‘“I thought I could imitate your hand pretty well,” said he. “My word! it was a flaming valentine! No wonder she thought you loved her!”
‘“So that was your doing, was it? Now I’ll tell you what you shall do to make up for it. You shall write me a letter confessing your hoax - a letter that I can show.”
‘“Give me pen and paper, my boy! you shall dictate. ‘With a deeply penitent heart’ - Will that do for a beginning?”
‘I told him what to write; a simple, straightforward confession of his practical joke. I enclosed it in a few lines of regret that, unknown to me, any of my friends should have so acted.
CHAPTER XXX
‘All this time I knew that Sophy was slowly recovering. One day I met Miss Bullock, who had seen her’
‘“We have been talking about you,” said she, with a bright smile; for, since she knew I disliked her, she felt quite at her case, and could smile very pleasantly. I understood that she had been explaining the misunderstanding about herself to Sophy; so that, when Jack Marshlands’s note had been sent to Miss Tomkinson’s, I thought myself in a fair way to have my character established in two quarters. But the third was my dilemma. Mrs. Rose had really so much of my true regard for her good qualities, that I disliked the idea of a formal explanation, in which a good deal must be said on my side to wound her. We had become very much estranged ever since I had heard of this report of my engagement to her. I saw that she grieved over it. While Jack Marshland stayed with us, I felt at my case in the presence of a third person. But he told me confidentially he durst not stay long, for fear some of the ladies should snap him up, and marry him. Indeed I myself did not think it unlikely that he would snap one of them up if he could. For when we met Miss Bullock one day, and heard her hopeful, joyous account of Sophy’s progress (to whom she was a daily visitor) he asked me who that bright-looking girl was? And when I told him she was the Miss Bullock of whom I had spoken to him, he was pleased to observe that he thought I had been a great fool, and asked me if Sophy had anything like such splendid eyes. He made me repeat about Miss Bullock’s unhappy circumstances at home, and then became very thoughtful - a most unusual and morbid symptom in his case.
‘Soon after he went, by Mr. Morgan’s kind offices and explanations, I was permitted to see Sophy. I might not speak much; it was prohibited, for fear of agitating her. We talked of the weather and the flowers; and we were silent. But her little white thin hand lay in mine; and we understood each other without words. I had a long interview with the Vicar afterwards, and came away glad and satisfied.
‘Mr. Morgan called in the afternoon, evidently anxious, though he made no direct inquiries (he was too polite for that) to hear the result of my visit at the vicarage. I told him to give me joy. He shook me warmly by the hand, and then rubbed his own together. I thought I would consult him about my dilemma with Mrs. Rose, who, I was afraid, would be deeply affected by my engagement.
‘“There is only one awkward circumstance,” said I - “about Mrs. Rose.” I hesitated how to word the fact of her having received congratulations on her supposed engagement with me, and her manifest attachment; but, before I could speak, he broke in:
‘“My dear sir, you need not trouble yourself about that; she will have a home. In fact, sir,” said he, reddening a little, “I thought it would, perhaps, put a stop to those reports connecting my name with Miss Tomkinson’s, if I married some one else. I hoped it might prove an efficacious contradiction. And I was struck with admiration for Mrs. Rose’s undying memory of her late husband. Not to be prolix, I have this morning obtained Mrs. Rose’s consent to - to marry her, in fact, sir!” said he, jerking out the climax.
‘Here was an event! Then Mr. Morgan had never heard the report about Mrs. Rose and me. (To this day, I think she would have taken me, if I had proposed.) So much the better.
‘Marriages were in the fashion that year. Mr. Bullock met me one morning, as I was going to ride with Sophy. He and I had quite got over our misunderstanding, thanks to Jemima, and were as friendly as ever. This morning he was chuckling aloud as he walked.
‘“Stop, Mr. Harrison!” he said, as I went quickly past. “Have you heard the news? Miss Horsman has just told me Miss Caroline has eloped with young Hoggins! She is ten years older than he is! How can her gentility like being married to a tallow-chandler? It is a very good thing for her, though”, he added, in a more serious manner; “old Hoggins is very rich, and, though he’s angry just now, he will soon be reconciled.”
