Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  He had married a delicate fine London lady; it was one of those perplexing marriages of which one cannot understand the reasons. Yet they were very happy, though possibly Mrs. Hamley would not have sunk into the condition of a chronic invalid, if her husband had cared a little more for her various tastes, or allowed her the companionship of those who did. After his marriage he was wont to say he had got all that was worth having out of that crowd of houses they called London. It was a compliment to his wife which he repeated until the year of her death; it charmed her at first, it pleased her up to the last time of her hearing it; but, for all that, she used sometimes to wish that he would recognize the fact that there might still be something worth hearing and seeing in the great city. But he never went there again, and though he did not prohibit her going, yet he showed so little sympathy with her when she came back full of what she had done on her visit that she ceased caring to go. Not but what he was kind and willing in giving his consent, and in furnishing her amply with money. ‘There, there, my little woman, take that! Dress yourself up as fine as any on ‘em, and buy what you like, for the credit of Hamley of Hamley; and go to the park and the play, and show off with the best on ‘em. I shall be glad to see thee back again, I know; but have thy fling while thou art about it.’ Then when she came back it was, ‘Well, well, it has pleased thee, I suppose, so that’s all right. But the very talking about it tires me, I know, and I can’t think how you have stood it all. Come out and see how pretty the flowers are looking in the south garden. I’ve made them sow all the seeds you like; and I went over to Hollingford nursery to buy the cuttings of the plants you admired last year. A breath of fresh air will clear my brain after listening to all this talk about the whirl of London, which is like to have turned me giddy.’

  Mrs. Hamley was a great reader, and had considerable literary taste. She was gentle and sentimental; tender and good. She gave up her visits to London; she gave up her sociable pleasure in the company of her fellows in education and position. Her husband, owing to the deficiencies of his early years, disliked associating with those to whom he ought to have been an equal; he was too proud to mingle with his inferiors. He loved his wife all the more dearly for her sacrifices for him; but, deprived of all her strong interests, she sank into ill- health; nothing definite; only she never was well. Perhaps if she had had a daughter it would have been better for her; but her two children were boys, and their father, anxious to give them the advantages of which he himself had suffered the deprivation, sent the lads very early to a preparatory school. They were to go on to Rugby and Cambridge; the idea of Oxford was hereditarily distasteful in the Hamley family. Osborne, the eldest — so called after his mother’s maiden name — was full of tastes, and had some talent. His appearance had all the grace and refinement of his mother’s. He was sweet-tempered and affectionate, almost as demonstrative as a girl. He did well at school, carrying away many prizes; and was, in a word, the pride and delight of both father and mother; the confidential friend of the latter, in default of any other. Roger was two years younger than Osborne; clumsy and heavily built, like his father; his face was square, and the expression grave, and rather immobile. He was good, but dull, his schoolmasters said. He won no prizes, but brought home a favourable report of his conduct. When he caressed his mother, she used laughingly to allude to the fable of the lap-dog and the donkey; so thereafter he left off all personal demonstration of affection. It was a great question as to whether he was to follow his brother to college after he left Rugby. Mrs. Hamley thought it would be rather a throwing away of money, as he was so little likely to distinguish himself in intellectual pursuits; anything practical — such as a civil engineer — would be more the line of life for him. She thought that it would be too mortifying for him to go to the same college and university as his brother, who was sure to distinguish himself — and, to be repeatedly plucked, to come away wooden-spoon at last. But his father persevered doggedly, as was his wont, in his intention of giving both his sons the same education; they should both have the advantages of which he had been deprived. If Roger did not do well at Cambridge it would be his own fault. If his father did not send him thither, some day or other he might be regretting the omission, as Squire Roger had done himself for many a year. So Roger followed his brother Osborne to Trinity,’ and Mrs. Hamley was again left alone, after the year of indecision as to Roger’s destination, which had been brought on by her urgency. She had not been able for many years to walk beyond her garden; the greater part of her life was spent on a sofa, wheeled to the window in summer, to the fireside in winter. The room which she inhabited was large and pleasant; four tall windows looked out upon a lawn dotted over with flower-beds, and melting away into a small wood, in the centre of which there was a pond, filled with water- lilies. About this unseen pond in the deep shade Mrs. Hamley had written many a pretty four-versed poem since she lay on her sofa, alternately reading and composing poetry. She had a small table by her side on which there were the newest works of poetry and fiction; a pencil and blotting-book, with loose sheets of blank paper; a vase of flowers always of her husband’s gathering; winter and summer, she had a sweet fresh nosegay every day. Her maid brought her a draught of medicine every three hours, with a glass of clear water and a biscuit; her husband came to her as often as his love for the open air and his labours out-of-doors permitted; but the event of her day, when her boys were absent, was Mr. Gibson’s frequent professional visits.

