‘Mother!’ said he at last. ‘She may be dead. Most likely she is.’
‘No, Will; she is not dead,’ said Mrs Leigh. ‘God will not let her die till I’ve seen her once again. Thou dost not know how I’ve prayed and prayed just once again to see her sweet face, and tell her I’ve forgiven her, though she’s broken my heart -- she has, Will.’ She could not go on for a minute or two for the choking sobs. ‘Thou dost not know that, or thou wouldst not say she could be dead, -- for God is very merciful, Will; He is, -- He is much more pitiful than man, -- I could never ha’ spoken to thy father as I did to Him, -- and yet thy father forgave her at last. The last words he said were that he forgave her. Thou’lt not be harder than thy father, Will? Do not try and hinder me going to seek her, for it’s no use.’
Will sate very still for a long time before he spoke. At last he said, ‘I’ll not hinder you. I think she’s dead, but that’ s no matter.’
‘She is not dead,’ said her mother, with low earnestness. Will took no notice of the interruption.
‘We will all go to Manchester for a twelvemonth, and let the farm to Tom Higginbotham. I’ll get blacksmith’s work; and Tom can have good schooling for a while, which he’s always craving for. At the end of the year you’ll come back, mother, and give over fretting for Lizzie, and think with me that she is dead, -- and, to my mind, that would be more comfort than to think of her living;’ he dropped his voice as he spoke these last words. She shook her head, but made no answer. He asked again, --
‘Will you, mother, agree to this?’
‘I’ll agree to it a-this-ns,’ said she. ‘If I hear and see nought of her for a twelvemonth, me being in Manchester looking out, I’ll just ha’ broken my heart fairly before the year’s ended, and then I shall know neither love nor sorrow for her any more, when I’m at rest in the grave -- I’ll agree to that, Will.’
‘Well, I suppose it must be so. I shall not tell Tom, mother, why we’re flitting to Manchester. Best spare him.’
‘As thou wilt,’ said she, sadly, ‘so that we go, that’s all,’
Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round Upclose Farm, the Leighs were settled in their Manchester home; if they could ever grow to consider that place as a home, where there was no garden, or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view, over moor and hollow, -- no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than all they missed, no old haunting memories, even though those remembrances told of sorrow, and the dead and gone.
Mrs Leigh heeded the loss of all these things less than her sons. She had more spirit in her countenance than she had had for months, because now she had hope; of a sad enough kind, to be sure, but still it was hope. She performed all her household duties, strange and complicated as they were, and bewildered as she was with all the town necessities of her new manner of life; but when her house was ‘sided,’ and the boys come home from their work, in the evening, she would put on her things and steal out, unnoticed, as she thought, but not without many a heavy sigh from Will, after she had closed the house-door and departed. It was often past midnight before she came back, pale and weary, with almost a guilty look upon her face; but that face so full of disappointment and hope deferred, that Will had never the heart to say what he thought of the folly and hopelessness of the search. Night after night it was renewed, till days grew to weeks, and weeks to months. All this time Will did his duty towards her as well as he could, without having sympathy with her. He stayed at home in the evenings for Tom’s sake, and often wished he had Tom’s pleasure in reading, for the time hung heavily on his hands as he sate up for his mother.
I need not tell you how the mother spent the weary hours. And yet I will tell you something. She used to wander out, at first as if without a purpose, till she rallied her thoughts, and brought all her energies to bear on the one point; then she went with earnest patience along the least-known ways to some new part of the town, looking wistfully with dumb entreaty into people’s faces; sometimes catching a glimpse of a figure which had a kind of momentary likeness to her child’s, and following that figure with never-wearying perseverance, till some light from shop or lamp showed the cold, strange face which was not her daughter’s. Once or twice a kind-hearted passer-by, struck by her look of yearning woe, turned back and offered help, or asked her what she wanted. When so spoken to, she answered only, ‘You don’t know a poor girl they call Lizzie Leigh, do you?’ and when they denied all knowledge, she shook her head, and went on again. I think they believed her to be crazy. But she never spoke first to any one. She sometimes took a few minutes’ rest on the door-steps, and sometimes (very seldom) covered her face and cried; but she could not afford to lose time and chances in this way; while her eyes were blinded with tears, the lost one might pass by unseen.
One evening, in the rich time of shortening autumn-days, Will saw an old man, who, without being absolutely drunk, could not guide himself rightly along the foot-path, and was mocked for his unsteadiness of gait by the idle boys of the neighbourhood. For his father’s sake Will regarded old age with tenderness, even when most degraded and removed from the stern virtues which dignified that father; so he took the old man home, and seemed to believe his often-repeated assertions, that he drank nothing but water. The stranger tried to stiffen himself up into steadiness as he drew nearer home, as if there were some one there for whose respect he cared even in his half-intoxicated state, or whose feelings he feared to grieve. His home was exquisitely clean and neat, even in outside appearance; threshold, window, and window-sill, were outward signs of some spirit of purity within. Will was rewarded for his attention by a bright glance of thanks, succeeded by a blush of shame, from a young woman of twenty, or thereabouts. She did not speak or second her father’s hospitable invitations to him to be seated. She seemed unwilling that a stranger should witness her father’s attempts at stately sobriety, and Will could not bear to stay and see her distress. But when the old man, with many a flabby shake of the hand, kept asking him to come again some other evening and see them, Will sought her down-cast eyes, and, though he could not read their veiled meaning, he answered timidly, ‘If it’s agreeable to everybody, I’ll come, and thank ye.’ But there was no answer from the girl, to whom this speech was in reality addressed; and Will left the house, liking her all the better for never speaking.