‘Any vanity I might have entertained on the score of the three ladies who were, at one time, said to be captivated by my charms, was being rapidly dispersed. Soon after Mr. Hoggin’s marriage, I met Miss Tomkinson face to face, for the first time since our memorable conversation. She ;topped me, and said:
‘“Don’t refuse to receive my congratulations, Mr. Harrison, on your most happy engagement to Miss Hutton. I owe you an apology, too, for my behaviour when I last saw you at our house. I really did think Caroline was attached to you then; and it irritated me, I confess, in a very wrong and unjustifiable way. But I heard her telling Mr. Hoggins only yesterday that she had been attached to him for years; ever since he was in pinafores, she dated it from; and when I asked her afterwards how she could say so, after her distress on hearing that false report about you and Mrs. Rose, she cried, and said I never had understood her; and that the hysterics which alarmed me so much were simply caused by eating pickled cucumber. I am very sorry for my stupidity and improper way of speaking; but I hope we are friends now, Mr. Harrison, for I should wish to be liked by Sophy’s husband.”
‘Good Miss Tomkinson, to believe the substitution of indigestion for disappointed affection! I shook her warmly by the hand; and we have been all right ever since. I think I told you she is baby’s godmother.
CHAPTER XXXI
‘I had some difficulty in persuading Jack Marshland to be groomsman; but, when he heard all the arrangements, he came. Miss Bullock was bridesmaid. He liked us all so well, that he came again at Christmas, and was far better behaved than he had been the year before. He won golden opinions indeed. Miss Tomkinson said he was a reformed young man. We dined all together at Mr. Morgan’s (the Vicar wanted us to go there; but, from what Sophy told me, Helen was not confident of the mincemeat, and rather dreaded so large a party). We had a jolly day of it. Mrs. Morgan was as kind and motherly as ever. Miss Horsman certainly did set out a story that the Vicar was thinking of Miss Tomkinson for his second; or else, I think, we had no other report circulated in consequence of our happy, merry Christmas Day; and it is a wonder, considering how Jack Marshland went on with Jemima.’
Here Sophy came back from putting baby to bed; and Charles wakened up.
LIZZIE LEIGH
This short novella was first published in 1855.
An original illustration for the novella
LIZZIE LEIGH
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER I
When Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the very contrast between the time as it now is, and the day as it has often been, gives a poignancy to sorrow, -- a more utter blankness to the desolation. James Leigh died just as the far away bells of Rochdale Church were ringing for morning service on Christmas Day, 1836. A few minutes before his death, he opened his already glazing eyes, and made a sign to his wife, by the faint motion of his lips, that he had yet something to say. She stooped close down, and caught the broken whisper, ‘I forgive her, Anne! May God forgive me!’
‘Oh my love, my dear! only get well, and I will never cease showing my thanks for those words. May God in heaven bless thee for saying them. Thou’rt not so restless, my lad! may be -- Oh God!’
For even while she spoke, he died.
They had been two-and-twenty years man and wife; for nineteen of those years their life had been as calm and happy, as the most perfect uprightness on the
one side, and the most complete confidence and loving submission on the other, could make it. Milton’s famous line might have been framed and hung up as the rule of their married life, for he was truly the interpreter, who stood between God and her; she would have considered herself wicked if she had ever dared even to think him austere, though as certainly as he was an upright man, so surely was he hard, stern, and inflexible. But for three years the moan and the murmur had never been out of her heart; she had rebelled against her husband as against a tyrant, with a bidden, sullen rebellion, which tore up the old land-marks of wifely duty and affection, and poisoned the fountains whence gentlest love and reverence had once been for ever springing.
But those last blessed words replaced him on his throne in her heart, and called out penitent anguish for all the bitter estrangement of later years. It was this which made her refuse all the entreaties of her sons, that she would see the kind-hearted neighbours, who called on their way from church to sympathise and condole. No! she would stay with the dead husband that had spoken tenderly at last, if for three years he had kept silence; who knew but what, if she had only been more gentle and less angrily reserved, he might have relented earlier -- and in time!