  He knew there was real secret harm going on all this time that people spoke of her as a merely fanciful invalid; and that one or two accused him of humouring her fancies. But he only smiled at such accusations. He felt that his visits were a real pleasure and lightening of her growing and indescribable discomfort; he knew that Squire Hamley would have been only too glad if he had come every day; and he was conscious that by careful watching of her symptoms he might mitigate her bodily pain. Besides all these reasons, he took great pleasure in the squire’s society. Mr. Gibson enjoyed the other’s unreasonableness; his quaintness; his strong conservatism in religion, politics, and morals. Mrs. Hamley tried sometimes to apologize for, or to soften away, opinions which she fancied were offensive to the doctor, or contradictions which she thought too abrupt; but at such times her husband would lay his great hand almost caressingly on Mr. Gibson’s shoulder, and soothe his wife’s anxiety, by saying, ‘Let us alone, little woman. We understand each other, don’t we, doctor? Why, bless your life, he gives me better than he gets many a time; only, you see, he sugars it over, and says a sharp thing, and pretends it’s all civility and humility; but I can tell when he’s giving me a pill.’

  One of Mrs. Hamley’s often-expressed wishes had been, that Molly might come and pay her a visit. Mr. Gibson always refused this request of hers, though he could hardly have given his reasons for these refusals. He did not want to lose the companionship of his child, in fact; but he put it to himself in quite a different way. He thought her lessons and her regular course of employment would be interrupted. The life in Mrs. Hamley’s heated and scented room would not be good for the girl; Osborne and Roger Hamley would be at home, and he did not wish Molly to be thrown too exclusively upon them for young society; or they would not be at home, and it would be rather dull and depressing for his girl to be all the day long with a nervous invalid.

  But at length the day came when Mr. Gibson rode over, and volunteered a visit from Molly; an offer which Mrs. Hamley received with the ‘open arms of her heart,’ as she expressed it; and of which the duration was unspecified. And the cause for this change in Mr Gibson’s wishes was as follows: — It has been mentioned that he took pupils, rather against his inclination, it is true; but there they were, a Mr. Wynne and Mr. Coxe, ‘the young gentlemen,’ as they were called in the household; ‘Mr. Gibson’s young gentlemen,’ as they were termed in the town. Mr. Wynne was the elder, the more experienced one, who could occasionally take his master’s place, and who gained experience by visiting the poor, and the ‘chronic cases
.’ Mr. Gibson used to talk over his practice with Mr. Wynne, and try and elicit his opinions in the vain hope that, some day or another, Mr. Wynne might start an original thought. The young man was cautious and slow; he would never do any harm by his rashness, but at the same time he would always be a little behind his day. Still Mr. Gibson remembered that he had had far worse ‘young gentlemen’ to deal with; and was content with, if not thankful for, such an elder pupil as Mr. Wynne. Mr. Coxe was a boy of nineteen or so, with brilliant red hair, and a tolerably red face, of both of which he was very conscious and much ashamed. He was the son of an Indian officer, an old acquaintance of Mr. Gibson’s. Major Coxe was at some unpronounceable station in the Punjaub, at the present time; but the year before he had been in England, and had repeatedly expressed his great satisfaction at having placed his only child as a pupil to his old friend, and had in fact almost charged Mr. Gibson with the guardianship as well as the instruction of his boy, giving him many injunctions which he thought were special in this case; but which Mr. Gibson with a touch of annoyance assured the major were always attended to in every case, with every pupil. But when the poor major ventured to beg that his boy might be considered as one of the family, and that he might spend his evenings in the drawing-room instead of the surgery, Mr Gibson turned upon him with a direct refusal.