He thought about her a great deal for the next day or two; he scolded himself for being so foolish as to think of her, and then fell to with fresh vigour, and thought of her more than ever. He tried to depreciate her: he told himself she was not pretty, and then made indignant answer that he liked her looks much better than any beauty of them all. He wished he was not so country-looking, so red-faced, so broad-shouldered; while she was like a lady, with her smooth, colourless complexion, her bright, dark hair and her spotless dress. Pretty, or not pretty, she drew his footsteps towards her; he could not resist the impulse that made him wish to see her once more, and find out some fault which should unloose his heart from her unconscious keeping. But there she was, pure and maidenly as before. He sate and looked, answering her father at cross-purposes, while she drew more and more into the shadow of the chimney-corner out of sight. Then the spirit that possessed him (it was not he himself, sure, that did so impudent a thing!) made him get up and carry the candle to a different place, under the pretence of giving her more light at her sewing, but, in reality, to be able to see her better; she could not stand this much longer, but jumped up, and said she must put her little niece to bed; and surely, there never was, before or since, so troublesome a child of two years old; for though Will stayed an hour and a half longer, she never came down again. He won the father’s heart, though, by his capacity as a listener, for some people are not at all particular, and, so that they themselves may talk on undisturbed, are not so unreasonable as to expect attention to what they say.
Will did gather this much, however, from the old man’s talk. He had once been quite in a genteel line of business, but
had failed for more money than any greengrocer he had heard of; at least, any who did not mix up fish and game with greengrocery proper. This grand failure seemed to have been the event of his life, and one on which he dwelt with a strange kind of pride. It appeared as if at present he rested from his past exertions (in the bankrupt line), and depended on his daughter, who kept a small school for very young children. But all these particulars Will only remembered and understood when he had left the house; at the time he heard them, he was thinking of Susan. After he had made good his footing at Mr Palmer’s, he was not long, you may be sure, without finding some reason for returning again and again. He listened to her father, he talked to the little niece, but he looked at Susan, both while he listened and while he talked. Her father kept on insisting upon his former gentility, the details of which would have appeared very questionable to Will’s mind, if the sweet, delicate, modest Susan had not thrown an inexplicable air of refinement over all she came near. She never spoke much; she was generally diligently at work; but when she moved, it was so noiselessly, and when she did speak, it was in so low and soft a voice, that silence, speech, motion, and stillness, alike seemed to remove her high above Will’s reach into some saintly and inaccessible air of glory -- high above his reach, even as she knew him! And, if she were made acquainted with the dark secret behind, of his sister’s shame, which was kept ever present to his mind by his mother’s nightly search among the outcast and forsaken, would not Susan shrink away from him with loathing, as if he were tainted by the involuntary relationship? This was his dread; and thereupon followed a resolution that he would withdraw from her sweet company before it was too late. So he resisted internal temptation, and stayed at home, and suffered and sighed. He became angry with his mother for her untiring patience in seeking for one who, he could not help hoping, was dead rather than alive. He spoke sharply to her, and received only such sad deprecatory answers as made him reproach himself, and still more lose sight of peace of mind. This struggle could not last long without affecting his health; and Tom, his sole companion through the long evenings, noticed his increasing languor, his restless irritability, with perplexed anxiety, and at last resolved to call his mother’s attention to his brother’s haggard, care-worn looks. She listened with a startled recollection of Will’s claims upon her love. She noticed his decreasing appetite, and half-checked sighs.
‘Will, lad! what’s come o’er thee?’ said she to him, as he sate listlessly gazing into the fire.
‘There’s nought the matter with me,’ said he, as if annoyed at her remark.
‘Nay, lad, but there is.’ He did not speak again to contradict her; indeed she did not know if he had heard her, so unmoved did he look.
‘Would’st like to go back to Upclose Farm?’ asked she, sorrowfully.
‘It’s just blackberrying time,’ said Tom.
Will shook his head. She looked at him awhile, as if trying to read that expression of despondency and trace it back to its source.
‘You and Tom could go,’ said she; ‘I must stay here till I’ve found her, thou know’st,’ continued she, dropping her voice.
He turned quickly round, and with the authority he at all times exercised over Tom, bade him begone to bed.
When Tom had left the room, he prepared to speak.