She sate rocking herself to and fro by the side of the bed, while the footsteps below went in and out; she had been in sorrow too long to have any violent burst of deep grief now; the furrows were well worn in her cheeks, and the tears flowed quietly, if incessantly, all the day long. But when the winter’s night drew on, and the neighbours had gone away to their homes, she stole to the window, and gazed out, long and wistfully, over the dark grey moors. She did not hear her son’s voice, as he spoke to her from the door, nor his footstep as he drew nearer. She started when he touched her.
‘Mother! come down to us. There’s no one but Will and me. Dearest mother, we do so want you.’ The poor lad’s voice trembled, and he began to cry. It appeared to require an effort on Mrs Leigh’s part to tear herself away from the window, but with a sigh she complied with his request.
The two boys (for though Will was nearly twenty-one, she still thought of him as a lad) had done everything in their power to make the house-place comfortable for her. She herself, in the old days before her sorrow, had never made a brighter fire or a cleaner hearth, ready for her husband’s return home, than now awaited her. The tea-things were all put out, and the kettle was boiling; and the boys had calmed their grief down into a kind of sober cheerfulness. They paid her every attention they could think of, but received little notice on her part; she did not resist -- she rather submitted to all their arrangements; but they did not seem to touch her heart.
When tea was ended, -- it was merely the form of tea that had been gone through, -- Will moved the things away to the dresser. His mother leant back languidly in her chair.
‘Mother, shall Tom read you a chapter? He’s a better scholar than I.’
‘Aye, lad!’ said she, almost eagerly. ‘That’s it. Read me the Prodigal Son. Aye, aye, lad. Thank thee.’
Tom found the chapter, and read it in the high-pitched voice which is customary in village-schools. His mother bent forward, her lips parted, her eyes dilated; her whole body instinct with eager attention. Will sate with his head depressed, and hung down. He knew why that chapter had been chosen; and to him it recalled the family’s disgrace. When the reading was ended, he still hung down his head in gloomy silence. But her face was brighter than it had been before for the day. Her eyes looked dreamy, as if she saw a vision; and by and by she pulled the Bible towards her, and putting her finger underneath each word, began to read them aloud in a low voice to herself; she read again the words of bitter sorrow and deep humiliation; but most of all she paused and brightened over the father’s tender reception of the repentant prodigal.
So passed the Christmas evening in the Upclose Farm.
The snow had fallen heavily over the dark, waving moor land, before the day of the funeral. The black storm-laden dome of heaven lay very still and close upon the white earth, as they carried the body forth out of the house which had known his presence so long as its ruling power. Two and two the mourners followed, making a black procession, in their winding march over the unbeaten snow, to Milne-Row Church -- now lost in some hollow of the bleak moors, now slowly climbing the heaving ascents. There was no long tarrying after the funeral, for many of the neighbours who accompanied the body to the grave had far to go, and the great white flakes which came slowly down, were the boding forerunners of a heavy storm. One old friend alone accompanied the widow and her sons to their home.
The Upclose Farm had belonged for generations to the Leighs; and yet its possession hardly raised them above the rank of labourers. There was the house and outbuildings, all of an old-fashioned kind, and about seven acres of barren unproductive land, which they had never possessed capital enough to improve; indeed they could hardly rely upon it for subsistence; and it had been customary to bring up the sons to some trade -- such as a wheelwright’s, or blacksmith’s.
James Leigh had left a will, in the possession of the old man who accompanied them home. He read it aloud. James had bequeathed the farm to his faithful wife, Anne Leigh, for her lifetime; and afterwards, to his son William. The hundred and odd pounds in the savings’-bank was to accumulate for Thomas.
After the reading was ended, Anne Leigh sate silent for a time; and then she asked to speak to Samuel Orme alone. The sons went into the back-kitchen, and thence strolled out into the fields regardless of the driving snow. The brothers were dearly fond of each other, although they were very different in character. Will, the elder, was like his father, stern, reserved, and scrupulously upright. Tom (who was ten years younger) was gentle and delicate as a girl, both in appearance and character. He had always clung to his mother, and dreaded his father. They did not speak as they walked, for they were only in the habit of talking about facts, and hardly knew the more sophisticated language applied to the description of feelings.
Meanwhile their mother had taken hold of Samuel Orme’s arm with her trembling hand.