  ‘He must live like the others. I can’t have the pestle and mortar carried into the drawing-room, and the place smelling of aloes.’

  ‘Must my boy make pills himself, then?’ asked the major, ruefully.

  ‘To be sure. The youngest apprentice always does. It’s not hard work. He’ll have the comfort of thinking he won’t have to swallow them himself. And he’ll have the run of the pomfret cakes, and the conserve of hips, and on Sundays he shall have a taste of tamarinds to reward him for his weekly labour at pill-making.’

  Major Coxe was not quite sure whether Mr. Gibson was not laughing at him in his sleeve; but things were so far arranged, and the real advantages were so great that he thought it was best to take no notice, but even to submit to the indignity of pill-making. He was consoled for all these rubs by Mr. Gibson’s manner at last when the supreme moment of final parting arrived. The doctor did not say much; but there was something of real sympathy in his manner that spoke straight to the father’s heart, and an implied ‘you have trusted me with your boy, and I have accepted the trust in full,’ in each of the last few words.

  Mr. Gibson knew his business and human nature too well to distinguish young Coxe by any overt marks of favouritism; but he could not help showing the lad occasionally that he regarded him with especial interest as the son of a friend. Besides this claim upon his regard, there was something about the young man himself that pleased Mr Gibson. He was rash and impulsive, apt to speak, hitting the nail on the head sometimes with unconscious cleverness, at other times making gross and startling blunders. Mr. Gibson used to tell him that his motto would always be ‘kill or cure,’ and to this Mr. Coxe once made answer that he thought it was the best motto a doctor could have; for if he could not cure the patient, it was surely best to get him out of his misery quietly, and at once. Mr. Wynne looked up in surprise, and observed that he should be afraid that such putting out of misery might be looked upon as homicide by some people. Mr Gibson said in a dry tone, that for his part he should not mind the imputation of homicide, but that it would not do to make away with profitable patients in so speedy a manner; and that he thought that as long as they were willing and able to pay two-and-sixpence for the doctor’s visit, it was his duty to keep them alive; of course, when they became paupers the case was different. Mr. Wynne pondered over this speech; Mr. Coxe only laughed. At last Mr. Wynne said, —

  ‘But you go every morning, sir, before breakfast to see old Nancy Grant, and you’ve ordered her this medicine, sir, which is about the most costly in Corbyn’s bill?’

  ‘Have you not found out how difficult it is for men to live up to their precepts? You’ve a great deal to learn yet, Mr. Wynne!’ said Mr Gibson, leaving the surgery as he spoke.

  ‘I never can make the governor out,’ said Mr. Wynne, in a tone of utter despair. ‘What are you laughing at, Coxey?’

  ‘Oh! I’m thinking how blest you are in having parents who have instilled moral principles into your youthful bosom. You’d go and be poisoning all the paupers off, if you hadn’t been told that murder was a crime by your mother; you’d be thinking you were doing as you were bid, and quote old Gibson’s words when you came to be tried. “Please, my lord judge, they were not able to pay for my visits, and so I followed the rules of the profession as taught me by Mr. Gibson, the great surgeon at Hollingford, and poisoned the paupers.”‘

  ‘I can’t bear that scoffing way of his.’

  ‘And I like it. If it wasn’t for the governor’s fun, and the tamarinds, and something else that I know of, I would run off to India. I hate stifling rooms, and sick people, and the smell of drugs, and the stink of pills on my hands; — faugh!’

  CHAPTER V

  CALF-LOVE

  One day, for some reason or other, Mr. Gibson came home unexpectedly. He was crossing the hall, having come in by the garden-door — the garden communicated with the stable-yard, where he had left his horse — when the kitchen door opened, and the girl who was underling in the establishment, came quickly into the hall with a note in her hand, and made as if she was taking it upstairs; but on seeing her master she gave a little start, and turned back as if to hide herself in the kitchen. If she had not made this movement, so conscious of guilt, Mr. Gibson, who was anything but suspicious, would never have taken any notice of her. As it was, he stepped quickly forwards, opened the kitchen door, and called out, ‘Bethia’ so sharply that she could not delay coming forwards.