CHAPTER II
‘Mother,’ then said Will, ‘why will you keep on thinking she’s alive? If she were but dead, we need never name her name again. We’ve never heard nought on her, since father wrote her that letter; we never knew whether she got it or not. She’d left her place before then. Many a one dies in -- ‘
‘Oh my lad! dunnot speak so to me, or my heart will break outright,’ said his mother, with a sort of cry. Then she calmed herself, for she yearned to persuade him to her own belief. ‘Thou never asked, and thou’rt too like thy father for me to tell without asking -- but it were all to be near Lizzie’s old place that I settled down on this side o’ Manchester; and the very day at after we came, I went to her old missus, and asked to speak a word wi’ her. I had a strong mind to cast it up to her, that she should ha’ sent my poor lass away, without telling on it to us first; but she were in black and looked so sad I could na find in my heart to threep it up. But I did ask her a bit about our Lizzie. The master would have her turned away at a day’s warning (he’s gone to t’other place; I hope he’ll meet wi’ more mercy there than he showed our Lizzie, -- I do, -- ), and when the missus asked her should she write to us, she says Lizzie shook her head; and when she speered at her again, the poor lass went down on her knees, and begged her not, for she said it would break my heart (as it has done, Will -- God knows it has),’ said the poor mother, choking with her struggle to keep down her hard, overmastering grief, ‘and her father would curse her -- Oh, God, teach me to be patient.’ She could not speak for a few minutes, -- ‘and the lass threatened, and said she’d go drown herself in the canal, if the missus wrote home, -- and so --
‘Well! I’d got a trace of my child, -- the missus thought she’d gone to th’ workhouse to be nursed; and there I went, -- and there, sure enough, she had been, -- and they’d turned her out as soon as she were strong, and told her she were young enough to work, -- but whatten kind o’ work would be open to her, lad, and her baby to keep?’
Will listened to his mother’s tale with deep sympathy, not unmixed with the old bitter shame. But the opening of her heart had unlocked his, and after a while he spoke.
‘Mother! I think I’d e’en better go home. Tom can stay wi’ thee. I know I should stay too, but I cannot stay in peace so near -- her, -- without craving to see her, -- Susan Palmer, I mean.’
‘Has the old Mr Palmer thou telled me on a daughter?’ asked Mrs Leigh.
‘Aye, he has. And I love her above a bit. And it’s because I love her I want to leave Manchester. That’s all.’
Mrs Leigh tried to understand this speech for some time, but found it difficult of interpretation.
‘Why shouldst thou not tell her thou lov’st her? Thou’rt a likely lad, and sure o’ work. Thou’lt have Upclose at my death; and as for that I could let thee have it now, and keep mysel by doing a bit of charring. It seems to me a very backwards sort o’ way of winning her to think of leaving Manchester.’
‘Oh mother, she’s so gentle and so good, -- she’s downright holy. She’s never known a touch of sin; and can I ask her to marry me, knowing what we do about Lizzie, and fearing worse? I doubt if one like her could ever care for me; but if she knew about my sister, it would put a gulf between us, and she’d shudder up at the thought of crossing it. You don’t know how good she is, mother!’
‘Will, Will! if she’s so good as thou say’st, she’ll have pity on such as my Lizzie. If she has no pity for such, she’s a cruel Pharisee, and thou’rt best without her.’
But he only shook his head, and sighed; and for the time the conversation dropped.
But a new idea sprang up in Mrs Leigh’s head. She thought that she would go and see Susan Palmer, and speak up for Will, and tell her the truth about Lizzie; and according to her pity for the poor sinner, would she be worthy or unworthy of him. She resolved to go the very next afternoon, but without telling any one of her plan. Accordingly she looked out the Sunday clothes she had never before had the heart to unpack since she came to Manchester, but which she now desired to appear in, in order to do credit to Will. She put on her old-fashioned black mode bonnet, trimmed with real lace; her scarlet cloth cloak, which she had had ever since she was married; and always spotlessly clean, she set forth on her unauthorised embassy. She knew the Palmers lived in Crown Street, though where she had heard it she could not tell; and modestly asking her way, she arrived in the street about a quarter to four o’clock. She stopped to inquire the exact number, and the woman whom she addressed told her that Susan Palmer’s school would not be loosed till four, and asked her to step in and wait until then at her house.
‘For,’ said she, smiling, ‘them that wants Susan Palmer wants a kind fri
end of ours; so we, in a manner, call cousins. Sit down, missus, sit down. I’ll wipe the chair, so that it shanna dirty your cloak. My mother used to wear them bright cloaks, and they’re right gradely things again a green field.’
‘Han ye known Susan Palmer long?’ asked Mrs Leigh, pleased with the admiration of her cloak.
‘Ever since they comed to live in our street. Our Sally goes to her school.’
‘Whatten sort of a lass is she, for I ha’ never seen her?’
‘Well, -- as for looks, I cannot say. It’s so long since I first knowed her, that I’ve clean forgotten what I thought of her then. My master says he never saw such a smile for gladdening the heart. But may be it’s not looks you’re asking about. The best thing I can say of her looks is, that she’s just one a stranger would stop in the street to ask help from if he needed it. All the little childer creeps as close as they can to her; she’ll have as many as three or four hanging to her apron all at once.’
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 325