‘Samuel, I must let the farm -- I must.’
‘Let the farm! What’s come o’er the woman?’
‘Oh, Samuel!’ said she, her eyes swimming in tears, ‘I’m just fain to go and live in Manchester. I must let the farm.’
Samuel looked, and pondered, but did not speak for some time. At last he said, --
‘If thou hast made up thy mind, there’s no speaking again it; and thou must e’en go. Thou’lt be sadly pottered wi’ Manchester ways; but that’s not my look out. Why, thou’lt have to buy potatoes, a thing thou hast never done afore in all thy born life. Well! it’s not my look out. It’s rather for me than again me. Our Jenny is going to be married to Tom Higginbotham, and he was speaking of wanting a bit of land to begin upon. His father will be dying sometime, I reckon, and then step into the Croft Farm. But meanwhile --’
‘Then, thou’lt let the farm,’ said she, still as eagerly as ever.
‘Aye, aye, he’ll take it fast enough, I’ve a notion. But I’ll not drive a bargain with thee just now; it would not be right; we’ll wait a bit.’
‘No; I cannot wait, settle it out at once.’
‘Well, well; I’ll speak to Will about it. I see him out yonder. I’ll step to him and talk it over.’
Accordingly he went and joined the two lads, and without more ado, began the subject to them.
‘Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the farm. Now, I’m willing to take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun chaffering with thy mother just now. Let thee and me buckle to, my lad! and try and cheat each other; it will warm us this cold day.’
‘Let the farm!’ said both the lads at once, with infinite surprise. ‘Go live in Manchester!’
When Samuel Orme found that the plan had never before been named to either Will or Tom, he would have nothing to do with it, he said, until they had spoken to their mother;
likely she was ‘dazed’ by her husband’s death; he would wait a day or two, and not name it to any one; not to Tom Higginbotham himself, or may be he would set his heart upon it. The lads had better go in and talk it over with their mother. He bade them good day, and left them.
Will looked very gloomy, but he did not speak till they got near the house. Then he said, --
‘Tom, go to th’ shippon, and supper the cows. I want to speak to mother alone.’
When he entered the house-place, she was sitting before the fire, looking into its embers. She did not hear him come in: for some time she had lost her quick perception of outward things.
‘Mother! what’s this about going to Manchester?’ asked he.
‘Oh, lad!’ said she, turning round, and speaking in a beseeching tone, ‘I must go and seek our Lizzie. I cannot rest here for thinking on her. Many’s the time I’ve left thy father sleeping in bed, and stole to th’ window, and looked and looked my heart out towards Manchester, till I thought I must just set out and tramp over moor and moss straight away till I got there, and then lift up every downcast face till I came to our Lizzie. And often, when the south wind was blowing soft among the hollows, I’ve fancied (it could but be fancy, thou knowest) I heard her crying upon me; and I’ve thought the voice came closer and closer, till at last it was sobbing out “Mother” close to the door; and I’ve stolen down, and undone the latch before now, and looked out into the still black night, thinking to see her, -- and turned sick and sorrowful when I heard no living sound but the sough of the wind dying away. Oh! speak not to me of stopping here, when she may be perishing for hunger, like the poor lad in the parable.’ And now she lifted up her voice, and wept aloud.
Will was deeply grieved. He had been old enough to be told the family shame when, more than two years before, his father had had his letter to his daughter returned by her mistress in Manchester, telling him that Lizzie had left her service some time -- and why. He had sympathised with his father’s stern anger; though he had thought him something hard, it is true, when he had forbidden his weeping, heart-broken wife to go and try to find her poor, sinning child, and declared that henceforth they would have no daughter; that she should be as one dead, and her name never more be named at market or at meal time, in blessing or in prayer. He had held his peace, with compressed lips and contracted brow, when the neighbours had noticed to him how poor Lizzie’s death had aged both his father and his mother; and how they thought the bereaved couple would never hold up their heads again. He himself had felt as if that one event had made him old before his time; and had envied Tom the tears he had shed over poor, pretty, innocent, dead Lizzie. He thought about her sometimes, till he ground his teeth together, and could have struck her down in her shame. His mother had never named her to him until now.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 324