  ‘Give me that note,’ he said. She hesitated a little.

  ‘It’s for Miss Molly,’ she stammered out.

  ‘Give it to me!’ he repeated more quietly than before. She looked as if she would cry; but still she kept the note tight held behind her back.

  ‘He said as I was to give it into her own hands; and I promised as I would, faithful.’

  ‘Cook, go and find Miss Molly. Tell her to come here at once.’

  He fixed Bethia with his eyes. It was of no use trying to escape: she might have thrown it into the fire, but she had not presence of mind enough. She stood immovable, only her eyes looked any way rather than encounter her master’s steady gaze. ‘Molly, my dear!’

  ‘Papa! I did not know you were at home,’ said innocent, wondering

  Molly.

  ‘Bethia, keep your word. Here is Miss Molly; give her the note.’

  ‘Indeed, Miss, I couldn’t help it!’

  Molly took the note, but before she could open it, her father said, — ‘That’s all, my dear; you need not read it. Give it to me. Tell those who sent you, Bethia, that all letters for Miss Molly must pass through my hands. Now be off with you, goosey, and go back to where you came from.’

  ‘Papa, I shall make you tell me who my correspondent is.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, by-and-by.’

  She went a little reluctantly, with ungratified curiosity, upstairs to Miss Eyre, who was still her daily companion, if not her governess. He turned into the empty dining-room, shut the door, broke the seal of the note, and began to read it. It was a flaming love-letter from Mr. Coxe; who professed himself unable to go on seeing her day after day without speaking to her of the passion she had inspired — an ‘eternal passion,’ he called it; on reading which Mr. Gibson laughed a little. Would she not look kindly at him? would she not think of him whose only thought was of her? and so on, with a very proper admixture of violent compliments to her beauty. She was fair, not pale; her eyes were loadstars, her dimples marks of Cupid’s finger, &c.

  Mr. Gibson finished reading it; and began to think about it in his own mind. ‘Who would have thought the lad had been so poetical; but, to be sure, there’s a “Shakespeare” in the surgery library: I’ll take it
away and put “Johnson’s Dictionary” instead. One comfort is the conviction of her perfect innocence — ignorance, I should rather say — for it is easy to see it’s the first “confession of his love,” as he calls it. But it’s an awful worry — to begin with lovers so early. Why, she’s only just seventeen, — not seventeen, indeed, till July; not for six weeks yet. Sixteen and three-quarters! Why, she’s quite a baby. To be sure — poor Jeanie was not so old, and how I did love her! (Mrs. Gibson’s name was Mary, so he must have been referring to someone else.) Then his thoughts wandered back to other days, though he still held the open note in his hand. By-and-by his eyes fell upon it again, and his mind came back to bear upon the present time. ‘I’ll not be hard upon him. I’ll give him a hint; he is quite sharp enough to take it. Poor laddie! if I send him away, which would be the wisest course, I do believe, he’s got no home to go to.’

  After a little more consideration in the same strain, Mr. Gibson went and sat down at the writing-table and wrote the following formula: —

  Master Coxe

  (‘That “master” will touch him to the quick,’ said Mr. Gibson to himself as he wrote the word.)

  Rx Verecundiae ounce i

  Fidelitatis Domesticae ounce i

  Reticentiae gr iij.

  M. Capiat hanc dosim ter die in aqua pura.

  R. GIBSON, Ch.

  Mr. Gibson smiled a little sadly as he re-read his words. ‘Poor Jeanie,’ he said aloud. And then he chose out an envelope, enclosed the fervid love-letter, and the above prescription; sealed it with his own sharply-cut seal-ring, R. G., in Old-English letters, and then paused over the address.

  ‘He’ll not like Master Coxe outside; no need to put him to unnecessary shame.’ So the direction on the envelope was — Edward Coxe, Esq.