’t Higginses. They’ll be for corn in t’ next year, a reckon, and they’ll just ha’ their pains for their payment. But they’re allays so pig-headed, is folk fra’ a distance.’

  So they went on discoursing on Haytersbank and the old days, till Bell Robson, having finished her afternoon nap, came slowly down-stairs to join them; and after that the conversation became so broken up, from the desire of the other two to attend and reply as best they could to her fragmentary and disjointed talk, that Kester took his leave before long; falling, as he did so, into the formal and unnaturally respectful manner which he had adopted on first coming in.

  But Syl
via ran after him, and brought him back from the door.

  ‘To think of thy going away, Kester, without either bit or drink; nay, come back wi’ thee, and taste wine and cake.’

  Kester stood at the door, half shy, half pleased, while Sylvia, in all the glow and hurry of a young housekeeper’s hospitality, sought for the decanter of wine, and a wine-glass in the corner cupboard, and hastily cut an immense wedge of cake, which she crammed into his hand in spite of his remonstrances; and then she poured him out an overflowing glass of wine, which Kester would far rather have gone without, as he knew manners too well to suppose that he might taste it without having gone through the preliminary ceremony of wishing the donor health and happiness. He stood red and half smiling, with his cake in one hand, his wine in the other, and then began, —

  ‘Long may ye live,

  Happy may ye he,

  And blest with a num’rous

  Pro-ge-ny.’

  ‘Theere, that’s po’try for yo’ as I larnt i’ my youth. But there’s a deal to be said as cannot be put int’ po’try, an’ yet a cannot say it, somehow. It ‘d tax a parson t’ say a’ as a’ve getten i’ my mind. It’s like a heap o’ woo’ just after shearin’ time; it’s worth a deal, but it tak’s a vast o’ combin’, an’ cardin’, an’ spinnin’ afore it can be made use on. If a were up to t’ use o’ words, a could say a mighty deal; but somehow a’m tongue-teed when a come to want my words most, so a’ll only just mak’ bold t’ say as a think yo’ve done pretty well for yo’rsel’, getten a house-full o’ furniture’ (looking around him as he said this), ‘an’ vittle an’ clothin’ for t’ axing, belike, an’ a home for t’ missus in her time o’ need; an’ mebbe not such a bad husband as a once thought yon man ‘ud mak’; a’m not above sayin’ as he’s, mebbe, better nor a took him for; — so here’s to ye both, and wishin’ ye health and happiness, ay, and money to buy yo’ another, as country folk say.’